They're called bar women, hostesses, or sex workers and "western princesses." They come from poor families, struggling to earn a decent wage, only to be forced into the world's oldest profession. They're the women who work in the camptowns that surround U.S. military bases in South Korea. In 40 years, over a million women have worked in Korea's military sex industry, but their existence has never been officially acknowledged by either government. In The Women Outside, a film by J.T. Orinne Takagi and Hye Jung Park, some of these women bravely speak out about their lives for the first time. The film raises provocative questions about military policy, economic survival, and the role of women in global geopolitics

Jin-soul, who is just beginning to gain a reputation as a writer with her novel, Human in a Natural State, meets a woman, named Nan-ryeong, at a reading session held at a local bookstore in Gangneung. Nan-ryeong has also written a novel, titled 'The Women Who Brush Their Teeth Outside', influenced by Jin-soul. Jin-soul, who feels a strange sense of connection to Nan-ryeong, reads her novel on the train returning to Seoul. A story of two people who somehow overlap. But, while Jin-soul has been cleverly hiding behind a pseudonym, Ju-ok, Nan-ryeong is open about who she really is. Eventually, the insidious relationship between the two is exposed, and cracks begin to form in Jin-soul′s seemingly happy life.