Red Light Rio: Inside Brazil’s Gay Sex Tourism Industry.

[SolaceSoul]

Those of us who have already taken that deep dive into reading “Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy”, the published completed academic research of ethnographer Dr. Gregory C. Mitchell (Chair of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Williams College) are familiar with these passages.

But for the newly initiated (or to those who just don’t like reading heady, voluminous academic treatises), this is a pretty damn enticing introductory summary!

— The book discusses most if not all of the same topics that frequently pop up on the LATAM forum, including the one that many here dread: age differences and attractiveness:

“My first time wasn’t hard at all,” Cavi explains, nibbling at a doughy ball of fried cod. He comes from a smaller city in the interior, and he’s much more shy than Adilson, who talks and smokes constantly. Cavi continues, “See, I got [peguei, “hooked up with”] a client who wasn’t very old, so it was easy. He was thirty-five. Since I have to do this job, it’s better when the ass is good-looking [bonitinha].”

Adilson interrupts him to explain. “We all say this: se a bunda é bonitinha, novinha é uma coisa.” Very roughly, this means that if the ass looks good, it’s a much different matter. “Look, if you have a young woman and a very old woman, the young one will still be better. If a gay had to choose between these women, which would he choose?”...

“If it’s a young guy,” Adilson explains, “he gives me tesão, but with an old flabby man [velho todo caído] . . . ooooh, that’s more difficult.” He makes a disgusted face...

“When the boy is there with an ass in front of him and a job to do, it’s luckier to get a hot ass like Cavi did on his first time. Because, oh, first time was horrible! I got this Danny DeVito type. He was American, really short and fat. Holy shit! [Cruz credo!] It was horrible, oh horrible, but I made a lot of money . . .”

—- Another topic addresses is the “aging out” of garotos from the perspective of some (most?) clients:

”Cavi rolled his eyes. “So if you’re sick, you’re in bed, sick with the flu, are you going to start waiting for some client from the sauna to come there and give you medicine? They don’t want to know about you. A gringo wants you when you’re a nice, hot, young boy. When you’re sick? When you get old and you’re not pretty anymore? ‘Fuck you!’ [Foda-se!] That’s what he’s going to say to you.”

— Also, he gets into detail about the per formative labor of being a garoto:

“I describe the work of prostitutes as performative because their success or failure depends on constructing certain styles of gender that are often rooted in neocolonial variations of archetypes such as the lusty mulata, the Lamacho, the hypersexual masculine black buck (and the dangerous thug from the favela, or slum, its contemporary corollary), the suave Latin lover, and so on.”

https://redlightr.io/inside-brazils-gay-sex-tourism-industry/

 

 

[Riobard]

Still have the book in iBooks folder from a few years ago ... it was not cheap. Should have waited for excerpts such as presented here in this new thread. 

Mitchell got all this qualitative research grant cash to go into the field and ask questions we already pretty much know the answers to.

One of my favourite parts is his attempt to apply "grounded" feminist anti-prostitution theory. When the GdePs are asked about exploitation the typical response is: "Sure, I exploit others all the time".

Edited June 8, 2019 by Riobard

[SolaceSoul]

12 hours ago, Riobard said:

Still have the book in iBooks folder from a few years ago ... it was not cheap. Should have waited for excerpts such as presented here in this new thread. 

Mitchell got all this qualitative research grant cash to go into the field and ask questions we already pretty much know the answers to.

One of my favourite parts is his attempt to apply "grounded" feminist anti-prostitution theory. When the GdePs are asked about exploitation the typical response is: "Sure, I exploit others all the time".

Maybe Dr. Mitchell should write a sequel, focusing his research on clients? It certainly might provide him with more academic research  funding, paid trips to the hot spots in Brazil and yet another cover for hooking up with garotos! He should be tenured at Williams by now, so taking a sabbatical for research should be par for the course.

Nice work if you can get it.

Regarding the feminist anti-prostitution theory, there are also feminists and allies who support sex workers’ rights and the full legalization and regulation of prostitution. Most feminists usually ignore the dynamic of male sex work, or just dismiss it as part of the “patriarchy”. These are the same people who would get outraged at 20 year age differences between a 45 year old man in power and a 25 year old ambitious young woman involved in a consensual relationship, but have zero to say about, for example, the “true love” between powerful and influential Glenn Greenwald and his similarly younger, much poorer same-sex partner 

[Riobard]

The age-difference acceptability naysayers might not buy it, but you just have to master the PTG translation nuances of apoptosis in helping your fave GdePs transcend their overly dramatic 'heva' revulsion and get on with it.

The credible theory of systematic progressively cyclical human cell death and replenishment, generally turned over about every ten years. He's either going to buy into it that both your cellular structures are similarly and perpetually roughly pre-latency, or aggressively turn you over, smooshing your face into the nasty diseased mattress, to shut you up. Works every time. 

A concept free of notions of patriarchy, homonegativity, and internalized misogyny, except of course his scripted macho performative utterances such as "take it deep, bottom bitch!" 

------

If any of us happen to be on the relevant research grant review committee ... sorry, Mitchell, all the material you need is here; just run it through Quirkos software.

Edited June 9, 2019 by Riobard

[SolaceSoul]

2 hours ago, Riobard said:

The age-difference acceptability naysayers might not buy it, but you just have to master the PTG translation nuances of apoptosis in helping your fave GdePs transcend their overly dramatic 'heva' revulsion and get on with it.

The credible theory of systematic progressively cyclical human cell death and replenishment, generally turned over about every ten years. He's either going to buy into it that both your cellular structures are similarly and perpetually roughly pre-latency, or aggressively turn you over, smooshing your face into the nasty diseased mattress, to shut you up. Works every time. 

Oh, Rioblather, you’re overthinking it, as usual.

The simplest, most concise explanation for how the garoto deals with the vast age / appearance gap is in a few lines from Tina Turner’s “Private Dancer”:

”You don't look at their faces 
And you don't ask their names 
You don't think of them as human 
You don't think of them at all 
You keep your mind on the money 
Keeping your eyes on the wall”

That, and Sildenafil (generic Viagra)!

Dont believe me? Here’s an excerpt of a garoto interview from the treatise discusses in the OP:

“If it’s a young guy,” Adilson explains, “he gives me tesão, but with an old flabby man [velho todo caído] . . . ooooh, that’s more difficult.” He makes a disgusted face....

“When the boy is there with an ass in front of him and a job to do, it’s luckier to get a hot ass like Cavi did on his first time. Because, oh, first time was horrible! I got this Danny DeVito type. He was American, really short and fat. Holy shit! [Cruz credo!] It was horrible, oh horrible, but I made a lot of money . . .” He trails off in raucous laughter that goes on so long that it becomes infectious and we laugh with him.”

Edited June 9, 2019 by SolaceSoul

[sanddunes]

22 minutes ago, SolaceSoul said:

You don't think of them at all 
You keep your mind on the money 
Keeping your eyes on the wall”

 

Or at 117, they keep their eyes glued to the straight porn on the tv..

The author of this book no doubt sampled the goods, but only for “research purposes” to better understand the psyche of the garoto.

[SolaceSoul]

20 minutes ago, sanddunes said:

Or at 117, they keep their eyes glued to the straight porn on the tv..

Also addressed in the book!

”Some heterosexually identified garotos need to look at straight porn to feel tesão; others close their eyes and imagine the client is a woman.”

[Riobard]

2 hours ago, SolaceSoul said:

Oh, Rioblather, you’re overthinking it, as usual.

Hahaha ... U R wan uv ah kynde inn urr cheep shawts, eunuque amungg uss Bored memmburrs, #SoleAsshole. 

Eye two haf mie lexicologic deefishinsee dayze. 

----

On a less serious note, I doubt our erstwhile Social Anthropology researcher garnered much participatory interest from our more studly specimens, or got a truly representative sample across types 

The research subjects he cornered (for a modest stipend, perhaps)? Likely the more prissy twinkie bottoms faking as per their assertions of topping flabby bundas for big paydays. 

I cannot, frankly, imagine the guys I hire lining up to open up and share their 'ho' experiences with someone they might view as a gringo wack-a-doodle professor, for sextra credit or otherwise. 

[SolaceSoul]

3 hours ago, Riobard said:

Hahaha ... U R wan uv ah kynde inn urr cheep shawts, eunuque amungg uss Bored memmburrs, #SoleAsshole. 

 Eye two haf mie lexicologic deefishinsee dayze. 

And the irony is that this was far easier to understand than your usual cryptic posts.

[SolaceSoul]

3 hours ago, Riobard said:

The research subjects he cornered (for a modest stipend, perhaps)? Likely the more prissy twinkie bottoms faking as per their assertions of topping flabby bundas for big paydays. 

I cannot, frankly, imagine the guys I hire lining up to open up and share their 'ho' experiences with someone they might view as a gringo wack-a-doodle professor, for sextra credit or otherwise. 

Waitaminute. You can believe that muscular macho hétero garotos can tolerate having sex with sexagenarian male prunes for cash, but somehow can’t fathom that they would agree to sit down and share stories anonymously about their experiences for a few hours for pay?

Everyone seems to have their own definition of what’s masculine and muscular, or feminine and twinky, but The Geeky Professor did interview and return some grips that he described as the former. Even in the segment featured on the link in the OP:

”Researchers and clients alike have often remarked that masculinity is to the garoto what femininity is to travesti sex workers.4 The essential (and even stereotypical) features of the gender being performed are rendered so completely that they become exaggerations and collapse away from the perfection of the ur- form by virtue of their proximity to it. Whereas travesti sex workers inject silicone to enhance their backsides and breasts into an almost inhumanly perfect shape and size so they can be “better than women,” garotos adopt a hypermacho walk, demeanor, and body.

For example, Pacu was a twenty-six-year-old light-skinned garoto who worked in a sauna in Rio. Pacu, whose telltale nickname refers to a species of fish that has a peculiar underbite and is related to the piranha, had such bulging neck and shoulder muscles that he seemed to have difficulty turning his head from side to side. He kept his torso waxed to make sure every rippling abdominal muscle was visible from a maximum distance, but because of the thick, coarse hair on his arms and legs, he seemed to have been naturally hairy otherwise. Although studious in the maintenance of his persona as a “total top” and prolific in his frequent use of mildly homophobic epithets lobbed at clients, staff, and fellow garotos alike, he was more fastidious in his grooming than nearly any garoto I met. He kept his hair perfectly coifed and liberally gelled, ran to the locker room to pluck any stray chest hair that he discovered he had missed, and enjoyed frequent pedicures to stave off damage from the famously grimy and broken cobblestoned streets of Rio that are so at odds with the Brazilian love of flip-flops. Beyond merely being metrosexual or attentive to grooming practices, Pacu tried to embody masculinity, yet his need to conspicuously showcase that masculinity resulted in practices that were not stereotypically masculine.

Pacu’s bofedade (butchness) was so artificial that he complained that whenever he went to other businesses near the sauna, he stood out among the other working-class men, whose masculinity seemed natural and effortless next to Pacu’s. The shopkeepers would treat Pacu rudely or give him poor service “because they see my body and they know I’m a boy and they think that this makes me low class.” Alternatively, he worried that they “might treat me badly because they think I’m a bicha because I do this work. But they don’t know I’m a real man [homem] so I would never give my ass.” He constantly compared himself to other garotos in the sauna as well, worrying that someone else was bigger, tougher, more masculine, or more attractive. Just as the clients find themselves in a paradox of queer desire, so too did Pacu find that the cruel optimism of masculinity meant that the more he strived to attain the ultimate bofedade, the more it slipped away because it just isn’t manly to worry so much about manliness. Still, Pacu never wanted for clients, who found in him a macho and avowedly straight guy with rough and not even conventionally attractive features…”