davet

@numazu1 Maybe the Golden Era is irretrievably gone, but what you describe is still probably the best concentration of talents in this field anywhere in the world. Nice as it was to leave the Old Lagoa counting how many other stunners I could have done had I not a flight to catch (or, frankly, had I not exhausted myself) but really, you only need 1-2 doable ones to have a worthwhile time and 4-5 to have a blast, and a few days of that to make it a worthwhile trip. It sounds like Lagoa can still supply that.

Hi Numazu, Are there public showers where the garotos can demonstrate their talents, as in the old days? I actually don't mind the semi-street-clothed atmosphere. Strange as it sounds, I find some guys to be hotter when clothed. As we now know, the unwrapping is part of any fetish (or compulsive shopping) and a house with 100 shirtless guys can get very same-same. Masks and face shields are another story. I don't know how I'd feel about that. But hey, hasn't the lock down caused you to notice how gorgeous some men's eyes are? And how do female hookers in Iran and conservative moslem countries (they do exist) do their marketing? With their eyes, of course.

There was a movie in the 80's called "Montenegro" about, IIRC, Balkan immigrants in Scandinavia. I've had a mental bookmark about Montenegrin men ever since. The other thing I heard when I was in the region was that Albanian men are gorgeous but utterly unavailable/unapproachable except, maybe, when they are outside their country.

Can you clarify this comment? I like the number of random people approach to statistic. Since any major Brazilian sauna on a good night has 100-200 people, and even post-reopening are likely to have more than 26 people, then, yes, there is likely to be at least one infected person present. However, since the attendees at a brothel-sauna swap spit rampantly with 1 to 10 or more others, how does one not assume that everyone present is at least seriously exposed if not infected?

Still eagerly waiting for the first on the ground (on your knees? on your back?) report from Paragonya and Thermas Barcelona.

@tassojunior - I know and share your feeling. However, I can't help but think that a mass choir is one of the most dangerous contexts for infection, and a rampant whorehouse would not be much different. YMMV. Maybe those full-body condoms will finally come into existence (now that the kids seem to have abandoned all condoms whatsoever).

Can you clarify? "Travel insurance" is mostly about trip cancellation so, yeah, if you want to cancel because the pandemic or your comfort level is getting worse, no coverage. However, wouldn't health insurance, whether you have such coverage on your own U.S. plan or you bought a specially-bought travel health plan, pay for medical expenses like these.?

I call it tongue-fucking. It's always been the top sensual activity for me. It's clearly very intense for the professionals because many would allow themselves to get fucked but not tongue-kissed. So yes, lots of fantasizing about kissing on my part.

I was told "sauna masculina" merely means it's not a whorehouse, i.e., no female prostitutes, as in the "sauna mixta."

"After seeing this I don't know what is going on in Brazil." If you saw this on social media, assume it's faked, distorted, or grossly out of context. Did you try to look it up in any reputable sources?

But not as fun as they were 25 years ago. Back then, before our age of infinite and ubiquitous porn, a sizable majority of the clientele in Latin adult cinemas was around 25 years old, all of them horny and many of them quite amenable. Now, the theaters are like those that used to be in the US: dark, dirty, and much older clientele. Perhaps they're the same 20-somethings now a few decades later.

Anybody with an on-the-ground report from Barcelona and Thermas? If it's even open, I assume it is lightly attended and with locals only. Can the Thermas guys actually travel to Zurich these days? Many of the boys' Brazilian and Colombian passports only worked to get them into Spain or Portugal, from which they traveled border-free throughout the EU. However, with Schengen now basically suspended, aren't they stuck in the Iberian peninsula? Without sauna work - and lord knows what other marketable skills they have - I wonder just what they have been doing.

This would be easier to answer if we know more about your language experience and history. In my case, for example, I didn't study any Portuguese. I just landed in Rio with a phrase book and started conversing. But you can do that if you know any decent amount of Spanish or Italian. If you learn better by ear, then tapes and videos would be good. If you learn better on the written page, then the options are different. If your weakness is memory and vocabulary, then flash cards are great. If your weakness is grammar, conjugations, and declensions, I'm afraid I haven't figured the solution to that myself.

I bet you know more interesting verbs than I do. Please share.

Who's going to send the live correspondent reports?

Wish I had known about these live auditions. That's one of my great unfulfilled fantasies: To BE William Higgins (or George Duroy, or even Chi Chi LaRue) and have multiple guys arriving every day begging to take their clothes off.

Or wear face condoms, aka dental dams? (cue up the worst, most ignored PSAs of the AIDS era)

My thoughts on this perennial question above: 1. The Brazilian saunas are a bit off the regular spectrum of human experience so that the usual dichotomies (transaction v. affection, gay v. straight) might not completely apply. I think most of the guys are a combination of everything. A sugar-daddy starts blending in with being a "good provider," which has traditionally been an accepted expectation and foundation of "real" relationships. An Argentine once told me some guys are just "gatitos" - little kittens that ask for a little of this and a little of that from somebody who can obviously and easily give a little of this and a little of that. Nothing too wrong with that, was the implication. 2. As for tesa~o, which I guess means sexual energy or horniness, again, these guys are not normal civilians! I've met some who I swear probably have tesao for trees and couches. A couple times, a guy climaxed with me without my asking and without asking for extra money, as they usually do. When I think back, those were end of the evening engagements, when they were going home afterward. They worked up that tesao all night, but they released it with me for their own benefit. Is that natural or unnatural tesao? 3. I never tried to pursue anything long term, because I am more about variety (and maybe ADD). However, there were a handful that, I thought, could have been an interesting guy to have around the house for a while. There was one guy I thought actually had some intriguing "depth." His body was not "up to my standards" but he literally seduced me with a great, look-deep-into-my-eyes chat beforehand. He was the only one I exchanged Whatsapp numbers with and we shared a funny text chat one late evening in November 2016 that began with "If Trump wins this thing, I'm moving to Brazil" and ended with "Oh shit." A couple months after that, however, he asked for money to go visit his parents. I've never written back since. So you see, I'm as wary and cynical as anybody. It was a small amount he asked, but I figured it always starts that way. Looking back, though, I could imagine having something longer-term and not completely transactional with this guy. 4. Going forward (if there will be a forward), I think I would open myself up more for something like this and tolerate a bit of "gatito" and see where it goes. If it turns unsatisfactory, you can break it off. Looking back, there were a few prime candidates.

You'll need to expound, but maybe in the Asia forum.

I've been curious to know, even when Brazil opens its economy and the saunas again and travel restrictions are lifted, how many of us will jump right back into swapping bodily fluids (the ones we used to think were safe) with some new garoto? I'm asking the most adventurous and experienced set of adventurers in the world.

There's not a huge seasonal change in temperature for Sao Paulo or Rio. They're both tropical or subtropical.

If you come with a civilian buddy and you both hire the same professional, then definitely you will and should pay double fee. The hard-working young man is working double! However, you might be able to negotiate more time, i.e., if regular is 1/2 hour per customer then maybe the escort will do 1 hour for both of you together. What's less interesting is the flipside of sharing: When you want to have 2 escorts at the same time. At Termas, the one time I proposed it, the guys EACH wanted DOUBLE pay, saying they have to have sex with each other too. I hope this marketing trend dies quickly. That and 3-ways almost never turn out as good as you expect, I guess because sauna boys are a bit nervous around each other and would prefer some option of plausible deniability as to what goes on inside the cabin.

I looked at Google Street view and, yeah, the area around the cine looks rough even for me! How do you manage coming back from it at night, as I heard even street taxis can be dicey. Would an establishment like that actually call a taxi for you, or will it be Uber? I'm surprised it's only open at night since porno theaters in most of the world, at least back when there were more such venues, seemed to be most active in the afternoon.

If you have the time to do a drive down to Cuenca, a smaller version of Quito (I've heard a few people say Cuenca was what they had expected Quito to be), you will see some of the most gorgeous scenery in South America along the way, including the valley of the volcanoes (weather-permitting, of course, as it can be rainy and cloudy in the Andes). The highway is now very good and the drive can be done in about 6 hours. However, if you break it into 2-3 days, you can also detour to the Quilotoa crater lake for more deserty scenery or to Banos for a more jungle/tropical feel. An hour up the mountains from Cuenca is the Cajas park, a high altitude moor-like watershed with lakes and orchids and fresh trout. Honestly, I know of few other countries with such incredibly diverse and beautiful scenery crammed in a small area, and we haven't even talked about the Galapagos Islands yet. But I can't help you much on the more carnal attractions.

My impression of Barranquilla carnaval was that it's much more family-oriented than Rio's (which I have not yet experienced). I didn't see any disorderly conduct, public peeing, and no, this was not a circuit party (blech!) so hardly any shirtless chests. Well, there were the kids, some of whom were not kids, wearing little more than black grease paint in a tradition that some woke northerners will soon tsk-tsk them about, but that's a whole nother weird story. When I went, I did find several super fun, and free, street parties, but LOTs of pickpockets. Let's say I donated some electronics to the local economy. The Colombians are insanely friendly and outgoing, so it was hard to tell what's just hospitality and what's interest. I got an unaccustomed amount of attention from stunning ... girls, some of whom didn't seem to be hookers.