hornyfrog

Even if you’ve seen a GP around for years or hired him before, don’t assume that means zero risk. The less time you spend here, the less you’ll know. I know of both tourists and residents who let their guards down and ended up robbed, threatened, drugged, or even injured in their apartments in Brazil. It’s not super-common — and it’s reported less here when it’s two men involved than when a woman garota de programa robs a male client — but it happens enough to stay alert. Filing a police report, an arrest, or even a sauna ban doesn’t always make someone vanish — the same faces can reappear later. Saunas at least provide some accountability. Outside of that, lock up your valuables and never assume that past good encounters guarantee the next one will be safe.

When a CPF number or an ID number is “sunk” (dirty) in the Brazilian banking system (overdrawn, reported or suspected fraud, sometimes even theft), any Pix with that CPF number are suspended. Any deposits into that person’s account immediately go towards paying off the debt. Brazilians who ask for this are usually in this kind of situation. It’s best not to get involved at all. But there’s always the client who wants to be seen as Santa.

You can also do this with Mercado Pago. It requires a minimum pre-loaded balance of 1000 reais.

I’m not trying to sound like a gatekeeper here, but most GPs want to get paid immediately after the service ends, unless they know you well and trust you enough that they will get paid soon enough. As a non-Brazilian resident, if you’re using Pix through Wise, Remitly or another remittance transfer service. It can take hours to even a day for the transfer to complete… and the first time you send to someone, you need to have a whole lot of info on that recipient in Brazil — full name, residential address, CPF, banking info, sometimes the address of bank — the exact Pix code the receiver uses (CPF, mobile number, or email) for the bank account to deposit it into. If you already have a Brazilian bank account, Pix is very fast and reliable. The speed is NOT reliable if you’re remitting it from an international bank. Most of these working guys do not have hours to wait for their couple of hundred reais from you — especially not from a tourist that could skip town the next day without payment (yes, that happens!). Also, there are times when certain garotos can’t access their Pix or their bank accounts are blocked, and they need to get paid in cold hard cash. It’s no guarantee who this will be, so you had better know this upfront before booking the date! Don’t assume everyone accepts Pix at all times. As a Brazilian resident with a bank account here, I use Pix, Wise and Remitly almost all the time — but when I wasn’t a resident, its reliability and speed of arrival was a lot less predictable.

Wow. Well, I’m glad to see the term still being used, because I only heard it in the UK a few decades ago — and thought it sounded much more refined and less derogatory than other nicknames more popular on the other side of the pond — like john or trick. Although here in Brazil, it’s just a simple “cliente”.

Sorry, I’m not sure if you took offense to my comment or not. But if you did, I didn’t mean to offend.

My Brazilian immigration attorney here just told me that there is no indication in available sources that a vote is scheduled in the Chamber of Deputies regarding the revocation of the visa reinstatement. All recent reports here indicate the bill has stalled after passage in the lower house, the Senate. There is resistance in the Chamber of Deputies due to the US tariffs issue, and allies of Chamber Speaker Motta have indicated in the Brazilian press that the bill is unlikely to come to a vote there soon.

My point is that they could very well know the difference — but not care. You as a US citizen think a millionaire is poor compared to a billionaire. To a working-class (or poor) Brazilian, it’s all relative. To be in the top 1% of income earners in Brazil in 2024, an individual needs only a monthly minimum income of approximately R$35,000 - R$45,000, which is around $6,480 - $8,300 USD a month. The average monthly income for a salaried individual in Brazil is around only 3,343 BRL ($620 USD) and the minimum monthly wage (of which 1/3 to 1/2 of all Brazilians receive less than) is only R$ 1,518, or $280 USD, per month. So, after a certain threshold, those pedantic numbers about millionaires and billionaires in the USA that you’re posting would not even matter to the overwhelming number of Brazilians. Still, there are enough Brazilians (some of them are garotos) who associate wealth (and class) — at the very least, lots of disposable income or credit — with anyone from certain countries like the USA. “Trailer park trash”, “house and car poor”, and “nouveau riche” are not concepts that they are vert culturally familiar with. When Calvin Klein visited 117 and Lagoa he was generous to the boys as well as to the house, but it’s not like he was paying in proportion to his net worth. Which was the point of my previous post. if Geffen were to come to Brazil for his boy toys (and who’s to say that he did not?) , he most certainly would not pay $10,000 USD (R$ 54,000 BRL) on Garoto com Local. Yes, word gets around who the clients (whether local and visiting) who are very well-off, and who the pretenders and the stingy, are.

Slightly off-topic, but possibly interesting nonetheless: I haven’t heard that term “punter” used to mean “a man who hires sex workers” outside of United Kingdom ever, and not in maybe 30 years.

I don’t think you’re understanding. The point is that to many Brazilians, there is no difference between billionaire David Geffen and an American schlub who works in a cubicle. That average-to above-average earning cubicle supervisor at a paper clip company could be a 1%(a milionário) in Brazil. Try telling a favelado in Jacaré that you as a traveling gringo staying in Zona Sul are not rich.

Be careful if your point is that clients should proportionally pay according to how much they are worth. Because in Brazil. many regular, average American, Canadian and Western European income earners would place at or near the top 1%. So, using a sliding scale, that garoto de programa who charges a Brazilian client R$ 150 should charge a US client 5 times that much!

There are some muscle boys and physique model types in Rio and São Paulo who are asking for and getting R$ 500 - R$700 for a 30 minute to 1 hour outcall (at your place). Going over an hour with one of them could run you 1000 to 1400 reais. I have heard of some tourists at saunas paying 500 reais for the half-hour sauna sessions for what they consider top-notch garotos de programa. But these prices are not the norm, not even close. Geffen paid his soon to be ex-husband $10,000 USD on their first date after meeting him on the Sugar Daddy website, Seeking Arrangements. So, keep it all in proper perspective!

I honestly can’t really advise you properly on all of this. Maybe you just need a sounding board? — which is fine, we all do every now and then. But you’d probably be better off contacting some of the larger Brazilian-based as well as global medical insurance companies, asking for an English-speaking agent and getting a custom quote. These sound to me like intensely personal decisions based on very personal preferences, as you do seem to have great options that others in your age group might not be fortunate enough to have. If you truly do love your life where you are now as you say, then maybe just keep traveling at your leisure instead of uprooting to another continent for a host of unknowns is better for you? The expats (permanent residents) that I know here either have a private insurance plan, use SUS, travel back to their own countries for healthcare, or a combination of these. No one I know says that healthcare costs here in Brazil are more expensive than they would be in the USA. But I get that you live in Canada — which is not close to being the health insurance hellscape that is the USA. Full disclosure: I have a global medical insurance plan, and I also have my private health insurance back in the USA from my pension plan but that is not global and can’t be used abroad. And then I have more than half a decade until Medicare kicks in (if it’s actually still around when I become eligible — the way the US government is going, no one can be confident), which also only works in The States. But I have had my global plan for years (like 15), and I have been here in Brazil for several years and am approaching 60. I would imagine that someone seeking a similar plan starting in their 60s and beyond would pay significantly more than someone who initiated the plan in their 40s. Good luck in your journey!

It’s entirely possible that even if your Airbnb hostess gets paid at her job in Brazilian reais, even if she is considered upper middle-class in Brazil and owns an apartment in a cute area like Ipanema or Copacabana, that she could be spending half or close to half of her monthly income on private health insurance premiums. If she is making R$ 7000 a month (about $1300 USD a month), in Rio that’s puts her at around the top quarter of earners in Rio. A comprehensive single plan with Unimed might run an older person or someone with preexisting conditions or comorbidities about R$ 3500 to maybe as much as R$ 5000. So, you can see how someone with even a much better than average income in Brazil can spend a lot of private health insurance premiums. if you’re becoming a resident of Brazil on a retirement or investment visa, or even the newfangled remote work / digital nomad visa, you’re getting paid / bringing in money in a non-Brazilian currency, and those required minimums to qualify are more than the 7000 BRL that I just mentioned. The minimum needed to qualify for a retirement visa in Brazil is currently 2000 USD a month in pension payments. So if that minimum or close to it is your monthly amount, and the best health insurance you can get is costing you 1000 USD, that’s half gone right there.

I relocated to Brazil on an investment visa and now have permanent residency. I am close to several other expats who have come to Brazil on the pension / retirement visa and have residency cards as well.