Gentlemen:

Hotel Debret AND Rio Roiss both officially banning female visitors couldn't be coincidence... and it's not. What happened is simple - they got written up in Veja by one of their columnists. This means that the shit is about to hit the fan. On the other hand, Brazil being Brazil, it will blow over soon enough. I'll write what this all means, I translated the article for everybody's edification, and then give y'all my take on this.

First of all, Veja is the major newsmagazine in Brazil - it's the equivalent of Time Magazine in the U.S. Lat week's cover story was "O Brasil Apagou" - Brazil is burnt out - or "Brazil is fucked" to be more colloquial - all about how the economy, society, etc is on the skids. Glossy newmagazines like to write doom-and-gloom stories every once in a while. To round off all the bad news, one of their columnists - the equivalent of George Will - decides to write this little piece about prostitution in Rio (the stuff in brackets are my comments0:

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Diogo Mainardi

Rio of the PornoTourists

Rio de Janeiro is better than Cartagena. It's also beter than San Jose and Budapest. The Internet is full of people debating the subject. All the foreign "specialists" agree on one point: only Bangkok is equal to Rio in terms of pornotourism.

Rio PornoTourism is centered in Copacabana. The hotels most reccomended by the Internet guides are the Debret and Rio Roiss. Both will accept prostitutes accompanying guests to their rooms. The pornotourist's routine starts at the beach, where the tent-men [barraqueiros - the chair guys at the beach] offer, along with the usual chair and caipirinha, prostitutes. The tent-man Flavio is particularly helpful. Afterwards, the pornotourists go to the Meia Pataca bar, on the sidewalk. There they are propositioned by prostitutes of all types. As an alternative, they can visit one of the many saunas (termas) in the city: L'Uomo, Quatro-por-Quatro, 65, Monte Carlo, Centaurus. The internet guides complain about the size of the prostitute's tits at Centuarus. On the other hand, they prais Roberta, at Monte Carlo, a lot.

At night, the pornotourists meet at Help Disco. [Rio's] Traditional red-light zones, such as Vila Mimosa, are not reccomended due to the lack of hygiene. Much safer is using agencies such as Escort Company Girl, which allow one to choose women via computer - from Paula, "the naughty littel nympho" to Lisandra "with tits that will holdup a pencil." One of these internet guides say that "there's nothig equal to Rio." Another says that our "prostitues love their work." Another that "the brazilian girls feel that prostitution is a normal (natural) activity."

It's so rare that Brazil manages to excell in any field that it would be only just to celebrate the excellent performance of our prostitutes. The problem is that we profit almost nothing from this. The sex industry produces hundreds of billions of dollars throughout the world. The richest country, the United States, is also the one that makes the most money. Just in San Fernado Valley, California, they make more that 11,000 porn films per year, employing 20,000 persons and make more than 4 billion dollars. That's more than Volkswagen Inc. Makes in Brazil. Stars such as Jasmin Saint-Claire, John Stagliano and Rocco Siffredi have already made some of their films in Rio, for example the Buttman series, but our female compatriots only acted in secondary roles. Veronica Brazil, a carioca, gained some success out there participating in John Bobbit's first film - that guy that was castrated by his wife - but she disappeared off the scene soon afterwards.

Reading the pornotourism guides reveals the origins of this national failure. We are always ready to sell ourselves, but for a price that's way too low. We combine a mercenary instinct with a total ineptitude for business. Our authorities tolerate all sorts of abuses, including perversion and slavery, as long as they are only committed against the poor. In our pre-industrial society, we don't even know how to manufacture good condoms, the foriegn tourists consider them to be "too thin and not trustworthy." The only Brazilian contribution to the porn industry, just like all the other industries, is to supply cheap, unskilled labour. Fernando Gabeira [a congressman] has introduced a law to regulate prostitution [workman's right's for prostitutes - it's creating quite a stir in Congress]. This law would be much more useful for Rio than the Olympic Games [Rio is biddig to be the host city for 2012].

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Well... obviously Diego has had quite some fun doing his homework - brazilians in american porn films, the best escort websites... who the hell is Roberta at MonteCarlo? Whatever. Anyway, between WSA, WSG, dexterhorn, and chicachica the guy certainly got enough material to do his article even without hitting CH. The purpose of his article is obviously sarcastic, not so much to skewer the mongers but to lament Brazil (and he has some valid points). However, as you can see Debret and Rio Roiss are mentioned right off the bat, hence their sudden prohibition. Remember, those places are in business for regular guests, not mongers, so this article really hits them in the pocketbook - as much as the U.S.A. is litigation-crazed, the Debret and Rio Roiss would have agreat case for a libel suit over here, but not in Brazil, of course. As for the other places mentioned, they could care less about the article (except may Meia Pataca), after all, they are exclusively in business to cater to mongers. In fact, it's free advertising. "Flavio" may be in trouble...

Overall, this will change nothing. There are plenty of other "garota-friendly" hotels, there are plenty of g.p.'s and there are plenty of Termas. If this article REALLY pisses the government off (the Rio government - the Feds have bigger problems to wory about), then they might start a "publicity stunt" prostitution sweep, they happen every once in a while anyway. But it'll all die down in a month or so when everyone forgets about this article. Remember, prostitution is perfectly legal in Brazil (even if not regulated), but "faciliting" prostitution is not, so Help, the Termas etc walk a fine line - one that they habituallygrease with payoffs to all the right people. And you think that those people (police, judges, etc) want to lose their cash cow? Of course not. So anything ordered from up top for show purposes willbe effectively ignored at the enforcement level. However, if I was the average monger (which I'm not), I'd be a bit more discreet when I go to Rio. I wouldn't be too suprised if the Feds (Customs) at teh airport start "targetting" single male travelers to Rio for a few weeks - hassling them in Customs, being a pain-in-the-ass if they find monger paraphenalia (vibrators, ticklers), etc. Then again, probably not - after all there's a plane towing an advertising banner over Copacabana every day - it reads "Use Condoms - State Ministry of Health". Everybody knows what happens in Copa and turns a blind eye... still, all in all, being discreet is good - don't make too much noise partying late at night if you are renting an apartment, don't have duplas and triplas at your hotel, use motels (that's what they were invented for).. but otherwise don't sweat it, this will all blow over.

Except for one thing - any garotas de programa at Help, etc that read this article are sure to jack their prices! ;-)

BS

BS--Thanks for the info. Does anyone know if the terma girls pay any taxes , how about the terma`s , they must pay tax don`t they ? I was shock when girls told me they paid no taxes, i know it`s all cash but reguiring them to file and claim somethng is better than nothig for the government. It`s like strippers in the US they file , maybe a fraction of thier true pay but at least it`s somethng more for the government. Also they could add a small charge to the entrance fee of prositute establishments, for a poor country it`s insane they don`t make something from thier best natural resource.

No, they don't pay taxes - that's exactly what the whole "regulating" prostitution contoversy is about. The esteemd congressman, understandbly, suggests that the girl sbe given employee rights like everyone else - social security, guaranteed sicktime, healthcare, etc, in return for paying taxes, of course. Although it' snot one of the center-stage controversies in the country, it is generating quite a it of press. The conservatives are predictably against it, the liberals are for it, and the workign girls themselves are split. The young gals making all the money don't want to pay any tazes and the older girls who aren't pulling down the big bucks and are facing a very uncertain future are all for it. IMHO, it's all yet another political ploy... just like the gay marriage controversy here, it's a lot of noise from the politicians on what they know is a controversial issue that will cover up the skulldudgery that they REALLY doing. In other words, business as usual!

BS

(Message edited by badseed on July 20, 2003)

That's a useful article on how to find prostitutes in Rio ... ... somebody oughta write one like that for my home town.

Great info and commentary, Seedling. Your crack journalism clarifies much. A friend of mine booked at the Debret for last week, after talking to me. Sounds like he arrived there at exactly the wrong time.

The fact that Diego obtained his info at our esteemed websites got my attention. Many of us are probably familiar with some of the internet posts and posters that he referred to.

When he got to my trip report, he probably either didn't believe it or concluded that I was insane, LOL. Or perhaps he never quite made it to CH.

Ok, so, if Debret and RR have been fingered as hooker hotels, and the word is out, what good is it to now stop allowing girls up? Are the two hotels going to put signs up outside that read "We've turned a new leaf: hookers out, kids and families in"? In my experience, once a place has a rep it isn't going to change. So, what is the deal?

Badseed,

Great info! I was planning on a Rio trip in Sept and like staying at the Rioss. When do you think the heat will die down. Maybe another trip to Bangkok or Costa Rica would be right.

Cueball: I didn't mean to scare you off Rio. There's no real HEAT. At teh very worst. tehre may be some hassling of single male toursits, but I doubt it. The garota industry will NOT shut down because of this, and there's plenty of hotels to stay at besides Rio Roiss and Debret. And they'll sonn change back to there old policy, as Catocony points out, it's stupid to stop accepting female "visitors", the hotels are doing a knee-jerk reaction more than anything else. Bottom line, I wouldn't worry about it.

In the meantime, can you guys imagine what this Diego guy went thru to write his article? I can jsut see him talking ot his editor now: "Boss, I'm working on a hot article, I've been on the Internet all morning, now I've got to go down to Copacabana and I'm going to need 297 Reais out of petty cash.... and don't look for me after work, I'll be at Help!"

;-)

BS

There's conflicting info on whether the Roiss is no longer allowing guests, so you might call and ask them directly. Kenn says he called in the past day and they said guests are welcome, but there's a 50 reais/night surcharge (which is NOT a change in policy but may be a change in price).

Even if these hotels make about face, I feel they will still lose quite a bit of the Newyear/Carnaval package business, which is a significant portion of their profit margin. Since these packages are paid in advance and are non-refundable, people may not want to take the risk now that the track record of guest-friendly policy is broken.

I was reading from another board that the new policies of not having guests at the Rioss and Debret could be a smoke screen. If you ask the hotels they will openly say no with a wink. If you brought a girl to your hotel it would be business as usual. I hope this is true. We will just have to wait when one of our fellow members try it.