Recently, Dood posted in S.A. chat about an article that metioned our beloved CH (https://www.clubhombre.com/countries/southamerica/messages/21388.php.. the article is at http://jbonline.terra.com.br/jb/papel/cidade/2004/07/17/jorcid20040717006.html). For what it's worth, I wanted to post a "summing up" of the article and what it means to us mongers.It was published in the "City" section of last Sunday's Jornal do Brasil, Rio de Janerio's second biggest paper, although it's more traditional (if this was NYC, "O Globo" would be the Post, JdoB would be the NYTimes). If Hombre ain't worried about "our" name being published, then their is no reason why we should be, and as for the "hacker" comment in the article, that' s bullshit. Still the article has several interesting points.

On the surface it's yet another "OmiGod, there are gringos coming to Rio to fuck whores" story, so what - that's old news, very old. The primary focus of the article was not CH, but rather the fact that the police are trying to convince the hotels to be stricter about checking ID's for minors. Well, good, personally I WANT them to keep minors out of the business. All morality aside, it's much safer for everyone involved. The mention of CH was just filler, and the author's biggest point is that even CH recomends that we stay away from Av. Atlantica street girls. Ironically, the accompanying photo shows a BRAZILIAN car (not taxi) pulling up next to a bunch of Av. Atlantica street girls (at least so the caption claims). Not a gringo in sight.

Which brings us to the real reason for all the latest "crackdowns" in Copacabana and the newspaper publicity... remember, Copacabana is a relatively upscale residential neighborhood, especially along the beachfront (Av. Atlantica), which is the equivalent to Manhattan's old-money Upper East Side. The local residents could care less about what goes on in Help or at TA, but they are pissed that there are whores lounging around outside of THEIR multi-million real condos and drunk gringos chasing whores on THEIR beach. They don't like the Termas, Help, etc only because they attract the SW's (at least in their logic). Loud groups of gringos and whores renting apartments in THEIR buildings don't thrill them either. Remember, the real force behind these complaints are the old-money aristocrats living in the fashionable old condos. They are rich and relatively powerful, but not REALLY connected anymore - the real insiders live in Leblon or Ipanema, not to mention the fact that the current Federal, State, and local governments are all left-wing and "old money" is right-wing. In other words, back to our Manhattan analogy, if this was happening on the Upper East Side (let's pretend that they are all big-money Democrats), they'd be heard but not really listened to by the Repub City, State, and Federal govt. Anyway, the Copacabanites are complaining to the government to DO SOMETHING. So the government goes thru the motions. And they know it's just show, so they complain to the papers, and the papers want to please them (readership is readership) so they write an article in the City section of the Sunday paper. No big deal.

More interesting are teh two sidebar articles that accompanied the main article. I'll translate the juicy bits [comments and paraphrasing in brackets], and anyone who wants to read in Portuguese can follow the links:

Investigation Halted

http://jbonline.terra.com.br/jb/papel/cidade/2004/07/17/jorcid20040717007.html

In February, Martha Rocha, the then-chief of the CEDIM [State Council on Women's Rights - this is the main govt group chasing after sex tourism in Rio] asked the Federal Government to investigate websites that divulge information abotu sexual tourism in Rio. The work is still ongoing and no results have been revealed up to now. We hope that the (politcal) pressure resulting from the report of the Congressional Subcomittee on Sexual Exploitation, presided by Blah Blah (a minority party senator), will cause more [action to appear from the investigation].

The report, [approved] on the 8th with seperate appendices, reccomends the indictment of 250- suspects nationwide [involved] in sexually exploiting children and adolescents, including authorities and [white-collar] professionals.The most controversial [factor] is that the list of indictments excludes the vice-governor of Amazonas State, Omar Aziz.

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So, the interesting points here, to my eyes anyway, are that the Brazilian govt. is not serioulsy pursuing websites (since their aint crap they can do about it anyway), especially since this "Martha Rocha" police chief is no longer in charge of CEDIM (BTW, Martha Rocha is the name of a cake in Brazil, so it's kind of like the cop's name being "Strawberry Shortcake"). Their is a Congressional investigation going on, but tehy are (rightly so) concentrating on exploitation of minors, and suprise, suprise, finding out that their are a lot of big-names involved in exploiting underage prostitution. Including the Leiutenant Governor of Amazonas, who they can't touch. I skimeed over teh name of the Senator in charge of the investigation, btu she is from Ceara, in otehr words Fortaleza, in other words the Feds are way more interested in Euro-trash going to the Nordeste to fuck 12 year olds than they are about us "honest" mongers. Incidentally the rest of the article superficially discusses European mongering. Again, all this makes sense, except for pissed-off Copacabana residents, us guys going to Rio to fuck 20-year olds is actuall an over-all benefit to Brazil.

National Coordinator Supports Publicity

http://jbonline.terra.com.br/jb/papel/cidade/2004/07/17/jorcid20040717008.html


According to Gabriela Silva Leite- National co-Ordinator of the "Brazilian Network of Sexual Proffesionals" , which joins 26 prostitute's associations throughout the country [in other words, the AFL-CIO of whores!] - sexual tourism has to be, above all, safe, but it should continue to be [considered as] a form of tourism.

"Us prostitutes consider it perfectly legitimate that [our services] be publicized - wether it be to brazilians or foriegners. We are formally recognized by the [Department of Labor] as a professional category, in the "Brazilain Classification of Labor" we are listed as "Sexual Professionals". Furthermore, we are seekign to have our activities formally regulated by law under Act Blah-Blah, sponsored by Congressman Blah" says Gabriella, who considers the commentary by foriegn tourists on Internet not to be at all [insulting or degrading].

"Comments about out professionalism are always welcome. Mistreatment is when [we are] prevented from coming and going, prevented from [doing] our work." adds Gabriela, who also co-ordintates partnerships for AIDS prevention throughout Brazil.

Accorting to her, today in Brazil 67% of prostitutes always use condoms in sexual relations. Blah-Blah this statistic was published this year by the National AIDS Program.

"This pre-occupation with Rio having it's image associated with sexual tourism comes from peopel who only partially understand the tourism industry - [it is] discriminatory and tries to ignore the role of sexual professionals in [the economy]. A recent study of tourism-related income and it's beneficiaries [totally] ignored us. Prejudice impedes [people's] vision and objectivity. [They] dont' rememebr that we have children, with all the expenses that they represent, that we buy clothing, use taxis, go to restuarants, and take tourists to [these retaurants]. The money that we earn also [feeds] the economy of the city."

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Allright, maybe our Gabriella is a little too self-promoting, but she's got a valid point. And from an "intelligent" whores point of view, CH and the other sites are a good thing (of course, good luck finding an intelligent whore, street-smart yes, btu one who thinks beyond her next trick?). Believe it or not, the Sao Paulo girls actually have memebrships on Hotside and sexdicas, the main brazilian forums, and BS around with the guys, rebut any negative commentary, dish about the profession in general and some of their colleagues in specific, and, best of all, give out "Internet specials"!

Bottom line, Brazilians are emminently practical. Prostitution will always exist, and in Brazil it's legal and to some extent officially recognized. No-one wants to admit it, but it DOES bring in tourist dollars, not to mention move around a lot of the Brazilian's own money. And anythign involving lots of money emans that a lot of powerful people have their fingers in it... Brazil is trying to crack down on underage prostitution, as they should, The rest is just fluff and a bunch of old biddies in Copacabana griping (of course, some of the mongers in Copa really are out of control and need to learn about being discreet). Brazil not only is not going to seriously crack down on "legitimate" prostitution, they are slowly moving towards making it more regulated - which is a both a good and bad thing - "regulation" really means taxes (as in making the whores pay taxes in return for getting federal benefits), but "slowly" in Brazil means at least another generation before it happens, so don't worry about it.

In the meantime, the whole P4P scene is ingrained in Brazilian culture anyway so no-one really wants to change it. If you've ever done any serious business in Brazil, then you've had a t least one business meeting in a boite or casinha, "it's how business gets done", so to speak. Besides, the politiciains who are making the rules are some of the best customers!

As Hombre, wrote in the S.A. chat, "Big Yawn!".. still these developments are worth watching, just not worrying about.

BS

People definetly need to be more discreet.

Thanks, BS. From what I've heard, your analysis is right on target. Interestingly, the US government has been trying to pressure Brazil to "do something" about prostitution, but Brazil has simply ignored the requests from the US State Department.

The one place where they are coordinating efforts, though, is around involvement of minors, and Brazil has agreed to report any Americans who violate these statutes to the US so that they can be jointly prosecuted in the US and Brazil. Like you, I'm happy to see this. Unfortunately it's not just the Eurotrash heading to the Northeast who are responsible for this problem; I get at least one email a week from guys asking where they can find underage girls. My response is always the same: I send them a copy of the federal statutes on chilid prostitution, the sentencing guidelines, and tell them to go fuck themselves. They are the real threat to our enjoying our legal rights.

Wow, I honestly didn't know there were that many Americans interested in too young. Logically, I shouldn't be surpised, I just have never met these scumbags. I live a sheltered life....

But yeah, the young junkies really give the rest of us a black eye, especially now that the Bush administration waves "underage prostitution" around like a bloody shirt every time they want to cut back on everyone else's rights (witness the latest Cuba idiocy). As always, our best policy as "honest" mongers is self-policing.

BTW, sorry about all the typos in my first post, I'm a terrible typist. Yes, I do know the diffrence between "their" and "there". And most of the real "movers and shakers" in Rio live in gated condos in Barra, not Leblon/Ipanema anymore...

BS

BS, great report. I didn't read enough newspapers recently! Glad you are doing the research for me.

The authorities are researching CH. What an honor! At least they are not researching the termas that the politicians frequent

I was sitting with a very attractive young lady at (removed*) enjoying coconut waters. I asked her how old she was and she matter-of-factly replied "quatorze." (14) I paid for the waters and got the hell away but before I left I asked her where she went to school. She said she hasn`t gone to school for awhile, she just "works." Obviously she has a lot of customers. For you guys that stay in apartments, I sure would check the ID of every girl you take. Hotels protect you against mistakes.

Admin: *Location details removed

Help also checks ID's, so the Help girls are OK.

What's the legal age in Brazil?

Eighteen (18). Not a day less.

Are under age girls really that much of a problem? Do you guys really have that much of a problem telling if the girls there are of age? What are the penalties if caught with a young one?

Like Flounder says in Animal House, "This is gonna be great"! Now I'm remembering the line, "I hope I score, I hope I score"!

1) Yes indeed.
2) Not if the hotel clerk checks her ID or she works in a termas.
3) Absolutely horrible.

Legal age in Brazil for foreign mongers is clearly 18.

If you can make a point that she is your real girlfriend, age below 18 still is very murky waters, even for the locals. Leave that to Brazilians who can argue that they seduced the girl and never would pay her. If you are older then her father, cannot speak to her, and she is a known puta, then you will have a hard time trying the girlfriend argument.

Penalties are, in theory, many years in jail, plus prosecution in your home country too. In practice probably many, many thousands of US$ bribe to police.

If all the girls you pick look like 27 years old, then you are quite safe. But lots of girls are 17 and look like 19.

I think I should put an additional advisor for underage avoidance in my Rio safety tips. Forgot to mention that issue

Basically, don't hesitate to ask for ID. Even if it is fake, it would be in your favor. The girl must have the ID at ALL TIMES, not just the first time you see her. So the moment the police picks her up, she has her fake id on her. If you say that you saw her ID last week, this will not impress police.