Total Sao Paulo: The Sex Sense
After two years living in Sao Paulo and reporting on the city's fashion, design, music and lifestyle scenes for CoolHunting.com and JoshSpear.com, journalist Phuong-Cac Nguyen built up valuable information about the metropolis to bursting point. The splatterings are in her 176-page Total Sao Paulo: A Guide to the Unexpected book, out April 29 on Unhinged Jaw Press, a veritable newcomer to the tourist guidebook industry that targets creative types preferring to take jaunts through off-the-beaten-track locales and check out the Red Light District over the standard foreigner mob scenes.
Interspersed between the spotlights on neighborhoods and tips on where to find the best $2.50 caipirinhas, are interviews with Paulistanos from a diverse range of professions, from a vinyl shop owner to Phuong-Cac's favorite interview of the bunch, a garota de programa (aka program girl, the Portuguese euphemism for prostitute).
Cleo is 23 and has been hustling as an escort for almost two years in São Paulo's sex biz, where she makes a killing doing it with clients at R$300 for two hours. Her bills include R$1,750 to maintain an apartment near Avenida Paulista and R$650 a week to a website that publishes her ad, but she still has enough left over to put away for a house. The money definitely beats the crap salary she was paid as a receptionist.
Here's an interview excerpted from the book, with a little extra length thrown in exclusively for SuicideGirls.
Phuong-Cac Nguyen: How long have you been doing this?
Cleo: A year and a half.
PCN: How did you begin?
Cleo: I met a girl who did programas in a swingers club in Sao Paulo. We became friends and I ended up interested.
PCN: How many clients do you have?
Cleo: Three or four a day, from Monday to Friday. On weekends not as many; one or two. The clients have kids, and 80 percent are married.
PCN: And the youngest?
Cleo: He was 17 and a virgin. He was underage at the time but I only found out later. Later I spotted him at the reception, probably waiting for another girl. He must have liked it.
PCN: Explain how a programa works.
Cleo: I charge R$300. It's the minimum. If I lower the price clients want an even bigger discount. There are so many idiots here you wouldn't believe it. A guy even asked me if he could pay the day after.
PCN: When are the busy hours?
Cleo: Lunchtime. Also after 6 p.m., when men leave work. And during soccer games. They go to the stadium, have time off.
PCN: What do you like about your work, compared to others?
Cleo: I like the freedom. I don't like to have a schedule, having to go to work on time, decide how much I want to earn. I also like people, having contact with them.
PCN: And the bad side?
Cleo: Well, there are some guys that are annoying, hard to get on with. It's unpleasant.
PCN: Which things should clients watch out for here?
Cleo: There's a lot of cheating. You call a girl but the person you are dealing with is not the one in the photo. If someone if sick, for example, they send their friends. Some girls change their attitude once they meet their client.
PCN: What are the foreign clients like?
Cleo: The gringos are more attentive. I never had any trouble with them regarding payment or time. They're more polite. They expect you to be on time. Brazilians have a fetish for anal sex. The gringos are not so crazy about that. They prefer petting and kissing.
PCN: Do clients bring their own toys?
Cleo: No, I have mine. I have a dildo I normally use. I have a bag with costumes. A lot of them ask me to wear lingerie.
PCN: What's the most requested fantasy?
Cleo: They like fetish gear. Corsets.
PCN: So, give us the dish on these sessions.
Cleo: One time this guy wanted me to pee on him. We were two girls, and he didn't want to see us. We blindfolded him and took him to the bathroom. We didn't have sex with him. Some guys like to switch roles. They ask me to fuck them with a dildo, businessmen and married men in particular. Once I received married doctors with children. I met them in a hotel and they were fucking each other. A very important businessman used to hire around six girls. He liked to watch us six fucking. I never received less than R$1,500 from him. I went out with him for three months. Then all of a sudden he disappeared.
PCN: What was the lamest experience you've had?
Cleo: Sometimes not everything is clear, and when clients arrive they expect more. This guy wanted anal and was being very rude. The main problem is anal, because that's all they want. Timing is also a problem. For instance, I normally offer two hours and some guys think that means fucking nonstop. Some guys take pills and want to fuck four, five times in a row. I fuck twice at the most.
PCN: Were you afraid to put your photo on the escort's website?
Cleo: Not really. Not even my friends [know]. My parents don't have Internet. My boyfriend is an excellent cover.
PCN: And so he's cool with it all, I assume.
Cleo: We've been together from the very beginning. He's been very supportive. He's my bodyguard. I always tell him where I will be, so he keeps an eye on me and when he can he comes here.
PCN: Before doing this, where were you working?
Cleo: I worked as a receptionist and a secretary. Promotions for malls. The thing is, women are very poorly paid here in Sao Paulo. On average women don't make more than R$600 a month. I used to work from 6 a.m. until 3 p.m. for only R$350. I had to help my mother.
PCN: Where do you want to go with this?
Cleo: I have plans to stop. [My boyfriend and my] goal is to buy a house. After that I'll quit. I also want to study.
PCN: Explain the different levels of girls.
Cleo: There was a very high-class house called WE. But it was shut down by the federal police. Now there are a lot of TV girls doing programas. But it's in secrecy. There are negotiations. But they're very expensive, some of them charge up to R$6,000 a night. Some girls [on the escort site I'm found on] are quite known, because they appeared in a Brazilian men's magazine called Sex. So they consider themselves famous. But the top earners are the TV girls. Guys pay that much just to say they went out with them.
PCN: We're doing this interview right after hearing about ex-New York City Mayor Eliot Spitzer's connections with a Brazilian prostitute. Your opinion?
Cleo: I think that in every profession one must have ethics. She didn't have any. It's a secret one must know how to keep. It's about reputation. But in Brazil it's also about self-promotion, so girls go on TV and declare that they are prostitutes. To scandal is not cool.
PCN: Which restaurants do you like?
Cleo: A very good one is Famiglia Mancini. They serve pasta and it's excellent. There's a churrascaria called Vento Aragano. It's the best one in town, and it's very expensive. But since it's the client who's paying, I eat a lot.
PCN: Tell me about the motels here. Which are the nicest?
Cleo: Lumini. Pousada do Cowboy. Studio A; they have swimming pool, are very clean, have solar panels. Opium is also very beautiful. A very famous one is Faraos, with an ancient Egypt theme. There are also a lot of drive-ins. You have sex in the cars. In Brazil, drive-ins are private garages. Some have even beds next to the parking space.
Excerpt from Total Sao Paulo: A Guide to the Unexpected courtesy of Unhinged Jaw Press. Text copyright (c) Unhinged Jaw Press 2009. Printed with kind permission of Unhinged Jaw Press.
Total Sao Paulo: A Guide to the Unexpected book is available from TotalSPGuide.com.
Pimping For Ron Paul Literally
For those of you who are rolling your eyes and thinking, Oh God, another Ron Paul article?! -- before you ready your long-winded diatribes about the Constitution and the Federal Reserve, or your well-honed Photoshop mockeries of Dr. Paul -- I have a confession to make.
Ron Paul articles are such a guilty pleasure.
Every week, I spend literally minutes a day scanning the Internet for tidbits of news that I can then semi-wittily rephrase, or at least add the word fuck to, thus allowing that news to break free from its cocoon of objective journalistic integrity and become a biased, marginally retarded moth of a Newswire article, flapping its oversized left wing and making a few lazy circles around the site before burning out in a small blaze of comments about how, or perhaps what, I suck.
If I burdened myself with concerns like quality or accuracy, finding these tidbits would pose a challenge, but instead I find myself challenged by my sheer sloth. My weekly deadline looms ever closer each day, like some big scary looming thing, and as it approaches a little voice in the back of my head gets louder and louder:
Cmon, just post something snarky about Ron Paul and call it a day. I mean, you could try and write something insightful about some important issue, but whore we kidding here? Think of your comment count!
Why is my path of least resistance strewn with Ron Paul 2008 flyers? Like most people, I blame the internet. I could mock another of the people who are at least technically running for President, but none of them seem to have an internet Potemkin Village filled with rabid supporters willing to give a crap. Pointing out what a big bag of freak Tom Tancredo is really doesnt have the same zing, does it?
Plus, the wild world of Ron Paul is a bumper crop of wacky shit to write about.
For example, candidates like Mike Huckabee get the endorsement of learned political pundits like Chuck Norris and Ric Nature Boy Flair (thus making Huckabee not so much the second coming of Ronald Reagan as the second coming of Golan & Globus).
But Ron Paul just earned the endorsement of someone from a quite different entertainment industry. Dennis Hof, the owner of an infamous legal brothel in Nevada known as the Bunny Ranch, announced that he was supporting Ron Paul and planned to install donation boxes for Pauls 2008 campaign at the Bunny Ranch.
When asked to comment, a spokesperson for the Ron Paul campaign made sure to inform the media that pimping aint easy, or something Ron Paul endorses. Except as an example of how awesome the concept of states' rights is:
On a personal basis, he doesn't condone those things. At the same time, from his campaign perspective, it's not the role of federal government and it's not in the constitution for federal government to regulate these things. The Nevada voters and Legislature have decided it is a legal activity in this state.
Thats it, Im so voting for Ron Paul! I so want the federal government to get off the backs of state governments! Hey, federal government, stop being all mean and un-Constitutional by preventing state governments from outlawing abortion, birth control, interracial marriage and consensual sodomy!
But what if youre not a Ron Paul supporter, but still yearn for a candidate who can combine straight talk, a dedicated group of supporters, principled and/or completely unrealistic stances on a range of issues, a next to zero percent chance of winning the nomination and the naughty yet oh-so-morally ambiguous concept of exchanging money for sex?
Well, youre in luck. Dennis Kucinichs peace train recently made a detour through Smut Town when Larry Flynt hosted a fundraiser for the Kucinich campaign earlier this month. While Flynt has what can only be described as a colorful history of political activism, including offering a million-dollar reward for evidence of a Republican Congressman having an extra-martial affair during the run-up to Bill Clintons impeachment, this is the first time hes actively endorsed a political candidate:
I support Dennis Kucinich because not only have I been a friend of his for 40 years, but I believe he offers an essential, viable and exciting option to the candidates that are more popular at the moment.
Apparently both Flynt and Kucinich made speeches at the fundraiser. Since the press was not invited, I can only guess what the subject of each speech was:
Dennis Kucinich: We need to take all of our troops out of Iraq immediately, impeach both Dick Cheney and George Bush, establish universal health care and a Department Of Peace, make foreign trade agreements dependent on workers rights, and legalize same-sex marriage.
Larry Flynt: Damn, how fucking hot is Elizabeth Kucinich?
Well, Im off to buy the new Barely Legal DVD, since it now counts as a political statement.
Legalized Prostitution: Apparently Not So Great for Women
It's not uncommon for feminists and other folks interested in womens rights to argue that prostitution might be a shittier and less dangerous job if it were legal. But a new book, reviewed in this weekend's Guardian, suggests otherwise.
During a two-year investigation, the author, Melissa Farley, visited eight legal brothels in Nevada, interviewing 45 women and a number of brothel owners. Far from enjoying better conditions than those who work illegally, the prostitutes she spoke to are often subject to slave-like conditions.
Described as "pussy penitentiaries" by one interviewee, the brothels tend to be in the middle of nowhere. . . . The brothel prostitutes often live in prison-like conditions, locked in or forbidden to leave.
....
Then there is the fact that legal prostitutes seem to lose the rights ordinary citizens enjoy. From 1987, prostitutes in Nevada have been legally required to be tested once a week for sexually transmitted diseases and monthly for HIV. Customers are not required to be tested. The women must present their medical clearance to the police station and be finger-printed, even though such registration is detrimental: if a woman is known to work as a prostitute, she may be refused health insurance, face discrimination in housing or future employment, or endure accusations of unfit motherhood.
....
Farley found a "shocking" lack of services for women in Nevada wishing to leave prostitution. "When prostitution is considered a legal job instead of a human rights violation," says Farley, "Why should the state offer services for escape?" More than 80% of those interviewed told Farley they wanted to leave prostitution.
The effect of all this on the women in the brothels is "negative and profound," according to Farley. "Many were suffering what I'd describe as the traumatic effects of ongoing sexual assaults, and those that had been in the brothels for some time were institutionalized. That is, they were passive, timid, compliant, and deeply resigned."
"No one really enjoys getting sold," says Angie, who Farley interviewed. "It's like you sign a contract to be raped."
I've made the pro-legalization argument myself in the past. But further thought, and a little bit of experience, has made me think that while women prostituting themselves should be decriminalized--that is, prostitutes, who are usually pretty desperate women, shouldn't be arrested simply because they are trying to make money by selling sex--soliciting prostitutes, whether as a pimp, madam, or john, should be more heavily criminalized than it currently is. Not only for moral reasons, though it's obviously appalling to profit or derive sexual pleasure from someone else's desperation, but also for practical ones. Soliciting prostitutes clearly endangers and exploits women; it presents a public health hazard, not only through disease but also through violence and abuse; and I think it's undeniable that commercializing sex is dehumanizing; it effectively turns the women (and occasionally men) who provide it into objects themselves, to be traded and sold.
Farley found evidence, for example, that the existence of state-sanctioned brothels can have a direct effect on attitudes to women and sexual violence. Her survey of 131 young men at the University of Nevada found the majority viewed prostitution as normal, assumed that it was not possible to rape a prostitute, and were more likely than young men in other states to use women in both legal and illegal prostitution.
What do you guys think?
Bitch_PhD thinks that it's important to consider the actual effects of things as they are, rather than simply hypothsizing about how prostitution (or any other thing) might theoretically be okay in some imaginary world.
Republican Framed By His Own Cock
Meet David Vitter. Hes an all American boy who has had a tough life. He was born into a wealthy New Orleans family and was forced to attend Harvard University, then Oxford University and finally, the Tulane University Law School. That could not have been easy. After practicing as a lawyer he was elected to the Louisiana House of Representatives in 1992. He did a six-year stint at the state level and then moved on to the big show in 1999, when he joined his fellow Republicans in the US House. Finally, in 2004, Vitter took his rightful place in the US Senate. That is a fine career. It is not often that rich people manage to make it into the Senate. Kudos, David.
His family life is pretty awesome, too. Hes got a wonderful wife and four kids, Sophie, Lisa, Airey (WTF?) and Jack. His marriage is made strong by the familys faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
David has been a wonderful leader, especially in times of crisis. On August 30, 2005, as Hurricane Katrina hit the city of New Orleans, he told the people the truth.
"In the metropolitan area in general, in the huge majority of areas, it's not rising at all. It's the same or it may be lowering slightly. In some parts of New Orleans, because of the 17th Street breach, it may be rising and that seemed to be the case in parts of downtown. I don't want to alarm everybody that, you know, New Orleans is filling up like a bowl. That's just not happening.
He even put his fingers in his ears and screamed, "This is not happening" for an hour, but his prayers were not answered. The Lord had other ideas, but you can't say David didn't try.
If Vitter has been known for anything during his time in the US Senate, it would be his faith-based values. Why, just last week he co-wrote a letter in support of the reauthorization of the Title V Abstinence Education Program of the Social Security Act. Yeah, baby, abstinence. No fucking for the kiddies!
This a valuable program with proven results, but it is nearing its expiration. We must reauthorize this program so we can continue the incredible strides we have made in teaching teens about both risk avoidance and protecting themselves from potential abuse.
Fuck, yes it is, brother! Praise the Lord! Vitter has been helping America to fight off the scourge that is gay marriage. He strongly supported an Amendment to ban gay marriage.
"I don't believe there's any issue that's more important than this one," said Sen. David Vitter.
Fuckin A! How often do you find a politician who cares about everything you do? Marriage is the most important thing to the survival of America! Without that bond between a man and a woman, we may as just be living like monkeys. But David has not just fought gay marriage, he has also done everything he can to stop abortion.
As a strong believer in the dignity and sanctity of all human life, I stand with many other Louisianans in defense of those who cannot defend themselves. Together, we work daily to turn the tide toward respecting, protecting, and dignifying innocent human life.
Amen. Vitters work in Congress has earned him a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition, which is almost perfect. Of course, the dirty liberals feared his faith and they attempted to slander him during his run for the Senate. He was actually accused of having sexual relations with a prostitute! David was savagely attacked by a liberal caller while on a radio program.
"Would you be willing to sign an affidavit that you have ever known, met or had relations with one Wendy Cortez."
Vitter responded, "I think you know that that allegation is absolutely and completely untrue...I have said that on numerous occasions...I'll say that in any forum...Unfortunately, that's just crass Louisiana politics, now that I am running for the Senate. I have made that clear that it is all completely untrue...And, it's obviously politically motivated."
There you go. The man is a Christian and he has told the truth. May the devil strike down anyone who comes after this child of Jesus again. Right, David? Hello
David? Buddy, dont leave me hanging here
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., apologized Monday night for "a very serious sin in my past" after his telephone number appeared among those associated with an escort service operated by the so-called "D.C. Madam."
Oh, man, I did not see that coming. He seemed like such a good, Christian fella. I am totally confused. Maybe he can straighten it out for me.
"This was a very serious sin in my past for which I am, of course, completely responsible," Vitter said in the statement. "Several years ago, I asked for and received forgiveness from God and my wife in confession and marriage counseling. Out of respect for my family, I will keep my discussion of the matter there -- with God and them. But I certainly offer my deep and sincere apologies to all I have disappointed and let down in any way."
When our heros fall...
That's a quality, "sorry I fucked a whore" statement. I count two shout outs to God, one howdy to his wife, one what up? to his family and uh, nothing about the whore he was shoving his hot, religious cock into. She just gets a subtle sin reference, after all that work she did. That is not very Christian, seriously.
Well, I forgive David. I dont care all that much about prostitution. But it is illegal. And if we are going to prosecute the madam in this case, then we should certainly prosecute the men who had sex with the prostitutes. After all, if the men were not looking for sex, there would be no prostitution at all. Most importantly, Vitter should be prosecuted for sake of the nation's children. He looked out for them by opposing gay marriage and with his abstinence program, so wouldnt it make sense that he should be prosecuted, if only to show the kids that they should not fuck whores?
Nevermind, he already asked God to forgive him, so we're all good.
What Is The Point In Having a Country Without Hooch and Whores?
Foreign troops and visitors are ruining Afghanistan, according to religious officials. They have brought in prostitution and alcohol but now the government is fighting back. Afghans are lining up for jobs in a new department of vice. The new department staff will monitor people for "correct" Islamic behavior.
President Karzai is one of the leaders of the new vice movement. According to the Washington Post, Karzai is being pressured by religious groups and is attempting to upstage the Taliban who are still active in the south.
The Taliban used to have a Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Discouragement of Vice. It was their brutal branch of government known for whipping women for wearing socks that were not sufficiently opaque, showing skin or for not being accompanied by a close male relative on the streets. They stopped women from educating girls in home-based schools, working, and even begging. They also beat men for trimming their beards.
But government officials insist that any crackdown will not involve beating people or taking away their rights, but would be "educational" in nature. So far the police have destroyed thousands of bottles of alcohol. Under current laws, restaurants may only serve alcohol to foreigners, but not to locals. Police have also detained a number of suspected prostitutes, some of whom were deported back to China.
Recently the government sent 1,200 South Korean Christians back to South Korea, fearing their presence would offend Muslims. In March, a man who converted to Christianity was threatened with the death penalty but was allowed to flee to Italy after international protest. And in May, angry mobs vandalized several Chinese brothels.
More democracy in action.