City of Sex

Here in Rio another one of those megalomaniacal ideas has popped up, which under the protective mantle of "generating employment" and "stimulating tourism," would make millions of reals change hands, and in the process generously line the pockets of those involved. This one is the so-called "City of Sex,” a vaguely phallic structure, which, to judge by the photos I have seen, resembles two spermatozoa copulating! Not yet an official initiative, it is the final project for the course work of a young architect. But something like this is always dangerous in a city like Rio de Janeiro, where the daily diet is made of the "fast-food" of advertising factoids and hype.

The defenders of the "City of Sex" say that Brazil is a sensual country, that Rio de Janeiro is an eroticized city, that Brazilians are a people without prejudices and preconceptions, etc. etc. Since this is the case (they argue) we need to create a market for this, even larger than the one that already exists. Bull. Brazilians and cariocas are not as liberated and free from hang-ups as they claim. There is no such thing as "the Brazilian” or "the carioca". These are simply clichés and abstractions used by those who have something to sell (in this case, the press and advertisers).

The City of Sex, a mall with stalls for sexual relations, offices for urologists and proctologists, museums of erotic art, and theaters for porno films, is a symptom for a sort of Stalinism of pleasure, one of the dreams of Advertising Capitalism that runs things in Brazil. Centralization. Concentration. Massive investment. The creation of a special place, highly valued, fought over tooth, nail and dollar. In the place of free, personal, anonymous, domestic sex, instead of sex at home, the sex of Joe Sixpack with Mary Housewife, Power (not Government, but real Power: Money, whose stage name is "the Market") offers this grandiloquent, Disneyesque vision, a hybrid monstrosity which brings together three powerful profit center: shopping mall, bordello and motel.

I am not being a moralist, friends. I am even "sweetly pornographic,” in the words of the poet Drummond. But sex is personal. Someone who wants to use it as a basis of pharaonic public investment is not interested in having the public expand their horizons - he wants them to open their wallets. He wants to do with sex with what has already been done with that infallible attractor, Love. "Love" is a whorish word which can be used to sell anything to those who don't have real love in their lives. On TV, a husband exclaims "Wow! What delicious food! What did you make it with?" His wife holds up the container of margarine and replies "with love!"

Sex is the same thing. Rio de Janeiro is already world-renowned as the City of the Butt. Which is false. The Pimps of the Market have managed to make Rio increasingly, with every decade that passes, the city of sly money, made-up filth, the city of styrofoam fast-food, the city of permissiveness with financing, of compulsory promiscuity, the ideal bait for those who are setting their hooks.

* Translated from the original Portuguese by Tom Moore. Tom is a classical musician and translator who lives in Rio de Janeiro. His most recent CD of trio sonatas by Boismortier is available from A Casa Estúdio.

Start Planning Your Trip to Brazil

Discuss Your Travel Plans and Share Your Experiences on the BrazilMax Travel Forum