Meet the tween queens behind Brazil’s butt training meme. I first heard about the Bonde Das Maravilhas (literally “Train of Wonders”) last year from a lady giving me a bikini wax in Copacabana Beach. When she found out I like funk music, she told me I had to check out this group of girls on YouTube [...]
Sunday afternoon in Copacabana Beach and I’m out at sea. The sound of Rihanna blasting from a thousand speakers draws me in to shore. Let’s take a closer look! I have just paddleboarded into the 17th Annual Gay Pride Parade. IT’S A CELEBRATION BITCHES!! Thirteen semis with sound systems brought to you by Grupo Arco-Iris. [...]
Rio is the hottest gay travel spot on the planet. True or False? I asked Gregory Mitchell, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at Williams College and resident expert on gay sex tourism in Brazil, to confirm or deny media claims that Rio is the hottest gay travel destination on the planet. A reply [...]
Luxury brothel smackdown in Rio de Janeiro. The Olympic City takes aim at a pricey brothel popular with tourists in its latest effort to clean up Rio’s image abroad. In my first story for The Atlantic’s new city-specific edition, AtlanticCities, I report on the Rio+20 raids, where an ultra-expensive sauna brothel called Centaurus, along [...]
Erotika is a strip club in Copacabana. Linox is a band with a new album. They meet over whiskey and feathers. Erotika is a strip club in the Prado Junior district, one of dozens of inferninhos (“little hells”) where you can meet prostitutes in Copacabana. Linox took over last Wednesday for the release of their [...]
Rio’s new police forces may have shut down the famed funk parties in Vidigal and Rocinha, but the Sunday night funk party in Rio das Pedras has been going hard for years. Since Rio’s pacification forces (UPP) have been retaking control of strategically located and highly visible favelas like Vidigal and Rocinha from drug traffickers, they’ve [...]
