Sexual economies are always influenced by broader political economic circumstances, and Brazil is no exception to this rule. That is, the political and economic shifts that affect inflation, pricing, tourism rates, and levels of disposable income in the broader social landscape also affect the sex industry, including the number of men selling sex at a given moment, how much they charge, and the sex acts in which they are willing to engage.
The macroeconomy plays out in the sexual microeconomy of individual lived experiences. Brazil makes an especially good case study for examining such connections because of its remarkable economic volatility over the last half century. This post-dictatorship period was a time of widespread hyperinflation and great economic struggle as the country attempted to right itself, but it had not yet attained the economic gains of the s, when soaring commodity prices and the discovery of new light sweet crude oil brought about a booming economy and the growth of a consumer class previously unknown in Brazil.
With that explosion came thousands of men willing to sell sex in order to participate in conspicuous consumption and enjoy class mobility Mitchell, Later, in the s, Brazil would suffer the deepest economic crisis in decades when the prices charged by male sex workers came crashing down alongside major financial mismanagement and government corruption, further disrupting the sexual economy.
But the economic peril of the early s deserves special analysis because it drove many young heterosexually identified men to selling sex even as the HIV epidemic roared across the country, meaning these hustlers reluctantly entered a sexual marketplace that was steeped in paranoia, fear, desperation, and often self-loathing. Williams College. In those days, a minute programa session with a client cost about 80 US dollars. Now that the value of the Brazilian real has fallen from 1. However, the introduction of geosocial sexual networking apps like Grindr, Scruff, and Hornet have disrupted the industry, allowing garotos to work more flexible hours, to be more selective, and to work from virtually anywhere.
It also means that young men who were uncomfortable working in formal bathhouse or brothel venues or who were afraid to hustle on the street can now work online from the convenience of their phone. The result has been a large increase in supply. And so 1 tried to trace the history of male prostitution in Brazil, and in Rio de Janeiro specifically.
