Rapidinhas - November 95

Xuxa & Spiller

Body

Bare all about it!

Brazilians' fascination with the naked body of their female idols has no end. And since these idols seem eager to oblige there's a constant strip tease show going on. Some child and teen TV artists just wait the legal 18 to show all their wares on Playboy, on TV, or some other less sophisticated stage. "Queen of the shorties" Xuxa, 32, for example, had already undressed for the cameras on a softporno movie before becoming world famous.

Just recently Playboy disrobed Adriana Galisteu, 22, the last sweetheart of late Formula 1 hero Ayrton Senna and took her to Greece for the 26-page pictorial. The issue sold more than 1 million copies, a record. When alive, Senna persuaded the magazine's editors not to publish a similar series of nudes.

Now is the turn of blond TV sweetie Letícia Spiller, 22, to bare it all. After many nos to TV and male magazines she chose a most cultured way of exhibitionism, appearing in the Clara Góes's play Abelardo, Heloísa (Abélard, Héloïse), a retelling of the classic medieval story until now better known for the tragic love affair between their protagonists. Director Moacyr Góes decided that some nudity wouldn't hurt the show. And was he right.

The Teatro Gloria's spectacle has been so popular since it opened October 5, that Góes had to add shows on weekends and he has asked police to get rid of scalpers who have been reselling tickets of the show for outrageous prices. The director had promised to omit the scene in which Héloïse undresses herself for Abélard if the nudity became bigger than the play. It did. But who would dare suppress the scene now and start a civil war in the country?

Crime

The lion's share

Without too much to do in prison and while preparing for a much busier life outside, Carioca (from Rio) Sérgio Ratazana (Big Rat), Cerro Corá's favela (shanty town) drug lord, had a macabre idea to finish up his foes — policemen and rival gangsters — without a trace. He ordered his henchmen to raise two lions whose diet should include human flesh in preparation to eat his enemies.

Sansão and Dalila were bought and were being raised accordingly, when police got wind of the scheme. Apparently worried that he would become a victim of their own weapon a Ratazana's acolyte called the cops and gave them the service. The police found the five-month, well-fed and still cuddly beasts before the lawmen themselves could be had for lunch.

Sin

A very rough-cut

Citing the Gospel of St. Matthew, "if thy right eye is an occasion of sin to thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee", Paulista (from São Paulo) Édson Passos, 36, severed his own penis in a bizarre reenacting of the John Bobbitt's episode in which the American ex-marine was castrated by his jealous wife Lorena. For almost two decades Passos has been on a spiritual journey trying to master his carnal desires. Among other sects and religions, he frequented Umbanda, the Baptist Church, and lately was at the Igreja Universal do Reino de Deus (see our cover story).

All of this and all the prayers, however, weren't enough to take his mind off sinful thoughts. He confessed, "I couldn't resist touching women on crowded trains and wasn't able to be faithful to my wife. I was even thinking about sexually molesting a five-year-old niece."

His self-mutilation act was well thought through. Passos, an auto mechanic, built in his workshop a three-feet-tall and one-feet-wide guillotine with a very sharp blade connected to a 20-pound weight. After cutting his glans out, on a Sunday morning, Passos ran to his neighbor who took him to Hospital do Mandaqui's emergency room. Only at 9 PM the doctors started an implant operation, which took five hours. It was doubtful the surgery would be successful. But even without the glans, Passos, after a plastic surgery, may have a normal sexual life, according to his doctors. At home, his wife and children can't understand what got into the mechanic. A psychological test didn't detect any grave psychological disorder and Passos doesn't regret his action for a minute. "I have proved that I love God more than the devil," he said. "Now I know He will spare me the temptations."

Penis shy

For Brazilian machões these were bad news. The average national penis is only 14.1 cm (5.5''), it was revealed during the recent 3rd Latin American Congress on Sexual Impotence which was held in São Paulo. If there was any consolation was the fact that this is the worldwide average too. Three studies have been made in Brazil since 1990 to measure the male organ, which shows a little obsession there with the subject. Mineiro (from Minas Gerais) urologist Luiz Otávio Torres, responsible for the latest penis research, commented, "In Brazil there's this reverence for the 8-inch penises seen on porno movies, but they are very rare."

No sex, we are Brazilian

For years, tourist appeals to visit Brazil have practically disappeared from the media all over the world. Embratur, the state agency in charge of promoting the country, has been bankrupt. But now the government has destined $12 million to promote the Brazilian image overseas. Embratur has already been put on notice, however, that the money cannot be used, as in the past, to show female buttocks and breasts. Instead the new campaign will have lots of trees, animals and nature in general. Off with sextourists, in with ecotourists.

For a free body market

Prostitutes from all of Brazil are converging this month to Salvador, Bahia, for their national conference. One of their main goals is to get off the books the law that considers a crime the maintenance of whorehouses and pimpery. Those offenses carry sentences from two to five years in prison. The ladies of the night want to pay social benefits and get all the privileges like any other worker. The National Network of Sex Professionals is angry at the recent Beijing's 4th International Conference on Women for their condemnation of prostitution. Their leader, ex-prostitute and sociologist Gabriela da Silva Leite, 44, says that she had classes with sociologist F. H. Cardoso at USP (Universidade de São Paulo). Fernando Henrique Cardoso is Brazil's president.

Vintage water

Some towns have all the luck. While most of them have pipes to bring gas and water to houses, Bento Gonçalves in Rio Grande do Sul has wine in those tubes. The just installed wineducts in that city was made by Vinícola Aurora, Brazil's biggest wine exporter. Almost ten-mile long, the $3-million underground ducts link four units of the company, saving 3,500 truck trips a year.

A little help

The Johns Hopkins University, in an effort to curb the spread of AIDS in Brazil, has made a curious donation to the Projeto Praça Onze from Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). To avoid the breakage of condoms, something more common with anal intercourse, the school has sent 10.000 flasks of American intimate lubricant to Carioca (from Rio) gays.

Hungry marines

The Brazilian navy is giving monthly five-day licenses to the majority of its personnel. The objective is to reduce by 16% expenses with food. It seems that in the latest six years an increasing number of navy men have been spending more time than needed at their bases. They hang around apparently to eat the infamous military food. At home the situation is even worse.

Streetless Tom

For the second time in a row Rio's Justice decided against the change of a street name to that of late world-renowned maestro Tom Jobim. First it was Avenida Vieira Souto, in Ipanema, which had to go back to its original name, after some weeks as Antônio Carlos Jobim. Now the Visconde de Pirajá street regained its moniker and mayor César Maia continues looking for a place to honor the "Girl from Ipanema"'s composer.

Street talk

Prisons and streets have always been a fertile soil for slang. Street children in Brazil have their own colorful vocabulary. In Brasília, the capital, Vilma Luís, who lives under a bridge, says, "The first thing we do in the morning is to smell thinner. Then I spend my day viajando (spaced out). Her and her colleagues have a special dialect with words like:

Badaga - Glue

Badagueiro - Glue sniffer

Bodinho - (literally little goat) Yuppie

Dar o gogó - Take someone by the throat

Dar o confere - Frisk someone when stealing

Ir para Londres - (go to London) To have sex

Mela - Cocaine paste which is smoked in a little pipe

Meter - To steal

Metranca - Weapon

Mincha - Iron bar used for entering locked cars

Mocó - A place to sleep

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