Identidades in English No 4, December 2014 | Page 41

This is how Brazil’s image as a country of soccer,
samba, beer, women and beaches gets affirmed.
This company is in association with official entities such as EMBRATUR (Brazilian Tourism Institute) and CBTur (Brazilian Chamber of
Tourism), as well as with private ones
like the São Paolo Convention and
ABIH (Brazilian Hotel Industry Association). What this creates in the mind
of foreigners is the notion that Brazilian women are always available and
that nudity is the norm at any time.
An example of this can be found in the
events that took place at the Manaos
Stadium (Figure 2). An English fan
went to the nighttime game between
England and Italy and thought that the
heat made it OK for him to watch it
naked.4

Figure 2. Source: IG Último Segundo, 2014
There is another sort of indulgence to be found in
brothels. Prostitutes are illegal in Brazil, but there
is a brothel concession for the Bahamas Hotel
Club (São Paulo) that operates with a “hotel and
professional service” license in order to offer sexual services, “with a view to the World Cup.”
Publicity ads like the one below were placed on
São Paulo roads to attract tourists (Figure 3).
This advertisement simulates a woman having
oral sex with a soccer player. In addition to promoting sex tourism, it situates women as one of
Brazil’s attractions, the same way sports brand

Adidas did. Bilingual personnel were hired at the
Bahamas Hotel Club, which also accepted foreign
currency as payment. This nocturnal club had
been closed since 2007, but reopened with a provisional two-year permit and a guarantee from

Figure 3. Source: EFE, São Paulo,
2014.

Fernando Haddad, São Paulo’s Prefect, that it
would not hold erotic shows. In any event, impresario and owner Oscar Moroni confirmed that intelligent and physically delicious, universityeducated women worked at the club (Área H,
2014).5
He also said that the government should concern
itself with the sexual exploitation going on
around the stadiums and not the sex tourism at the
club. He argued that his product not only increased sex tourism, but also stimulated the restaurant economy. This provoked reactions from
the NGOs Plan and Anette Trompeter, both of
which work to prevent and combat sexual tourism. Both are against this type of publicity because it counters efforts being made so that the
country’s images shall not be associated with sex.
Even the Tourism Ministry stated that this type
advertising went against the federal government’s
national campaign. On June 12, 2014, a billboard
in Salvador depicted an image of the World Cup
associated with a sex act (Figure 4). A woman in
a soccer jersey is holding her breasts, her hands
wearing goalie gloves. The term “Espanhola” refers to a man masturbating with a woman’s
breasts.6

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