Girls and guys in Brazil are generally very sexually liberated. The body itself is a cult and an end unto itself. You go to the beach in Rio de Janeiro on the weekend and the sands are full of beautiful bodies getting their tan. In Rio in particular there must be a higher density of beauty salons and gyms than anywhere in the world. All the guys want big muscles and the girls want to look hot.
Then they head down to the beach and slip into bikinis and trunks and flirt, smoke and chat away on the sand. Walking down the beach in Ipanema it was hard to even focus with so many hot bodies scattered around. The girls have great skin and choose to wear the smallest bikinis they can possibly find. A fashion a few years ago was the dental floss bikini that left very little to the imagination.
Yet you will hardly ever see a topless girl. It’s as though to expose her breasts would be indecent whilst to wear 5 cm of bikini and thong over her sun-drenched body is perfectly okay. The girls go walking past like this almost naked and don’t give it a second thought. They’re so at ease with their bodies that they like to show them off.
For all of this the beach doesn’t seem a great place to hit on girls. Even the Brazilian guys take it easy and normally they don’t give a girl a chance to breathe before they’re asking for her phone number. On the beach it seems like neutral territory.
One good trick though is to ask some hot girls to look after you bags while you go swimming or running. Then when you come back you have the perfect opportunity to get to know them better.
Ipanema beach in Rio de Janeiro is the best place to meet cool Brazilians as there are hardly any prostitutes on this beach and it’s where the young crowd hang out to smoke marijuana. The beach is marked with stations called postos and the cool area to hang out ) and where you’ll find the most beautiful Brazilian girls is posto 9. Sometimes the police arrive to bust someone for smoking dope and a slow handclap goes up to alert everyone to hide their ganja in the sand.
Further down the beach between posto 8 and 9 is the gay area of the beach. Some girls go there to escape attention but if you’re a guy then you might find some young or older hunks wanting to meet you.
Copocabana beach is breathtakingly beautiful but many of the sexy women who hang out here are prostitutes. They will tend to sit in groups and flash you inviting smiles and call out to come and join them. They may even come over to you. Copacabana is famous for its sex scene and many locals find it all kind of sleazy. Copacabana beach is also where you find the old sex tourists who have just come out of their hotel on the search for sex for sale.
Brazil Travel Stories - Gringoes.com offers a range of Brazil tales. A little fluffy but in good spirit.
Rio de Janeiro guide - Ipanema.com is a cool, sexy site that gives you the lowdow on carioca culture.
Lonely Planet Brazil - Of course there's always the LP perspective.
BBC Brazil Profile - A sober look at the history, society and economy of the country