The Gay Tease of "Sinfonia"

I don't know what Sintonia is about -- the title means "Tune" in Portuguese -- but Netflix keeps recommending it to me with a picture of a stunningly beautiful teen idol type with frosted hair and a lot of feminine jewelry -- obviously gay.  So I go through it on fast forward to see if the character is actually gay.

Episode #1:  Two friends from a poor neighborhood of São Paulo have Big Dreams: Nando wants to become a singer, and Doni, to become a drug dealer.  That's right, both are presented as honorable professions.  They sit across a table and give each other longing looks.

A gay couple?  So far, so good.

Their other friend is Rita.

Episode 2:  Nando gets upset when someone steals his music, and Doni gets in trouble with the police.  Who would have guessed?  Meanwhile Rita finds religion.

Episode 3: Nando becomes a success, and it goes to his head, and Doni defends a fellow drug dealer.  Rita is still religious, saying things like "God has a plan for you."

No sex scenes yet, no hetero-romance of any sort -- a good sign.

And we get the first scene of Nando in a swimsuit, in a pool with his boyfriend (I assume) and no one else.  Unfortunately, Netflix will not permit me to take a screen shot.

Episode 4: Nando overcommits to singing gigs, and Doni fears for his life after a drug deal goes badly.  We see him with his shirt off, briefly.

Still no sex scenes or hetero-romance. But Nando and Doni have only a few scenes together, like two friends catching up on the latest gossip: "And then he said....so I told him...."

Episode 5: Doni  has sex with a girl backstage.

 Wait -- he's straight?   And they wait until the 5th of 6th episodes to let viewers know?   What a tease!

But at least he doesn't perform the sex scene convincingly.  It looks like they're trying to eat each other.  Not much experience in kissing girls, Doni?

Meanwhile  Nando is in trouble, and Rita is still religious.

Episode 6: Who cares what Doni the Gay Tease does?

Nando is rewarded by his drug cartel, and Rita is still religious.

Sinfonia turns out to be a dud.

Doni, the stunningly beautiful Gay Tease, is played by MC JottaPê  (João Pedro Carvalho), a 19-year old telenovela star turned singer, known for "Sentou e gostou" ("I sat down and liked it").

His music videos mostly show him dancing with lots of scantily-clad girls, drinking champaign, and showing us money.

His Instagram contains a lot of photos of girls, plus a couple of shirtless pics.

Here he sticks out his tongue for the camera (I forget what it means, but it's common in selfies).  The caption reads "I am from Tommy, my girl of Oakley."

I'm guessing he's heterosexual.

Nando is played by 19-year old actor Christian Malheiros, who has done a lot of stage work and starred in Socrates (2018), about a gay teen left alone after his mother's death.  He can't stay with his homophobic father, so he tries living on his own, and ends up in a romance with his boss.

His instagram doesn't have any photos of girls, but here's one of his biceps and bulge.

I'm guessing gay.

The Brazilian Boy Stripped Naked by Aliens

Alien abduction stories today often involve have a sexual component: the harvesting of eggs or sperm from the abductee through a mechanical device, or forced sexual activity.  But the convention began long before the abduction era, during the first UFO "flap" (sudden surge of sightings), with the experience of Antonio Vilas Boas.

About 1:00 am on October 16, 1957, the 23-year old farmer was working near Sao Francisco de Sales in Minas Gerais province, Brazil (working at night because it was too hot during the daytime).  Suddenly his tractor stalled, and a huge glowing "star" appeared.  An egg-shaped spaceship landed, and some humanoids resembling classic greys came out.

He was terrified and tried to run away, but after a struggle, they subdued him (apparently the technology to paralyze humans, found in later accounts,  hadn't been invented yet).

 They dragged him onto their spaceship, stripped him naked, and rubbed him all over with a thick clear liquid.

Then they took him into another room and took two blood samples (from his chin).

Finally they put him in a third room by himself and pumped in some red gas.  A naked female humanoid appeared (the picture he drew makes her look like a blond Jessica Rabbit).

He immediately became aroused -- due to the aprodisiac qualities of the gas, he thought -- and they had sexual intercourse.  Afterwards the humanoids led the female away, gave him a tour of the ship, and let him go.

The technology to wipe memories hadn't been invented yet, either, so he remembered everything.  After complaining of nausea and other symptoms of radiation exposure, he reported his experience to to Dr. Olavio T. Fontes of the National School of Medicine, who also happened to be a UFO researcher.  His story appeared in newspapers and UFO journals throughout Latin America, and in 1965 appeared in the U.S., in the Flying Saucer Review.  

Vilas Boas later became a lawyer in the city of Formosa.  He married and had four children.

Researchers point out evidence that the story was a hoax -- it appeared during a UFO "flap" in Brazil, and similar stories were appearing in the media -- he never recanted it.

You're probably wondering, heterosexual intercourse, man with four kids. Where's the gay angle?

I first read the story  in some paranormal magazine at my aunt's house when when I was 13 or 14 years old.






1. I had studied Spanish (not Portuguese), but I had never met anyone from Latin American before.  It was fun imagining a muscular, hung Brazilian farmer.

2.  A man being stripped naked, while other men rub things on him and insert things into him, seemed strangely provocative.

3.  This was the first time I actually read about anyone being "aroused."  I knew what arousal was, and I could easily imagine it,without the presence of the female humanoid.

Romero Britto's Gay Art and Conservative Politics

Brazilian-born artist Romero Britto brings pop art into the 21st century with his instantly recognizable style of interlocking, brightly-colored patterns.  His work has appeared in over 100 museums and galleries around the world; his public art is on display in New York, Berlin, Paris, and Brazil; he has designed ads for dozens of companies, from Disney to Absolut Vodka.

His work is mostly "cute", puppies and kittens and children.  But there's some of gay interest, like this nude torso and penis.

And this bulging beach boy.

A lot of hetero-romance, but at least one gay couple.

Politically conservative, he designed the art for ultra-homophobic Jeb Bush's presidential bid in 2016.  But paradoxically, he also designed the art for this mass gay wedding in Atlanta in 2015.

Although rather flamboyant in real life, he has been married to a woman since 1988, and has a son, Brendan.

Who worked for Hillary.

Little Lulu's Gay Kiss

In 2011, Archie comics made history by introducing Kevin Keller, the first gay character (with the term "gay" used) in children's comics.

Kevin is now a regular part of the gang, but his sexual identity is definitely in the background.  He is rarely shown dating, and he never kisses boys.  For that, we had to wait for Little Lulu.

Luzinha Teen e sua Terma  (Teenage Little Lulu and Her Gang) was a Brazilian comic reboot (2009-2015) of the classic comic book series, drawn in manga style.

Luluzinha is 15 years old, intelligent, resourceful, with a passion for dots (um, that's another character altogether).  She has a number of boyfriends, including Zico, Patrick, Ball, and the vampire Vincinius.

Ball (Tubby) is a slim, athletic aspiring rock musician, lead guitarist for the band Loki.  He is in love with Luluzinha, although he dates a number of girls.

Glorinha (Gloria) is into shopping and fashion.  She has several boyfriends.

Annie is a video game and computer geek.  She is dating Icarus.

Alvinho (Alvin) is a rebellious preteen who aspires to become a surfer.  He is dating Lila.

So far so heteronormative. But in 2013, Edgar arrives, a member of Ball's band.  He soon announces to the gang that he was gay, and started dating Fabio.  In issue 57, they kiss.

The gang is nonchalant, but Edgar's homophobic father is horrified, and assaults him.  Vicente, the school director, steps in.

On the whole, it's a "coming out" episode like what we saw on tv frequently during the 1980s, but in 2013 in a Brazilian children's comic.

It's a start.

See also: Little Lulu

Top 12 Public Penises of South America 1: The East

Since I was doing the public penises of Central America and the Caribbean, I thought I would South America as well.  I visited Colombia once, 30 years ago, but otherwise it is completely uncharted territory.

But it looks like most countries in South America match Europe in the size and complexity of their gay communities, and in the legislative response: no sodomy laws, same-sex partnerships, anti-discrimination laws.

And, especially in the countries straddling the equator, ample beefcake.

Here are the top 12 public penises of South America:

1. If you work your way down from the public penises of the Caribbean, the first country you hit is Venezuela, In Maracaibo, a buffed Saint Sebastian is falling out of his clothes as he's pierced by arrows beside a concrete tree.

2. Next come three colonies or recent colonies. Guyana is the only South American state that still has sodomy laws (what do you expect from a former British colony?).

This monument in Georgetown depicts Kuffy, the leader of a slave revolt in 1763.  He's not doing what you think.

3. Suriname is a former Dutch colony, so Dutch is still the official language.  A muscular freed slave named Kwakoe, is the symbol of the city of Parimaribo.  He's regularly dressed by clubs and organizations, and the Surinamian community in the Netherlands holds an annual Kwakoe Festival.

4. Guiana (not to be confused with Guyana) is a department of France.  The capital is Cayenne, but the economy has nothing to do with pepper.

At the entrance to the city, three people holding up a pyramid symbolize the African, European, and Indian races who constitute Guiana.  The Indian apparently has quite an endowment.

5. Also in Cayenne, you can see a statue of French abolitionist Victor Schoelcher freeing a grateful slave in a loincloth.

More after the break.

The Boys of Rebelde

Rebelde (2011-2012) is a teen telenovela modeled on the Argentine Rebelde Way (with Benjamin Rojas), about teenagers in an exclusive private school who form a band.  But it upped the beefcake and the gay subtexts of the original.

There are two versions, Brazilian and Mexican.

1. Pedro (Micael Borges) enrolls in the private school in order to avenge his father's death, but ends up falling in love with the daughter of the man responsible.

2. Diego (Arthur Aguilar, left) is his best friend, but when they both date the same girl, they have a falling out and break up.

3. The gay-vague Tomas (Chay Suede) steps in while Pedro and Diego are "on a break."

4. Meanwhile, Joao (Michel Gomes) aggressively courts Diego.

5. Teo (Bernardo Falcone) is the slim, stylish, gay-vague "best friend" to all the girls.

6. Fabio (Pedro Cassiano) is the chief antagonist.

7. Rafael (Rodrigo Costa), a gay character, who seems to hang around just to get bullied and discriminated against.

Pele: Futbol and Homophobia Come to America

When I was a kid in the 1960s, only three sports existed: baseball, basketball, and football.  I hated them. Boring, tedious, pointless attempts to gain control of a silly little ball.  To this day I've seen only about five baseball games and three basketball games without falling asleep.  No football games.

Then suddenly, in the spring of 1972, a guy named Pele started appearing on t-shirts and lunch boxes, and on tv commercials, bouncing a black-and-white ball on his head.

I had never heard of futbol, or what the Americans call soccer.  I figured he must be a Olympic athlete.









At least he filled out his uniform nicely, and there are some photographs out there with full-frontal nudity.

Turns out that Pele was "the athlete of the century," a Brazilian national hero, who won the World Cup many times in a row, and almost single-handedly introduced the game into the U.S.

Today 13.5 million people in the U.S. play soccer, more than baseball (11.5) and football (8.9).  It's no-contact rule makes it popular among kids who don't enjoy bashing each other's heads in.








But it's still homophobic.

Pele has been embroiled in a battle-of-insults for several years with fellow soccer great Diego Marandona.  Pele claims that Diego is a degenerate drug addict who is a poor role model for kids.  Then Diego "accuses" Pele of being gay; he "lost his virginity" to his soccer coach at age 15.

Ok, that's statutory rape.  The age of consent in Brazil is 16.

The soccer world is mostly outraged at Marandona (left).  How dare he accuse the Brazilian national hero of something so horrible?  As one blogger pointed out: "Brazilian soccer players aren't homophobic, they just hate gays."

Pele's reaction was slightly less homophobic.  First he denied it: degenerate drug addicts will say anything.  When a 1981 interview in Playboy magazine surfaced with Pele mentioning the incident, he still denied it, claiming that he had been misquoted: "I don't have a problem with it. If I did it, I would admit it.  You do so many crazy things when you are a kid."

At least he "doesn't have a problem" with it.

See also: Joe DiMaggio.

Caio Castro: Gay Homophobic Teen Idol

Born in 1989, Caio Castro was a 20-year old computer science student in Rio de Janeiro when he was cast as heartthrob Bruno on the teen soap Malhacao (Workout).

After a relatively short run of 21 episodes (2009-2010), he moved on to the telenovela Ti Ti Ti (You You You) for 26 episodes  (2010) as the heartthrob Edgar Sampaio.  His character wasn't gay, but he interacted with the gay Julinho (Andre Arteche).

Next Caio moved on to the telenovela Fina Estampa (Look and Essence) for 35 episodes (2011-2012) as duplitious medical student Jose Antenor. Again, he interacted with a gay character, Baltazar (Alexandre Nero).

Although he has a rather short resume to date, Caio has become a Brazilian superstar, with many public appearances, endless photo shoots, and 6 awards, including the 2011 "Gato del Ano" from the Brazilian Nickelodeon, and the 2012 "Idolo Teen."

He's also been subject to gay rumors, especially after being seen with gay fellow Malhacao star Micael Borges (left). But he denies them.

In an interview, Caio stated that he would prefer to be known as a "catcher" rather than a "queer" ("deer," a derogatory term for gay men in Brazilian Portuguese).

The statement caused a great deal of controversy in Brazil, where it was widely condemned as homophobic.  He later stated that he was misquoted.