"Here, nakedness doesn't only lead to sexuality, it leads you to aesthetic
appreciation. A woman is dancing but it's not pornographic. It's a collective
experience of reconsidering bodies, like at the Olympic games," said Roberto Da
Matta, a retired University of Notre Dame sociology professor and author of
Carnivals, Rogues and Heroes.
Da Matta says his granddaughters watch the nearly nude samba dancers in TV ads
during the run-up to carnival, grading them like judges at a gymnastic
competition, or in the same way Rio's Samba parade is judged.
The annual Samba parade, which takes place on Sunday and Monday nights, is the
high point of the festival. Vegas-ready floats and glitter-covered dancers are
broadcast live across the nation, and fans root for their favorite samba groups
with a passion normally reserved for soccer teams.
This year, the parade features 13 samba groups, each producing 80-minute-long
spectacles costing up words of a million dollars.
Total nudity is prohibited and a less-than-perfect score from the exacting
panel of judges can doom a group's chances.
There are other limits, too, in this predominantly Catholic country.
Toplessness is still considered taboo on the city's beaches, although many
people came out to greet Pope John Paul II in bikinis and thongs some years
back. And in 2005, the Rio state government banned postcards showing
bikini-clad women in photo montages or outside natural beach settings.
"Showing women in skimpy outfits, usually from the rear, is a disservice to our
country," the law's sponsor, state Senator Alice Tamborindeguy, said at the
time.
Still, most Brazilians don't duck the issue of sex.
The government distributes millions of free condoms at carnival time and talks
frankly about sexually transmitted diseases. Experts credit the Brazilians'
openness about their bodies and sex for helping to contain the AIDS epidemic in
South America's largest country.
"I'm entirely comfortable dressed like this," said this year's Carnival Queen
Jacqueline Faria, 23, wearing little more than a rhinestone encrusted push-up
bra and a sequin spotted see-through skirt revealing a tiny G-string.
"This is Rio de Janeiro, it's all about the beach and sun. We don't wear many
clothes here at anytime during the year," Faria explains. "But Rio de Janeiro
isn't just about bum bum. It has lots of other culture."
