As I mentioned many a long time ago.
That there were too many fools, er, smart folk responsible for screwing up the price structure of GDP's in Brazil. People don't realize that there is a pecking order in a society and we, the outsiders who gave GDPs any price they asked, were just f*cking up the pecking order. Locals paid these skanks what 10% of what us foreigners were paying them in venues such as Help (RIP). Remember that place? So, I am going to guess that Balcony IS going to be that next place to shutdown, I am 99. 9% sure it is just a matter of time.
Sao Paolo has its group of places that caters to the foreign and the well healed: Cafe Photo, W Garden, They will gladly take the BR700 to BR800 (If you include the entrance) for a very short time (One pop as mentioned by some of the gals) for the same skanks that people in the know will do for less than half and in a bunch of cases less than 25% in their apartments in Moema, Consolasao, Villa Olimpia or wherever they stay. In their apartments you can stay for one and a half, two hours, get multiple pops and no rush service.
As guests is someone elses' yard, we need to FOLLOW what the locals do. We have introduced some bad habits to some nice local places like tipping at the local Termas, even among the cashiers and doormen, (Yes, I'm guilty of that bad habit too) , but what annoys locals the most is the way us outsiders threw around or used to without thinking of who it will affect later down the road. Now we are all complaining about high prices in Copacabana, Ipanema, Sao Paulo, Fortaleza, Brazil. Geez, fellas, I wonder why?
[QUOTE=Sperto; 1162377]Many of us are complaining about how Rio has become expensive. Maybe we should feel sorry for the Copa-GP's instead?
Many GP's working in Copabana are of a strange breed. They might live in a favela in Zona Norte. They have almost never visited Copa, except on occassional Domingo when they took the metro to Copa and had a farofa-festa on the beach. They have never had any contact at all with gringos. They have one or two kids. The father has left long ago and pays no support. Life is tough. Their options are few. Honest hard work might not be appealing. Selling their p*why seems more tempting. Working at Vila Mimosa for R$25 is too hard, as the local VM-customers are demanding and wants completa-service. Working in a privę is to much competition.
What to do? They hear a story about a beautiful friend of theirs who was doing tricks in Copa and earned lots of money selling sex to gringos. Earning lots of money with little work sounds interesting. As a result the girls buy themselfes some plastic hair extension and a new dress and head to Copa. They end up in Balcony. Back in Zona Norte they would be happy if a local paid R$30 for a programma. Suddenly they are in heaven as they can charge R$300. Being beautiful isn't necessary. There are always some drunk gringos that get overwhelmed by a smiling girl eager to satisfy their sexual needs. If the girl is smart she realize that she can do four customers per night if she lower her rate to R$150. However most Copa GP's are not smart, they are lazy and greedy. They think it's better to stick to their rate of R$300, even if it only means one customer every second night. If the business is going really bad they might even raise the price to R$400.
Unless the girl is exceptional beautiful she propably gets disappointed very soon of her new life as a Copa-GP. The golden stories she heard about easy money selling sex to gringos in Copa are not what she excepted. The gringos are few. In the "old days" when the dollar was strong and Help, Meia Pataca and ho-beach were busy, there were lots of gringos. Many were big spenders and payed whatever the girls asked for and even tipped the GP's. Now, with the weak dollar, the gringos think twice before they overpay. [/QUOTE]