Brazil once had a wildly popular gay magazine full of nude soccer stars

In 1997, a magazine dedicated to gay men in Brazil launched, daring to expose nude Brazilian celebrities. 

G Magazine showcased the uncensored nudity of artists, models and athletes over the course of 16 years. Created by journalist Ana Fadigas, the magazine not only showcased male nudity but also featured reports, columnists and interviews on topics related to the gay community. 

The photo shoots almost always followed a pattern: Straight men with a masculine posture that attracted readers. At its peak, it sold nearly 200,000 copies per month. 

Related

Naked athlete calendars are still a thing, and these 6 teams have gay fans (un)covered for 2025
Jack Dunne is “Mr August” in Exeter Chiefs’ charity calendar, one of several naked or shirtless editions produced by sports and rugby clubs.

Outsports at 15: Naked athletes we’ve loved
Jocks in the buff, inadvertently or not, have given us a lot of pleasure.

Fadigas recalled the power of the publication at that time. 

“When we launched, we quickly realized that the readers accepted it very well, and this movement grew,” she told Outsports. During the magazine’s run, Fadigas gave lectures at Brazilian universities to talk about discrimination. “We saw that we had to focus on G Magazine, which was really about representing the target audience.” 

Get off the sidelines and into the game

Our weekly playbook is packed with everything from locker room chatter to pressing LGBTQ sports issues.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

Among the more than 170 nude photo shoots, some of the most striking featured the nudity of Brazilian soccer players on the cover. The courageous attitude in the early 2000s represented a break with the standards of masculinity imposed by one of the most acclaimed sports in the country. 

Soccer pro Vampeta showed off for gay men first

The pioneering nudity belonged to the Black player known as Vampeta in 1999, who at the time was playing for the Corinthians team in São Paulo. The photo shoot conducted on a football field generated enormous repercussions at the time. After all, he was the first male athlete to pose completely nude, opening doors for other athletes to also accept posing for an openly gay magazine.

A commercial success at the time, Vampeta’s nudity was the subject of the British newspaper The Times, largely due to the audacity of a straight player who was not intimidated by the opinions of the team’s fanatic fans. 

The following month, fellow player Dinei (also from the Corinthians) also posed nude for the magazine, but without the same impact as the pioneering shoot. 

In the following years, athletes from different sports – a karate fighter, a swimmer, and even a track & field champion – agreed to show their nudity in the publication. 

Straight nude athletes change perceptions in G Magazine

Although all the athletes were straight and had accepted the invitation for financial reasons, they helped foster discussions about diversity in sports. They not only took off their clothes, but they also shed stereotypes and prejudices, contributing, even if indirectly, to inclusion in fields and gyms.

For nearly 20 years of existence, G Magazine revealed the nudity of a dozen or so athletes on its covers. In the realm of soccer, there were seven players featured. This attitude, at a time when Brazilian society had a different mentality, was a reflection on the rigid codes of masculinity imposed in some sports, such as soccer. 

Even so, two other soccer players attempted to show off their nudity on the pages of G as well, but they were reportedly prohibited by their soccer club managers, reinforcing the prejudice that existed at the time by those who also dictated the rules behind the big teams.

The magazine also broke paradigms by showcasing a diversity of body types and ethnicities, not just displaying muscular men but also other profiles, such as normal, hairy, Black and mature bodies. Some of the male personalities were over 50 years old. 

At a time when there were only magazines about female nudity, G Magazine emerged as a historic, disruptive and even transgressive event. It paved the way for a more open dialog about orientation in sports, especially since gay, lesbian and bi athletes are present in all sports.

However, the popularization of the internet gradually caused print magazines to lose ground. X-rated video platforms and racy blogs emerged, and the audience migrated to digital networks. 

G Magazine went into decline, and despite the creation of an online website titled G Online parallel to the publication, it was not enough to survive the technology. 

“The time brought the internet to this reality, meaning that paper would no longer serve for something like we used to do, which was to show nudity,” Fadigas said. 

G Magazine closed its doors in 2013, but not before causing social impacts on a society still in evolution.

Subscribe to the Outsports newsletter to keep up with your favorite out athletes, inspiring LGBTQ sports stories, and more.