1- Chapter I: This might not be what you're looking for, but I want to talk about it, because I've talked a lot about Sérgio's relationships here, but I've failed to mention something very early in the book. The gymnastics presentarions from Ateneu that Sérgio, not yet a student, watches:

After the parade came the exercises. Arm muscles, pectorals, tendons at the joints, the entire theory of corpore sano practiced valiantly on that field with the precise and exact simultaneity of a vast machine. After that, a rush to the apparatuses, lined up on one side of the field, starting at the regent’s podium. I cannot describe how dazzled I was by that part of the proceedings. There was a tumult of daring and loose-jointed contortions, a vertigo of turns around the fixed bar; acrobatic temerities on the trapeze, the high bars, the ropes, the ladders; human pyramids on the parallel bars, spilling toward the sides in bent arms and vigorous thoraxes; living statues, trembling with the effort, whose joints we could imagine cracking; transfigurations on invisible support; here and there a small blond head, mussed curly hair plastered on its forehead, the face reddened by the inversion of the body, half-opened lips panting, eyes half closed to avoid the sand falling from shoes; shirts pasted to sweating backs, ownerless caps falling and bestrewing the field; movement everywhere and the sun, white-hot on the uniforms, burning off the last fires of its daily glory over that spectacular triumph of health, strength, youth.

I highlighted Sérgio's reaction here, but the entire thing is interesting and caught my attention in my first read. There's a lot of body descriptions. And I understand that this is a gymnastics presentation etc, so, well, what did you expect? But all of this is solely Sérgio's perspective, this is Sérgio's description and he goes to the detail of the sweat and the lips panting and the youth. I highly doubt people usually describe these things when talking about gymnastics LOL he really was looking more at the boys' bodies than their movements. I think this paragraph deserves at least a honorable mention.

2- Chapter III: Sanches is clingy. I've talked about this scene before a billion of times but I need to talk about it again because it really is homoEROTIC:

Well, during those moments of exceptional diligence when we were alone, the older boy and I, the foundation of the initially intuited antipathy defined itself. We would sit on the same bench. Sanches would creep closer. Then he leaned hard against me. He closed his own book and read mine, blowing a tired breath in my face. To explain things, he would move away a little and then he would take my fingers and press them till my hand hurt, as if they were clay, darting at me looks of unjustified anger. Then he would repeat some expressions of affection, and the reading would proceed, his arm around my neck as if in a furious friendship.

Of course, this scene continues, Sérgio mentioning not having the courage to break up the touch, and how Sanches would instantly break up and pretend nothing was happening when anyone entered the room... speaking of the scene continuing, this one's a bit gross but:

On one very hot day, he had just finished enunciating, like a priest on a page of religious studies, the various acts of Contrition, of Attrition, of Faith, of Hope, of Charity, when he proposed that I repeat them seated on his lap. I thought the comfort unnecessary and repeated the lesson while walking around the room. The devil! That chap really did intend to treat me like a baby! Soon, in his excessive solicitude, he would be trying to put me back into swaddling clothes. Ah, if only I still had in me the audacious bravery I had brought from home, I would for certain have dispatched Sanches with that catechism around his ears. But I was no longer what I had been, and my desire to do so was tender and supple, like a new shoot, after the shock of the first conflict. I kept postponing the confrontation.

Then there's the fact that, apparently, every time Sérgio "resisted" (<- actual word used) these "affections" (<- Sérgio's word for the sexual harassment!) Sanches would get really mad but try to hide it. But that's not the point here.

I'll skip things like Sanche's confession because they're not what anon is asking for.

3- Chapter III: the Lusiads scene! It's about rape.

He led me to the ninth canto, as to a disreputable street. I was guiltily enjoying the thrill of the unexpected. My mentor took me along the stanzas, ripping open the noble face of the poem to show views of bordellos reeking of lavender. Barbarian! As if its words were a modest cover hiding the truth, he would tear those tunics from top to bottom, roughly. Out of each graceful sway of a verse he made some offensive brutishness. I followed him without remorse; I thought vaguely of myself as a victim and gave myself up to his cruelties, submissive, relaxed in the position of passivity. The analysis whipped up the rhymes; the rhymes went by, leaving the image of an impudent sway of the hips. And Sanches’s air of severity was unperturbed.

I cut the scene to this paragraph but I've extensively talked about it before. Unfortunately I'm typing this on mobile and scared of losing this post so I'll add a link to my terrible translation of more from this scene later as an edit! (Edit: here) But I'll also add this here:

Meanwhile, like all those of evil intent, Sanches avoided busy places. He liked to wander with me, in the evening, before supper, crisscrossing the darkened yard a hundred times, hugging me nervously, tightly, to the point of lifting me from the ground. I put up with it, imagining, in resigned silence, the artificially weakened sex Rebelo had defined for me.

Because. Well. It's what anon asked for.

FROM NOW ON IT'S NOT VEEEERY SEXUAL. BUT I FELT THE NEED TO INCLUDE THESE EXCERPTS ANYWAYS:

4- Chapter VI: okay, massive skip, but that's because the book doesn't have a lot of same-sex stuff after Sanches, but it does have some awesomeeee scenes (such as Sérgio's fascination with dead bodies and gore ETC). Anyways, even here I wouldn't exactly call them homoerotic? So I tried picking some highlights that bring a bit of a repressed sexuality to them (<- breaking the pervert's eye rule). Yes this is about that terrible dog, Bento Alves:

I esteemed him in a feminine way, because he was big, strong, brave; because he could protect me; because he respected me, almost shyly, as if he did not dare be my friend. If he wanted to look at me, he waited till I turned my eyes away from him. The first time he gave me a gift, a gracious, educational book, he stepped away blushing, as if in flight. That timidity did not alarm me; rather, it moved me, though I should by rights be on the alert against new disappointments. Interesting, the vague element of materiality in this childish affection, just like what one can observe in love—the pleasure of a chance touch, of the pressure of a hand, the scent of the clothing, as if we were absorbing something from the object of our affection.

[...]

During breaks between classes we did not stay together, but I saw my friend from afar, attentive, following me with his gaze like a watchdog.

Later I learned that he had threatened to break the neck of anyone who even considered offending me; he declared I was his adoptive brother.

And I, who had quite a while ago adopted, toward my fellows, a great air of fearless haughtiness, changed when I was with my friend; I felt comfortable in my voluntary submission, as if my bravery had been artificial, like proverbial feminine petulance.

[...]

Sometimes, in the library, while I read, Alves watched me from the other side of the table, covered in green cloth, that occupied the middle of the room, with his hand on his forehead and his fingers sunk in his hair. He looked at me, and I felt him without looking up, understanding, in the depth of my slumber-heavy vanity, that this contemplation expressed the horror of ridicule that was customary in Bento Alves, and that rigidly suppressed any effusive demonstration. Were disapproval not a creature of its time, I could have found comical this situation of our two characters playing out this platonic scene. But since no outside disapproval was present to falsify the psychology of this development, I simply engaged to be sincere, just like my poor friend. Sometimes a tear came from nowhere to his eyelid.

[...] (there's also some stuff about Bento Alves' sort of familial love for Sérgio, in which he would even advise things like moving his bed somewhere else so he wouldn't get sick etc.)

5- Chapter VIII: Again Bento Alves, with a bit of a small timeskip from the previous excerpts, and this chapter gets a bit non-linear with it tbh. I call this one "Bento Alves shaking like a rabid dog from how much he likes Sérgio":

When school started again, I noted a new warmth in his friendship, without the previous effusion, but evidenced when his hand trembled as he shook mine, when he spoke with the embarrassment of a lover in the wrong, when his eyes avoided mine, denouncing the reluctance of secret and impetuous movement. Sometimes even, an alarming flash of madness flitted over his features.

That compressed agony interested me. Strange thing, this friendship that, instead of the frank closeness of friends, could thus produce the uncertainty of unease and a prolonged situation of vexation, as if living in close quarters were a sacrifice and sacrifice a necessity.

I also NEED to add this one:

I am even confusedly aware of a little note of mine, in my role as make-believe girlfriend, and I took the theatrics of it to the point of flirting, arranging the knot on his tie or smoothing the curl that fell into his eyes;

(also, Bento Alves is full on giving Sérgio gifts and flowers here!)

Also, fuck it, Bento Alves and Sérgio fight scene for your amusement:

I don’t know what the devil of an expression I saw in his face, ordinarily so very kind. He looked completely frantic. As soon as he saw me, he leaped at me as Romulo had done, and with the same brutality. We rolled in the dark under the stairs. Knocked over, bruised, beaten, I defended myself. In the half darkness of the corner, I saw a large moldy shoe. Fighting in the dust, under the attacker’s heavy knee, I attacked his head, his face, his mouth, with formidable blows of the heel, leveraging the cleated shoe sole with the length of my extremities. Bento Alves left me abruptly.

6- Chapter IX: Egbert scenes are not homoEROTIC at all. But I'd like to highlight this:

We were neighbors in the dorm as well, and I, lying in my bed, waited for him to fall asleep so I could watch him sleeping, and woke early so I could watch him wake. We owned everything in common. For myself, I positively adored him, and thought him perfect. He was elegant, skillful, hardworking, generous. I admired him, from his heart to the color of his skin and the harmony of his form. He swam like a porpoise. The blue water opened before him murmuring, or rose to his shoulders, bathing the whiteness of his body with a sheen as of polished ivory. He repeated his lessons calmly, sometimes with difficulty, hampered by the anxious breathing of asphyxia. I prized him more when he had his fits of anguish caused by illness. I dreamed that he had died, that he had suddenly left the Athenaeum; the dream jolted me awake, and with relief I saw him, lying peacefully in the bed beside mine, one of his hands under his cheek, breathing regularly, with a slight wheeze.

7- Chapter X: there's some odd stuff here that I had forgotten about, but I won't post them here (it's about some of the boys taking pride in "acting like women" and some of the boys taking pride in "acting like men" (as in, the peak of masculinity). I legit did nottt remember this. I hope the book I'm reading will highlight those paragraphs, as they are interesting regarding gender stuff). I'd like to highlight this funny thing:

They called me “Alves’s Sérgio.”

Sure.

OKAY THAT'S ALL.

I tried to not put every. Single. Instance of gay shit here. But I half failed. I put a lot of them. Sorry. Even if they weren't exaaaactly erotic. SORRY!!!!!!! I got too excited with my skimming.

I hope this was a nice highlight... even if this post is MASSIVE! And full of tangents. Ehehe. I can't help myself... But yeah. Some of these are undoubtely erotic, some of these are not. The book has its instances of other sex stuff, some more vague (the booklet, the gore fascination) and some more heterosexual (Ângela, Melica, D. Ema). This book is INSANE.