Set a variable in Sass depending on the selector

I think a mixin is the answer. (As I wrote, variables won’t work.)

@mixin content($color-default, $color-main) {
  background: $color-default;
  color: $color-main;
}

body.class-1 {
  @include content(#444, #555);
}

body.class-2 {
  @include content(#666, #777);
}

That SCSS compiles to this CSS:

body.class-1 {
  background: #444444;
  color: #555555; }

body.class-2 {
  background: #666666;
  color: #777777; }

If you wanted to group the color values together in your SCSS file, you could use variables in conjunction with the mixin:

$color-1: #444;
$color-2: #555;
$color-3: #666;
$color-4: #777;

body.class-1 {
  @include content($color-1, $color-2);
}

body.class-2 {
  @include content($color-3, $color-4);
}