Thursday, December 4, 2008

The Pursuit of Passion: Bold in Brazil


In efforts to shred all hesitation and be bold, Mazz and I skipped the usual turkey dinner and headed south. South America that is.

As we boarded the plane we stripped ourselves of prudish thoughts, work anxiety, American mores, and anything thing else that would hinder us in our hedonistic quest. We were going to Brazil and we were going to embrace oily tanners (risking skin cancer), thong bikinis (risking exposed cellulite), samba steps (risking humiliation) and a new-found lust for life.

Thong bikinis on overweight men are indeed noteworthy, but the thing that amazes me the most about Brazil is the smiles. Everyone is ecstatic to be alive...from the children playing soccer in the favela streets, to the 90 year old wrinkly grandmothers dancing samba, to the Brazilian models strutting their stuff down the sandy boardwalk. No one there worries about work deadlines, the economy or if their next date makes proper dinner reservations.

I realized the main reason behind the smiles…..sex. Sex and lots of it. No one waits until the third date here…oh no, they don’t even wait until they know your name. In fact, names are not really important at all.....

Getting to "know one another"


In brazil the process is beautifully simple. You walk across a dance floor in a club and two strong hands grab your waist from behind. You flip around and there before you know it, you are given the "Brazilian handshake," the typical male-female greeting of a tongue heartily thrust down your throat. Well hello there, mister. After a quick “is he is hot enough" check, you handshake him back. Depending on the handshake initiation angle, sometimes it is impossible to really see their face. Therefore many times a friend must be recruited to give you a hand signal indicating if you should go in or not. For Mazz and I, pulling the ear meant "oh yes, baby" and touching the nose meant "get the hell away from that dwarf."

If you are lucky and landed a hot one, after a dance or two you are thrown up against the club wall for the next step in "getting to know one another." Within one hour, you are asked if you want to go ‘down by the lake,’ code word for make dirty jungle love in the backseat of a tiny Fiat with no power steering. Sadly, Mazz and I have lived in the U.S. for too long. Going "Fiat" just wasn’t going to happen.

I tried to explain this to my stallion-like suitor. “But I do not understand you Americans," he said in his meshed Portuguese-Spanglish. “Us beautiful. Sex beautiful. Feels good. What’s the problem?”

What WAS the problem? Why can we be make-out whores but refuse to go much further?

In the age of condoms, birth control, and dental dams, what was stopping us? Do numbers on the bed posts really mean that much? Are we afraid of falling in love with our one night encounter? Or are we basically OCD with cleanliness?

Pushed up against a wall, Georgi and I were enjoying the Brazilian process for getting to know one another. As a hand crept up my skirt I was infused with passion and wildness…..but as the hand crept further up I couldn’t stop the American mind. "Where else has his hand been tonight?” “How many hoos has the hand ‘hooed’?” “Has he even washed it?” Dear lord where was the Purell when you needed it?

I had to escape….. I hastily gave out an illegible phone number and headed to the bar destined for vodka. Mazz was talking to an attractive stranger and all of a sudden captured in a mouth cleaning embrace (the Brazilians are not shy kissers). Ho hum….what should I do…I scanned the crowd not wanting to be left out. EVERYONE was making out! Seriously once the clock strikes 2:00 a.m. the entire dance floor is paired off. Thankfully a solo attractive approached me—the brother of Mazz’s new friend. And there we go: round two make out for the evening. It’s a stay-put lip gloss paradise. But once again unwilling to "Fiat," Mazz and I headed home….amazed at how much fun kissing was. We decided: we are bringing back making out to San Francisco! Full-on tongue at the local dance floor.

The next day Georgi called me asking me if I wanted to hang out again and perhaps resume our "getting to you know you." However, kissing Georgi seemed like ages ago…..and why commit to one when I was in hot surfer paradise? Time for another evening of boldness….

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dear God! When are we hittin' the SF dance floors? I'm ready for new introductions. And P.S. bringing the Purell :)

Anonymous said...

I got hot just reading this!!! Too bad married women can't partake in these forbidden Brazilian fruits...