By Lindenberg Junior| Translation by Julia Melim
“Foreigners see Carnival as a very sexual event, however, it’s nothing more than a playful, fantastic event in the first place,” said writer Marcelo Carneiro Cunha right before his trip to Spain, where he was invited to lecture about the sexual behavior of Brazilian people.
“I thought it was a little strange being the chosen one to speak about this topic. I understand about sex just as much as someone who learned swimming by mail, not by getting in the pool. I became an expert after they read my book Simple that was based on a study that I did while interviewing multiple people from various backgrounds around the country, talking about their sexual fantasies, in a world without love, but with a lot of sex, which is the world I live in today,” Marcelo says.
The Spaniards who organized the event thought Marcelo’s book was a good representative of Brazilian sexual behavior – from a modern perspective of the world to each individual experience. Marcelo took the opportunity to try to change the insulting perspective they created of how sex is portrayed Brazil. As most Brazilians know, this “erroneous view” is stimulated by the media, feeding of an idealized reality that doesn’t really exist and doesn’t describe the true Brazilian behavior.
Most of the time, “Gringos” (foreigners) see Carnival as something exclusively sexual, when in reality, it’s mostly a cultural experience, like a tradition. Marcelo defines “Brazilian Style” as a country in touch with its sexuality, but that’s not sexual – it’s more fun and playful than sexual, it’s much more simple and organic.
In Marcelo’s lecture, he mentioned that to Brazilians, sex is something to be included in our menu of life choices, which can only be obtained in accordance to two people’s spontaneous willingness. It’s about chemistry and if all the factors are not there, then it won’t happen. It’s not uncommon for Brazilians to stop sex, if they don’t find the ideal scenario. This idea of “easy sex” is completely mistaken and wrongfully spread around the world. For those who think Brazilians say “Yes” too often, be warned that Brazilians are not afraid of saying “No,” and more often than not, that’s what will happen.
Many people try to simplify the Brazilian behavior, but Brazil is a very complex country and to be able to understand Brazilians, one must learn to respect our complexity, which is a result of our mixed culture, influences and races.
Brazilian culture reflects not only in our flesh, but our soul and we live intensely according to our instincts that originated from Native Brazilians, African-Americans, Europeans – we are a little bit of everything, but most of all we’re Brazilians at heart.
“Our way of experiencing sex is a consequence of the convergence of mixed influences,” says Marcelo.
Just to get an invitation to speak about sexual behavior in Brazil proves that our culture, be it to the Spaniards, Germans or French people, is very interesting to everyone around the world and extremely unique. In order to understand about Brazilian sexual behavior, it’s important to understand our culture to its core. One must have Brazilian friends and know how to truly communicate with them, travel to Brazil and live inside the culture, learn about the traditions, and… be a “gringo” with a Brazilian “Ginga” (twist).
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