Brazilian Women

Ask a man where the most beautiful women live, and he'll say New York City or LA. Men like to brag about their local women. It's a sensual show of patriotism. However, ask a man (or woman) where the most beautiful women in the world are and they'll say – Brazil.    

Brazil is like Spring Break for 200 million – the majority of Brazilians are under age 30. Vanity reigns. Women on the street look like they're on their way to a photo shoot as they navigate cobblestone sidewalks in three-inch heels. Their skirts are so tight they couldn't pick up a dropped paper clip. Then again, why would they need to when they expect chivalrous young men to pick the clip up for them, knowing such an attempt would risk disrupting the entire office.

Considering how women dress in Brazil, it's no wonder watching them is a full-time hobby. The term for a strapless blouse is tomara que caia, (literally “let's hope it falls”). In the winter things loosen up a bit, and women switch to jeans and over-the-knee boots. Not calf-high but full-on, hooker-style, over-the-knee, black leather with stiletto heels.

In the summer, the entire country heads to the beach. Women scrutinize their tanning, but with the opposite goal of American and European women. Rather than switching bathing suits to avoid tan lines, they cultivate them. Once back at work, they wear off-the-shoulder or backless blouses to display the tan lines like gang members showing off scars.

Proving that devotion to skin care products and the hair salon is worth the investment, tanned Brazilian women seem fantastically young and healthy. It's the opposite of those black/white photos with a farm girl of 17 like Laura Ingalls Wilder looking like she's 30. Despite their indulgence in beach life, Miami or Santa Fe snake-skinned sand dwellers don't exist here. Brazilians absorb their vitamin D without premature aging. Perhaps the tropical rains are the fountain of youth. The assistance of free fitness trainers at the gym helps. All gyms employ several, men and women, and they eagerly impart their knowledge on everything from the proper Nautilus position to nutrition choices. At my gym, there's a woman trainer in her 30s who has a Ph.D. in Phys Ed.

For all you first-time visitors, it's not only the healthy glow you'll notice. Men and women kiss to say hello and goodbye, even at work. Women end their work emails with beijos (kisses) and men sign abraços (hugs). The women who work at the front desk of the gym kiss me when I arrive, along with the female trainers. I'm close enough to smell their body lotion. Could this be what the librarian in Brooklyn meant when she handed me a pamphlet on Latin America entitled “Retire in Paradise”?

For further proof, let's consult with an expert on biology – Darwin. While his groundbreaking On the Origin of Species is well-known, few are familiar with a later book called The Descent of Man. In it he describes how species generally base their mating choices on the fittest mates, but sometimes a different selection occurs. Animals may choose mates that are not the fittest, but the most attractive. This “sexual selection” as Darwin called it, signifies a taste for beauty and constitutes an evolutionary mechanism contrary to natural selection. Some scholars have rejected Darwin's theory, which explains why you've never heard of it unless you're Brazilian, in which case you live it every day.  

I'm forced to confess, after several hours of waterboarding, that vanity can have limitations. I was at a party and told a Brazilian woman she had a great tan to which she replied, “I haven't been to the beach in years.” Oops.

A TV journalist reported she'd divorced her husband because she enjoyed the beach. “I'm a redhead, so I have a million freckles from the sun. My husband asked me to see a doctor and have them removed so I divorced him.”

I once asked a Brazilian woman if she had been in a car accident. “No. Why do you say that?” It seemed she had two black eyes, but it was her kohl-black eyeliner I was scouting.

If you and your buddies from the senior citizens center are planning a trip down here, you'll be disappointed to discover the money you spent on Grecian formula was unnecessary. In Brazil, gray is distinguished; there is no social stigma against dating women half your age.

A Catholic friend from the Midwest came to visit me, attracted by the pervasive influence of the Church. We visited several churches and discussed the social warmth of organized religion. Because of Brazil's Catholic majority, he assumed fashions hadn't evolved since the 1950s. He was surprised by the women, young and old, who never leave home without make-up or carefully matching outfits. When he returned to the US, he sent me an email that included this line: “Despite the presence of the Church, Brazil boasts pigeon-toed girls in obscene denim shorts, their pony tails swinging carefree down the street.”

Every time I leave my apartment, there's a revelation. Even a bus ride elevates my blood pressure – underarms are erogenous. Do women know this? Isn't that why underarms aren't revealed in US advertising? Commercials for razors or deodorant won't show women shaving or applying deodorant except in Brazil. Hollywood film directors instruct their leading ladies to gyrate with their arms over their heads on the dance floor.

Here there are flawlessly waxed arms everywhere. With warm weather all-year round, women wear sleeveless blouses. On the bus holding the overhead bar, it's a paradise of underarm display. The exposed skin dictates scrupulous grooming. Women will only use a clear deodorant that leaves no white residue. Every time a woman lifts her arms to adjust her hair, there's a thrill of vain preparation in evidence. Arms are shamelessly in the air as if extended for flight.

Standing crowded-bus close to women, the meticulous meanderings of their hours at the beauty salon are fragrant and visible. Salons perform every essential operation from blonde highlights to manicures. They employ women wearing white smocks with “Doctor” in front of their names working as hair removal experts, doing underarm and bikini waxing, not to mention one-hour pedicures with callous removal. Like sleeveless tops, wearing open-toed shoes requires special attention.

In addition to men's overzealous appreciation, Brazilian women get equal attention from each other. They do not hide their staring at other women, evaluating others' clothes, jewelry, hair, and make-up. As a result of the constant scrutiny, no woman walks past her reflection in a storefront window without glancing for a self-assessment. Not surprisingly, it's impossible to admire a woman without her noticing. They are extremely self-conscious and on the look-out for glances from other women or men. It's like walking into a trendy restaurant in Los Angeles – everyone looks up from their food to see if you're famous.

My introduction to public eroticism happened the first week I arrived. I was riding a local bus and found myself a foot away from a woman's breast. It was a small, young breast, and I know this because it was exposed. I sat facing a woman who was clearly still enjoying her teen years. Sitting at arm's length and directly facing her, I watched as she pulled down her tank top to breastfeed her son, who was about two years old and reclining blissfully on her lap. Unaccustomed to public breastfeeding, I was unfamiliar with the proper etiquette. I had a sense that staring wasn't polite but new events in new countries permit an exception to the rule.

Brazil is the world leader in cosmetic surgery. Eager devotees arrive from around the world to partake in the advanced techniques and low cost. One Brazilian doctor, Ivo, was so famous he became a household name. Some called him “maestro.” At his clinic in Rio de Janeiro, he trained more than 600 other plastic surgeons. A typical plastic surgery costs half  what it does in L.A., and like all purchases, it can be paid off in interest-free installments called parcelas.

Thanks to the nonexistent boundaries of personal space, standing too close to people is the norm. Everyday conversations take place at an uncomfortably close distance. For people who are far-sighted, glasses are required to have a conversation. In academic terms, it's the difference between contact cultures (Latin America, the Middle East, Southern Europe) and non-contact cultures (Northern Europe, North America, Asia). In the latter, people stand farther apart and touch less. That's probably why Brazilians brush their teeth several times a day. When speaking with someone, I find myself taking a step backwards. A woman standing too close and touching my arm to make a point seems flirtatious, which explains why men return from a trip to Brazil and tell their incredulous buddies, “All the women were flirting with me.”

After years of practice, I'm reluctantly adjusting to the idea that every woman isn't flirting. Nevertheless, striving for expat assimilation, I enter the intimate range for conversation, both male and female. I stand my cozy ground and lurk in proximity to a woman's scent. I once told a woman, “I like your perfume,” and she corrected me, “I just had my hair washed at the salon.”

Flirtation is a fine art and the women practice it with adroit precision, but that doesn't mean they're asking for sex. Touching for conversational emphasis and kissing goodbye isn't flirting. I've discovered that when a woman winks at me it's not amorous. Nor is it meant to be seductive when she's standing a foot away in conversation and puts her hand up to her chest to adjust her bra through her shirt.

Polite banter with the opposite sex is tricky, and that's without the pitfalls of a foreign language. At the gym, I told a female trainer I would be traveling for a few weeks, and she asked if my wife was going. That struck me as an atypical, revealing question. Was she testing the waters of infidelity? I nearly lied, “No, I'm taking my girlfriend instead; she's about your age.” I didn't because she would have believed me. Instead, I said, “Yes, of course, my wife is coming. Do you want to come, too?” She stared at me, gauging my seriousness. She touched my arm, smiled shyly, and walked away without a word.

As personal space is a minefield, you'll want to avoid the steam room. Luckily, the macho etiquette requires bathing suits or underwear. You can't be naked in a single-sex steam even with a towel firmly secured. As is common when entering an enclosed space – a waiting room, an elevator – it's necessary to greet others, which is a problematic endeavor in a room where you can't see anyone.

One day I braved the limits of scented euphoria and visited a spa. Before I'd even filled out the admissions form, I could smell the smooth bath essences and the fresh tang of clean laundry. It didn't bother me that I was the only man in the waiting room. I'd had massages in the US, but I wasn't prepared for the sight of dozen or so staff parading through the lobby, all young females wearing white lab coats emblazoned with their names. Underneath their lab coats they wore tight white jeans and white spandex tops. The effect was more clean porno than therapy, escorts pretending to be doctors. A Brazilian health spa is like Playboy sponsoring a seminar for the International Nursing Society.

After a delightfully long wait in the lobby, a smiling professional led me to her private chamber and instructed me to get undressed. I'd done my homework and knew that like the steam room, nudity wasn't permitted. This is true even for female massage clients. While the absence of nudity was unexpectedly modest, my masseuse didn't leave the room as I undressed. Flirtatious? I climbed onto the heated table and snuggled under the sheet she politely held for me. Foregoing the conversation typical of massages here, I drifted off into oily heaven under her strong hands. In my heightened state of tactile awareness, I thought of the quote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Not this man; I was singing.

Receiving a massage is like breastfeeding, an epiphany of tactile delight, a miracle of transubstantiation. Breastfeeding is perhaps the world's most endearing spectacle. Is a child ever more content? Security, nourishment, and warmth. We have all experienced it first hand although the memory is buried forever, which probably explains why some men are so fascinated with breasts. For those of us engaged in the willing suspension of disbelief, witnessing breastfeeding provides a bridge over the chasm of ennui into the land of Eden. The fact that we manage to graduate from breastfeeding is proof of the prelapsarian fall from grace.

Having the glorious opportunity to re-enter paradise under the hands of a lab-coated masseuse or witness breastfeeding at close proximity is an invitation to take a leap of faith, like stepping into a church. The front pews fill up first as people lean toward God, like when we walk uphill. Life is a Sisyphean exercise and church provides that one moment of calm at the top of the hill, a respite to breathe. We can't demand ecstasy or even happiness from our everyday existence, but there's hope for revelation. God works in mysterious ways but always at the right moment.