It is Sexy Time: Frustrated! Do Black Women Drive Black Men to Brazil in Order to Find Sex and Love?

Lots of pain out there...

I was looking back over some of the topics we have discussed here on We Are Respectable Negroes over the last few weeks and months. Race and politics, ghetto nerd culture, professional wresting, cyber racism, sociology, housing segregation, foreign policy, popular culture, questions about black respectability, and a litany of other other matters, have all been considered here.

We are going to be pushing our boundaries even more. There is a common theme on We Are Respectable Negroes across its various iterations--critical inquiry and politics in its many forms--and a range of topics pursued to that end. Good stuff.

As I mentioned last week, I will be debuting my podcast conversation with Nica Noelle tomorrow. I keep pushing it back for the right time, as I wanted to have a proper lead in to the topic. I then realized WARN does its own thing, so there really is no right time like the present.

I like sexy time. I like talking about sex in its many forms. I love hands on research even more. In all, our conversations about sex have been among some of the most interesting and surprising here on We Are Respectable Negroes.

Attraction is a funny thing. Is is a function of biology? Circumstance? Timing? Something else?

For example, as a young working class black guy I was always told to avoid redheaded white women. I internalized this mantra until I met a bad white sister who happened to have red hair. There was a moment of cognitive dissonance: would I turn down a ride to Pleasure Town because of a few genetic markers, or would I come to my senses and enjoy the ride?

Me thinks you know my policy regarding intimacy across the color line--as long as all parties have washed, we are all the same color when the lights go out. And yes, redheaded pleasure town was a mighty nice place to visit. I would eagerly return there again and again and again with said sister who happened to be white and have red hair.

Attraction is much more than skin deep. I will not judge others; I simply want what I want regardless of the race or body type the object of my desires may be contained within.

Of course, I have a "type." Don't we all? It has become increasingly both refined and specific, as well as ambiguous over the years. Color me confused.

Nevertheless, I do not have a "racial" type. It is not that I am that universal and radically humanistic as to not see color. To suggest such a thing would 1) be a lie, and 2) deny how superficial aesthetics can get a person's engine going. Moreover, I have never been a fan of bringing political correctness into the bedroom.

I also reject the claim that a particular ethnic or racial group has a particular set of traits that are in turn reflected by their intimate style, or chemistry with a given person.

I have enjoyed women from "conservative" cultures and backgrounds who would make the angels blush when they got down to business. I have also spent quality time with women from "exotic" or "hedonistic" backgrounds where I was counting down the ways and moments to a respectable exit from the situation.

Yes ladies, men can and do fake it as well...

In that spirit of trying to relate race and ethnicity to matters of sex and the physical, I wanted to share the documentary Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil.

I had heard about this project some time ago. I am happy the copyright monster has not gobbled it up (yet).

I met one of these "Black American going to Brazil brothers to find beautiful women not like Black Americans" once. We chatted. He was a nice guy, but he was not the most attractive or compelling. I did not have it in my heart to perhaps suggest that he was traveling abroad and using his resources to have a "girlfriend relationship" with a sex worker. I did not want to break his heart. I can be mean. I try not to be cruel.

Money looms over the relationships discussed in Frustrated: Black American Men in Brazil. There is another obvious variable at play in these stories of desire and attraction narrated by the principals in this "documentary." I will leave calling that one out to all of you good folks.

One never knows what they will find here on We Are Respectable Negroes. I love to swerve folks. It keeps things interesting.

You tell me. Is there some direct relationship between a person's ethnic or racial background and their sexual prowess? Or is the real question about finding a good partner and a compatible set of cultural values that make them a desirable mate...and therefore, more sexy and attractive?