A Cross-Cultural Look of Sexual Anthropology thru orkut.com

By Xah Lee. Date:
orkut sometimes vain 1717 orkut vain 858403
Two icons on Orkut for women's beauty groups. Left is the icon used by the American. Right is the incon used by Brazilians. 
on Orkut ladies Brazilian
brazenly a pretty a million
whose tongue is nimble
of bi-and-lingual
in numbers sextillion
 -- Xah Lee, 2004-11-30

has anyone observed the Google's social network orkut.com's forums from a anthropology point of view?

one aspect: compare the women. The women in America are all bottled up, while the women from Brazil are radiating with womanliness.

first, say visit randomly some 20 women's profiles, half American and half Brazilian. One will immediately notice a general sharp difference in their photo albums. The Americans, are perhaps smiling and that's it. The Brazilians, are teeming with photos of their toes, legs, bare flesh, or partying, or otherwise sexual poses.

another way to see this is for example, makeup forums of women. The ones started by Americans, for example, the “sometimes you gotta be vain”, came with a abstract title with “sometimes” as to justify its sorry existence, and the forum icon is a abstract lispstick. Now look at similar forums in Portuguese by the Brazilians. There are dozens and dozens of them, with icons like exceedingly erotic painted toe nails or finger nails, or unashamed makeup photos.

another view is to look at forums related to sex or dating. The American ones, has conservative titles with abstract icons, while the Brazilian ones, teeming with photos of couple fucking and sucking. On seeing these, one might think Oh they are just created by a handful of pornno horny boys -- not so! A closer look on these forums one sees massive number members of both sex, and their personal photo icons is one unabashed than another.

another view. Consider forums like Barbie or women's magazines. One will find perhaps a handful created by Americans, as if the very topic is fret with justifications of whether it is really OK to enjoy these things. Look at Brazilian's forums, my god, one gazillion forums of such, with outright rubric like “I'm a Barbie Girl” and so on.

We can infer from this phenomenon, that the general mores when it comes to sexual issues in Brazil is very expressive and open, while the mind of USA citizens are fret with political correctness and justices and fairness and righteousness and appropriateness.