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SAO PAULO-Organizers of what is billed as Latin America's biggest erotica trade show hailed the nine-day event starting this week as a big success after welcoming some 20,000 Brazilians with libidos piqued and wallets opened.The Erotika Fair in Sao Paulo has grown bigger every year since starting in 1996 thanks to increased interest by women, said the man who brought to mix of stands of sex-toys and fetish clothing and explicit strip shows to an exhibition hall north of the city."Ten years ago, women represented just five percent of sex-shop customers. Now they're 70 to 80 percent," event and promotions manager Evaido Shiroma told AFP."Brazilian women have become much more open about sex because of the way it is portrayed in the media, including in the soap operas, which have many sensual scenes," he said.He stressed that what was on display on erotic, not pornography, asserting the former involved catering to all the senses while the latter was exclusively visual. Supporting his argument in the vendor stands was the popularity of perfumed gels designed to enhance lovemaking, which were being purchased by couples for 10 reais (seven dollars) each. They, along with various nurses outfits and leopard skin g-strings, were among the few items that were Brazilian made.The vast bulk of the rest of the merchandise-vibrators, furred handcuffs, adult games, plastic genitalia, rectal plugs and the like-was imported from China and, to a lesser extent, the United States."The Chinese stuff is definitely inferior quality, but it's cheap so it sells well," said a sale woman in one of the stalls, Giselle Martens.Those attending the fair were mostly young couples who seemed entirely at ease accessorising their bedroom frolicking."It's normal. There are no taboos here, it's just like going to a supermarket," offered Wagner Souza,a 30-year-old salesman who had come to the fair with his 18-year-old girlfriend. "We're here to cater to our fantasies, everybody should come here," he said, though laughed and declined to reveal what exactly was on his shopping list. Shiroma explained that in Brazil, a woman often takes the initiative to spice up her sex life with her partner in large part because of the fear of losing him to a rival."She focuses a lot on her relationship to make sure her husband doesn't stray," he said.He added that women were also ardent members of the audience in the various graphic strip shows-and sometimes live sex shows-going on at the fair.Certainly at one such spectacle, women accounted for at least a third of those watching the three woman on stage.One of the performers, a porn star renowned in Brazil and known by the name Morgana Black, said she had often been approached after her shows by women wanting to know how they could join her profession."The girls speak to me because they like what I do, the pole-dancing, and they like the effect it has," said the 29-year-old, as she zipped up a dress.She added that her own career had gained her a measure of fame as an actress, and not just in flesh flicks; she has also had roles in short movies and some television episodes.Black admitted though the path from porn to conventional acting was more difficult than going the other way around.There, she was referring to recent examples of Brazilian soapie actresses, one of whom played-fairly brazenly-a stripper on her show to great public acclaim, and another who successfully turned her flagging career around by making a porn film."Right now though, I am working on other interests. I'm now a producer of porn films as well as an actress, and I'm about to bring out a book, my biography about my time in this career, and I have a lingerie line," she said, pointing to a poster showing her wearing a micron-wide g-string.According to figures by the Brazilian Industry Association for the Erotic Market cited by the organizers, the sector's turnover is 800 million reais (480 million dollars).That is a modest sum for a country of 190 million people, but Shiroma pointed out that the market in Brazil is only 30 years old and was growing rapidly, around 15 percent a year.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080422/ts_afp/lifestylebrazilsex_080422161629;_ylt=AkN0DD.BR7E8EoW7pEl6666FOrgF
As in the days of Noah....
