BOOK REVIEW : Brazilian Sexuality Under Examination : BODIES, PLEASURES, AND PASSIONS: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil <i> by Richard G. Parker</i> . Beacon Press, $24.95, 200 pages

Sin, the saying goes, does not exist beneath the Equator.

This 17th-Century phrase, attributed to a historian of the Dutch occupation of northeastern Brazil, is still being repeated, sometimes by Brazilians themselves.

If sin implies guilt over sexual pleasures, the statement was undoubtedly true for the uninhibited naked Indians who greeted the first Europeans in Brazil. However, while sexual indulgences continued after the arrival of Christianity, the guilt inherent in the idea of sin took the shine off the apple.

Cultural anthropologist Richard G. Parker says in his study of sexual culture in contemporary Brazil, “Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions,” that while Brazilians generally agree that theirs is an especially sexual culture, more find this a source of shame than pride.

Parker went to Brazil in 1982 to study Portuguese as a first step toward conducting extensive research on the country’s famous Carnaval. As luck would have it, he happened into a curious neighborhood where he met both female and transvestite prostitutes. When he returned the following year, he shifted the focus of his research to sexual culture, using Carnaval as an event in which the diverse Brazilian populations act out their sexual fantasies.

To Parker, Brazilian sexual culture is a key to understanding the whole of Brazilian culture. Parker’s research is unabashedly subjective, in the popular anthropological style of mixing first-person biography (interviews with 31 men and women from different social backgrounds and varied sexual experiences) with language analysis and traditional history.

Brazil today is a blend of the cultures of native Indians, Africans imported as slaves, and Europeans--mostly Portuguese but including some Italians and Jews. The three groups came together in the 16th and 17th centuries, and almost immediately the Catholic Church established its authority over them.

The church brought severe strictures on sexual conduct, as well as the notorious courts of the Inquisition. But non-Europeans continued to express their sexuality, and the church did not control the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their white masters. This treatment of women, inherent in a system where patriarchal slave owners profited from their sexual escapades by producing offspring and thereby increasing their wealth, established an extreme pattern of machismo that exists in contemporary Brazilian culture.

Parker tries to separate strands of historical and racial traditions from the sexual cloth of modern Brazil. One strand is the myth of Brazilian origins, and the historical reality of slavery. A second is the patriarchal position of men and the concomitant submission of women. A third is the sexual initiation of boys, and a fourth, a tradition of erotic sex and pure bodily pleasure.

But the legacy of slavery is pernicious, according to Parker. The “Master” still exists in the relationship between the sexes, in which men demonstrate their power over women. In exploring same-sex relationships, Parker discovered role-playing in which partners take the same dominant-submissive roles.

All of these social-sexual strands come together at Carnaval, a wild celebration before the beginning of Lent played out in balls (for the rich) and parades, floats and costumes, often with obscene themes. Carnaval, Parker believes, embodies the ethic of a time of complete freedom. It is also the only opportunity in a class-ridden society when the poor can do anything they wish--for a day. Carnaval, according to Parker, is when “sensuality is celebrated and is linked, at the deepest level, to what it means to be Brazilian.”

Parker is both attracted by and critical of Brazilian sexual culture. He decries “the ideology” of gender, the submission and general lack of opportunity for women, despite the small flame of feminist thought among Brazilian intellectuals. But he sees the rapid spread of AIDS among heterosexuals as a signal that certain traditional sexual habits can no longer be tolerated.

Where Parker places contemporary behavior in an historical context, “Bodies, Pleasures and Passions” is good reading. But the better part of this study is dense with social scientific jargon that dulls all prurient interest. Only serious scholars or conscientious reviewers will have the stamina to read through to the end.

Next: Carolyn See reviews “Into The Blue” by Robert Goddard (Poseidon Press).