Alice - CP Critical Incident

       Recalling an earlier conversation that I had with one of my conversation partners, Bruno, I realized that he had encountered a very funny critical incident. One of the topics of conversation was on the club and dance culture in Tallahassee. He had recounted a night when he went to a club with some of his Brazilian friends called “The Strip”. He was extremely taken aback by the raunchy and sexual nature of some of the dances (as a native to the U.S. I am still taken aback by the dance scene’s vulgarity at times). According to Bruno, dances in Brazil are nothing like that. However, he was completely perplexed by the notion that although the dances were extremely sexual, the dance routines hardly ever ended with a kiss. To explain, in Brazil, after you dance with a person for a little while, it is understood that you are then allowed to kiss them. This isn’t meant to imply anything sexual; rather, it is meant to be a romantic gesture of appreciation. It isn’t weird or out of the ordinary, and it certainly doesn’t connote sexual desire. Yet, in America, the latter is exactly what it implies. I am sure his first attempt at kissing someone did not end very well. Although it was embarrassing, I attempted to explain to him why such kissing is not acceptable in most cases. J