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What is it about Brazilian women that makes their country one of the top sex tourism destinations in the world? Does it help that they are phenomenally beautiful, the result of the mingled African, Portuguese and native gene pools? Sure. Is it because, like Thai women, their reputation suggests that potent sexual combo of promiscuity and subserviency? Probably. Want to know more about them? You've got the wrong book.

Don't Blame It On Rio is not so much about Brazilian women as it is about the men who want them, specifically African American, middle-class ones. And it's not just about why they want to go to Brazil for sexual fulfillment -- it's also about why they want to leave in the first place. The draw of Brazil's sex industry serves as a backdrop for the real focus of the book: the breakdown of relations between these men and middle-class black women.

Jewel Woods, a PhD sociology student at the University of Michigan, has compiled 15 years' worth of research to shed light on the phenomenon. His academic prose can be awkward, even with pro ghost writer Karen Hunter on board. Where Rio really comes alive is in the titillating, often unintentionally hilarious accounts from these men. "The one girl by herself was something, but the two of them, they wore me out -- almost put my ass in a coma," says one while describing an impromptu threesome. The way these men depict Brazilian women is the stuff of porn fantasy: "Halle Berry on steroids" types who are ready to fuck at a moment's notice, whether they're being paid or not. They are simultaneously idealized and objectified, but mostly used as a study in contrasts with the women back home, whom the men describe variously as fat, ugly, demanding, frigid and masculine. Black middle-class men don't have access to the sexually adventurous women who latch on to hip-hop stars and athletes, Woods explains, and have no interest in their middle-class counterparts. So they're leaving the hemisphere to find a good lay.

Throughout Rio Woods firmly takes the side of American black women, giving them a list of "warning signs" to see if their man is secretly going to Brazil, as well as offering several women a chance to voice their frustrations in a chapter at the end. It's an admirable effort to heal a community, but it doesn't answer the question that most male readers will secretly, ashamedly be asking: What exactly is going on down in Brazil? And with all due respect to the ladies, should we check it out, too?