Fun_People Archive
18 Sep
Nickname Alert -- Braulio

Date: Mon, 18 Sep 95 15:28:50 -0700
From: Peter Langston <psl>
To: Fun_People
Subject: Nickname Alert -- Braulio

Forwarded-by: lanih@info.SIMS.Berkeley.EDU (Lani Herrmann)
Forwarded-by: jmichael@sas.upenn.edu (Jennifer L Michael)

    BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) -- AIDS awareness ads showing a womanizer arguing
with his penis, nicknamed Braulio, were pulled from the airwaves Saturday
in part because children named Braulio were being teased.
    The children's mothers had complained of the teasing by schoolmates,
the newspaper Jornal do Brasil reported in Sunday's editions, quoting Health
Minister Adib Jatene.
    The Health Ministry's department for sexually transmitted diseases also
fielded at least 18 telephone calls from men named Braulio who were upset
about the use of their name, the daily newspaper O Globo said.
    Jatene ordered the TV and radio spots taken off the air Saturday until
a new nickname is chosen, TV Globo reported.
    The government will also review the spots this week to decide if they're
obscene, O Globo said.
    The ads, first aired on TV and radio on Thursday, feature a man at odds
with his penis, which insists on having indiscriminate sex with as many
women as possible without using a condom.
    Lair Guerra de Macedo, coordinator of the Health Ministry's AIDS
Prevention Program, told O Globo that Braulio's owner ``is the typical
Brazilian male who knows all about the disease but refuses to take any
preventive measures.''
    In one spot, Braulio's owner, played by a fully-clothed actor sitting
in a chair, has the following dialogue with Braulio:
	Braulio: ``This place is full of interesting women.''
	Owner: ``Behave yourself, Braulio.''
	Braulio: ``How do you expect me to behave with so many beautiful
women?''
	Owner: ``OK, but if you come out you're going to have to use a
condom.''
	Braulio: ``OK, you win. But get the condom quickly because there's
this gorgeous woman staring at me.''
    The CBN all-news radio network said its Brasilia station got indignant
calls from relatives of Braulios concerned about jokes and improprieties.
    ``In a First World country, we'd be getting rich with a libel suit,''
said businessman Braulio Torres, 58, who told the daily Estado de Sao Paulo
he's been the brunt of jokes since the ads began. ``This is humiliating.''
    But why Braulio? The Health Ministry hired the Master polling agency in
the southern city of Curitiba to find out popular nicknames for the male
sex organ, newspapers reported. Among them were Anastacio, Bimbo, Tonho,
Petronio and Braulio.
    The other names reportedly were discarded for different reasons --
Petronio was too long, Bimbo too childish. Braulio was felt to be just
right.

© 1995 Peter Langston