JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Why do black men look good in purple suits, while white men look like dorks? Why do so many senior citizens drive such big cars? What do people who have been blind since birth "see" in their dreams?

Questions like these, which may be too politically incorrect to be uttered out loud, have found a place amid the anonymity of the Internet. And Phillip J. Milano believes the site he started -- Y? The National Forum on People's Differences -- can actually help bridge the gaps that divide people by race, religion and background.

"Sooner or later, we have to find a way to talk about these things," said Milano, whose seven-year-old Web site has topped 10 million hits and spawned a new book: "I Can't Believe You Asked That! A No-Holds-Barred Q&A About Race, Sex, Religion and Other Terrifying Topics."

On his Web site, people are free to post questions and reply on a variety of sometime sensitive and sometimes mundane topics. The book follows the same formula, but gets real experts to address such questions such as: Do people with thick lips kiss better than those with thin lips? Are white people more sexually perverse than those of other races?

Leonard Pitts, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Miami Herald, wrote last month that Milano "is quietly revolutionizing cross-cultural communication."

"If we manage to demystify all the differences, real and perceived, we might be left with fewer things to argue about," Pitts wrote. "Maybe we would just keep talking."

Milano wrote his first book, "Why Do White People Smell Like Wet Dogs When They Come In Out of the Rain" in 1999 and it was also based on questions and answers on his Web site.

He said he believes more people are realizing the importance of asking questions of others in a way to confront stereotypes.

"There is a genuine interest in the issues that his book addresses," said Susan Scott, CEO of Fierce Inc., a corporate training company, in Sammamish, Wash. "A part of us wants to know about the weird stuff, the inappropriate stuff, the politically incorrect."

On the question of black men looking better in purple suits, Milano talked with Constance White, style director for eBay.com. She said black men may look better than white men in purple suits because of "color contrast and cultural context."

"A black man sort of has a swagger that goes with a purple suit, whereas white men don't," White told Milano.

Milano talked to Xuehao Chu, a senior researcher at the Center for Urban Transportation at the University of South Florida in Tampa, on the elderly and bigger cars. Chu said senior citizens like bigger cars because they feel safer in a larger car and it is easier to get in and out of a larger vehicles.

On the question about lip size and kissing, Michael Christian, who surveyed more than 100,000 people on smooching in the United States and 23 countries said, "fuller, fleshier lips can come in handy at kissing time," Milano's book states.

And he debunks the proposition that white people are more depraved than other races by quoting Ted McIlvenna, president of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, who found "absolutely no racial differences" when it comes to sexual behavior.

As for the dreams of blind people, Milano's book cited studies that found people who have been blind since birth dream as imaginatively as sighted people, but they lack visual images. Instead, their dreams are filled with taste, smell and touch sensations.

Milano, a 42-year-old married father of three sons, works as a community editor for The Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. He is also the founder of an online journalism job bank for minorities and women.

He said he hasn't made enough money from his Web site and books to quit his day job. But that hasn't stopped him from making plans.

Eventually, Milano would like to develop a curriculum for high school and college students based on his concept of cultural diversity.

"The bottom line is it's a labor of love," he said.

And Milano said it's clear he has much work to do, especially following a presidential election that exposed a national divide on such issues as religion and morality.

"I think there is a lot more suspicion out there than I realized," he said. "There are broad and deep cultural divisions, much more than I thought."

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On the Net:

Y Forum: http://www.yforum.com

"I Can't Believe You Asked That!" (Perigee. 272 Pages. $14.95) -- Phillip J. Milano