Good Vibrations Magazine

The night began when my brother took acid. Well, he and our good friend. Let’s call him Dominic. This was at Burning Man.

Soon Dominic needed a port-a-potty. Acid can do that to you. We stood around for about 25 minutes while Dominic “released.” He kept opening the door to the port-a-potty to make sure we were there. To his credit, it is bad form to abandon your mate on the Playa while he’s emptying his entire digestive track and hallucinating.

Standing there for so long I noticed that women with small breasts frequented this set of port-a-potties. Let me state here that there are many things to be said for small breasts. Chief among them they do not bounce and hurt the woman during vigorous or obscenely athletic sex. They can also do beautiful things to the lines of a woman’s torso.

I once read that Jean Paul Gaultier railed against breasts for ruining the line on his clothes. But I digress.

My main point is about the different sides of Black Rock City. The one side, the side we were on, the side Dominic was now walking back out on with one of the world’s greatest sighs of relief, was the rave side.

The clubs are outdoors, the girls wear fur-clad booties and lycra tube tops and impossible booty shorts and by dawn are dancing topless and offering themselves wide-armed and eyes closed to the rising sun. The boys wear baggy pants and crazy hats and open fur jackets over their tight torsos and they sit in the desert and meditate to the rising sun.

It is a sexy scene but much of the communing is either with yourself or with one other person. Sure there are people on E but they’re kind of slowly rubbing against each other and kissing so deeply you’d think they were looking for their keys.

On the rave side the sexuality is contained, a place of personal or coupling exploration.

That night we set off for the opposite side of the Playa.

My brother and Dominic were cooing over all the lights and kept asking, “Is that tower moving? Is that light bright moving? Is that giant game of Tetris moving?”.

Our destination was a big, loud, white dome but first we had to go look at the Tetris game. Our other friend, Reynaldo, and I were drinking our G as we walked across the sand. Standing on top of a glowing 20-foot Tetris piece we started to come on.

Suddenly, I wanted to fuck everybody. That’s what it’s like. We headed to the dome. Reynaldo and I took off our pants and ran around laughing, our willies bouncing in the night air, my brother and Dominic asking, “ Are they moving?”

I ran over and grabbed my girlfriend, Misty. Then I kissed her, and grabbed her, and bit her, and growled at her and wrapped my hands around her hips and pulled her tight and I think I tried to swallow her. The poor dear, she handled it with aplomb. She said I was like a 5-year-old with a hard-on. Pretty much, which is why it was such a good idea to go to the other side of the city.

Reynaldo and I put our pants back on and ran into the big, white dome. Reynaldo took my hand and led me through the dancers until we were up front near the dj. Some girl took Reynaldo’s blue fur shrug and wrapped it around herself and set her legs apart so her bronze lame mini dress rode up her thighs as she danced with us.

Judging from the looks on our companion’s faces the music was terrible but we didn’t care. If the other side of the city is the rave side this was the sexy side. Here the sex was not turned inward or specifically directed. Here the sex was wide open, an ether filling the air.

Here the girl in the mini dress danced with Reynaldo and she danced with me and she danced with the whole dome. Women wore corsets and tight jeans and short skirts and kitten heel boots. Men were in tight pants and shirts tailored to flatter.

My brother left because he got stare-fucked so many times. And believe me, having someone stare at you so hard it feels like sex is not where you want to be while tripping balls. But if you’re a five-year-old with a hard on it’s perfect.

Reynaldo and I danced though a few more songs, one of which I remember being a terrible house remix of Shout. We loved it. I was madly in lust with mini dress girl for a full 10 minutes. In truth it was simply the air I was breathing, eroticized ether filtered through my drug to become pure want.

We left to get back to our group and within a short time I was coming down. We slogged across the soft Playa back to our camp and there I made grilled cheese for my brother, Dominic, Reynaldo and Misty. I was happy to be doing it. I was back home on the rave side.

The sexy side was a beautiful place to visit and I am thrilled it is there and I love the vitality and exuberance it adds to the spirit of Burning Man. But I don’t think I could live at its source. I’m much happier with its reflection. I was happy to curl up with Misty that night. And maybe the girl in the mini dress too, but that’s a story for another time.

I know I’m supposed to go to Burning Man for the art, but that’s a little bit like saying you read Playboy for the articles. It’s true the articles can be excellent, but what keeps bringing you back, what entices you and fills your dreams are the pictures, the women and their unabashed nakedness.

The art at Burning Man can be majestic but it’s what’s in the ether that entices, it’s the freedom the Playa gives so that women are more alive and in themselves and sexier there than anywhere else in the world that brings me back. It’s the chance to be a five-year-old with a hard on. At least that’s what Freud would say, and Misty.