It all began when I swung my leg over my bike. I heard a small tear happen in the crotch of my very thin, very favorite pants. Whatev, it’s Burning Man. So when Dominic and Reynaldo yanked me from my slumber for our first evening out I put on my slightly torn, very favorite pants.

First we stumbled upon an empty 80’s/90’s dance party. Not a soul. Sensing opportunity, Dominic strutted into the middle of the dance floor clothed in nothing but his signature blue fur shrug, boy shorts, and ankle boots. He struck his best John Travolta pose and within minutes had ignited the dance floor – pure animal magnetism.

We moved on to an art piece made up of large glowing dots arranged in concentric circles. The dots changed colors when you jumped on them. So we jumped, going from one to the other trying not to touch the playa.

As I stretched my legs wide to jump from dot to dot, the tear grew larger and larger. By the time I was done jumping and laughing and bumping into Reynaldo and hearing Dominic exclaim, “Oh God,” the tear ran the entire length of my leg, crotch to ankle.

I was swinging free, open to the world. Oh, what wonder and joy it is to feel the night air on your cock. It was as though the playa was reminding me, or as though I had a large rip in my pants.

The next day Reynaldo borrowed my pants. He stood on the street holding the pants closed waiting for people to pass by. When they looked over Reynaldo would throw the pants open and smile.

At night the air was warm and easy and with nothing better to do I dropped my pants. That’s one of the beauties of Burning Man; often there is nothing better to do than exactly what you are doing.

To be clear, I was not shirt cocking. I took my shirt off as well.  I did, however, have my moccasins on. Thus I invented moccasin cocking. I highly recommend it.

Reynaldo dropped his pants as well. He was straight up boot cocking. Side by side we walked through the desert night, a couple of cocked up angels. Dominic declined to join because he’s self-conscious about his small balls. But our friend Millstein dropped trou with us. Reynaldo complimented him on his large package.

I must admit, I do not know how to tell how big a penis will become when it is in it’s flaccid state. I know there are growers and show-ers. But how much will a grower grow, and how much does a show-er show? I honestly do not know.

When we came to crowds or lights we put our pants back on. That way we could talk to people and hear all the craziness. If we had kept our pants off we would have been the crazies.

At the tripper trap, an art piece of little balls that light up different colors in different patterns thus trapping people who are tripping balls, we appeared normal enough to meet a woman named Wendy. She told us about her two kids, aged 18 and 20.

“I was the cool Mom,” she said. “I let them have the parties at my house. I was the local MILF. My kid’s friends would come over and, you know, I started sleeping with some of the 18-year-olds. They were energetic. That was fun.”

Reynaldo, Dominic, Millstein and I all checked in to be sure we heard right.

Later, on an art car, I passed as normal to have a conversation with a girl done up in a white Grecian dress and sandals. “Oh my god, I’m so high,” she said.

“On what?”

“On life… And a little bit of e.”

She was in love but it was a love that couldn’t be. Why’s that? Because he was in jail. What for? Rape.

“It’s doomed love,” she said. “But it’s romantic.” She was from Sacramento.

We walked past one couple without our pants on but it was dark enough that they didn’t notice. We got to hear them say, “Aren’t we amazing? We are so amazing. I mean, look at all this. None of this would exist without us. We are so amazing. I love being amazing.”

We walked on, Reynaldo and I swinging sexy. Then our drugs went intense and we launched ourselves into the overwrought sexy dancing dome. Millstein was there feeling the buzz. Poor Dominic was on acid and had a look of horror on his face.

High on G Reynaldo and I went and danced in the shadow boxes, projecting as perfect silhouettes. We kept our pants on. It would have a looked a little funny with them down, a silhouette of our bouncing dongs. But with our pants on it was, as Reynaldo put it, like dancing as an idealized self.

With the two of us in the shadow boxes we took our pants-down-cock-out energy and gave it to the dome. At Burning Man that’s a public service.

That night I fell into my tent and tried to fall asleep but my stomach hurt. A while later I was on all fours, head against the bumper of a cargo van, pants on, trying to empty my stomach while listening to the gaiety going on all around me.

I was remembering every loss I’d experienced, feeling lonely, sick, raw, tired, miserable. The Playa had broken me down and spit me out.  And Misty had stayed home this year. I had playa dust under my nails.

The next morning Dominic and Reynaldo listened to me as I talked about all I felt I had lost, about my shadow of loneliness, about trying to survive the night in the dark of the desert. They listened to my tears and how, when I dance at dawn, all of those feelings disappear. I rise with the sun.

And so Dominic and Reynaldo determined to stay awake with me till dawn on our last night. To that end they took copious amounts of drugs. I was still wobbly. It was windy and the night was full of dust. Everywhere we went seemed less than inspired. We couldn’t even take off our pants.

We ended up back at the sexy dance dome. Dancing felt good. Dominic and Reynaldo were chilling on a lounge, watching me. I told them they should go to Comfort and Joy for the party that was happening that night. That’s why were such good Playa mates, no need to stick. I stayed and danced alone. I felt the freedom of moving in all that space and felt alive.

I walked back to camp to get some water. The wind had died down and the night was beautiful. I took down my pants and swung in the air. Walking alone in the desert with my cock out, protected from the revelry by the darkness, it felt peaceful.

I moved across the desert to my favorite dawn spot at Opulent Temple and began to dance. And there was Millstein. We had agreed to meet here but this was the first plan all week that had actually happened. Millstein and I danced through the dawn.

Then we wandered out into the desert, faced the rising sun, and one last time we pulled down our pants. I swear you could feel love at that moment as easily as gravity. Sometimes, the cock saves.

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.

We started at the Lusty Lady. Her booths no longer take quarters, just dollar bills now, leaving me with an entire roll of quarters.

“At least you’re good for laundry,” the birthday girl said. She looked fine in her backless top and black boots and silver collared coat like the cape of some adult superhero.

Pole Dancing Penny, that’s who she looked like – with her tailored silver cape and magic telescoping pole. Penny Jackson by day, Pole Dancing Penny by night; she can swoop in anywhere, raise her pole, and save the sexually desolate from their fate.

We went into our booths; our windows went up, the dancing girls cried out, “Ahhhh, its bitches.”

Dancing girls are always happy to see bitches.

They told us we could all pile into one of the larger booths. Four of us squeezed in, the window came up, and girls came over. The lighting was straight up, the girls very real, thighs and tummies and hips and wobbly steps on those impossible heels.

“The heels are weighted,” the birthday girl explained. “It makes it easier to hold your legs apart.”

Suddenly there’s a pussy in the window.

“Oh wow,” says Pole Dancing Penny’s friend Lulu. “There’s a lot on the outside. Mines all neat and tidy but that ones just….”

“Some girls are like that,” I said.

“Do guys find it attractive?”

“It can be fun to suck on, like a never ending jolly rancher.”

Lulu has gotten used to me, but that one still throws her.

Pole Dancing Penny turns to us. “I’m kind of bored.”

“Shhhhh,” go the other guy and I, god forbid we be rude to the dancing girls.

So we head out of there, watch a guy swab the floor of our booth with a mop. Make our way down Broadway. Short negotiation with a roving bouncer and we’re inside the all nude – no alcohol – club for 10 bucks a head, birthday girl for free.

All-nude clubs are always alcohol free. Something happens to straight men when we see pussy. Some of us go a little crazy, like reach out and touch somebody crazy.

Could be some primordial program to plant seed in an open field. Could be DNA algorithms, we see pussy; id hormones are released. Could be straight men really like naked women.

Lulu is worried for when her boy joins us later. What do you do when you’re no longer new she wants to know? How do you still entice? All the dancers are new, and hot; like Fuchsia, here.

A tiny brunette on platform heels, a ruffled mini-mini and wearing glasses, she was touching both of us; her lips to Lulu’s ear, then to mine.

“She’s so cute,” she cooed. “I want her. Bring her into the back. You can watch.”

I thought how sweet it was of Fuchsia to offer me to watch. That’s how good she was.

Domino sidles up to me. Her story, dancing for three years; first year, no relationships, heavy into drugs; second year, moved to Tempe, got clean, danced again with new eyes; third year, back here, drummer boyfriend, he doesn’t like her dancing, she doesn’t like his groupies. Would I like a dance?

I didn’t want to get in the middle of her drama.

We bought Penny an all-nude dance with touching benefits from Layla. Penny liked the way Layla leaned over the table. Penny came back trying to re-tie her backless top. They had lay down together.

“She has perfect boobs,” Penny said. “They’re fake, but perfect.”

Always go to a strip club with girls. Dancers are more patronizing to men alone, their act that they find you interesting is a little more blatant. They have more fun with girls; more joy to be found in a world we know is no one’s first choice.

Money was collected and Lulu headed off to find Fuchsia for a lap dance, topless only, if you please.

Lulu returned.

“She wouldn’t stop talking,” Lulu said. “Doesn’t she know she’s supposed to be on Sex island, not Conversation island?”

“John Stewart’s on my conversation island,” said Penny.

“I’m sure that’s just where he hoped he’d be,” I said. “He’s probably like ‘Is Colbert on sex island? Are you fucking Colbert?’”

Polly told us what Fuchsia was saying.

“She said you can’t really be sexual out in the world. Not sexual like this. She said working here has allowed her to be sexy in a way she never was before. Just walking around with it.”

“It’s kind of true,” Penny said. “I mean, I could be sexy, you know, thrown down, taken, but if I got asked to do a little dance I’d get all shy. Then I took this lap dancing class and it kind of forces you to be sexy in this whole new way, much more out there.”

Everyone’s ready to drink so we head across the street to the topless-only but liquored club. The girls are much better dancers. The energy is in a lower key, no pussy. And I’ll be honest. I was less excited.

Penny started explaining the finer points of the pole.

“See the way she used her hand to wipe the pole down. It gets really slippery. And it hurts your thighs when you’re using them to hold yourself up on the pole. I come out of class all bruised and sore. T’s amazing the sheer number of things you can do. There are so many moves. And it’s just you and the pole.”

The dancer with the most fans was the one with the smallest boobs. She had a way on the pole. A man walked to the stage and flicked his wrist just so sending dollar bills out in a perfect shower.

The club owners know something the fashion industry does not, men and women like all shapes and sizes of women. Big girls, small girls, curvy and stick figures, they’re all represented.

Pole Dancing Penny’s boyfriend shows up. So does Lulu’s. The boys were at their men’s circle. I’d tell you what they were doing but then they’d have to kill you. Drinks are had. Penny and her man wander to the back for a dance.

Lulu is ready to go home. Her man sees it. Rather than be enticed by the new he says to her, “We gotta get you outta here, huh?” Lulu nods her head.

We start to slip out, past the dancing girls who are armored, but sweet, past the male patrons who are happy in the moment but lost in the general, past the waitresses who are willing to wear skimpy outfits for bigger tips, but not take their clothes off. Who knows what determines that difference.

It was a happy birthday, a little tiring. It was nice to be surrounded by naked girls. But after a while their lack of context, the show they gave in place of themselves, was no longer of interest. I much preferred my time with Lulu and Pole Dancing Penny, even if they kept their clothes on.