We built a big orange castle.
For those who care here is a detail of the coat of arms:
If you have not been, you should go.
Ok well looking for something to do I stumbled upon the human carcass wash at PolyParadise, a camp put on by a polyamory group of people.
If you have never been to Black Rock City then you have no idea how dusty things can get.
The soil there is as fine as talcum powder and has a high PH. It sticks to everything and gets everywhere!
It drys out your skin too and can leave you with an overall icky feeling. An easy remedy is a daily shower, but this is not the Waldorf-Astoria hotel here!
If you brought an RV with a shower then you are covered. Solar showers work too, but not everyone owns one or thinks to buy one. Also the use of a solar shower or watering can or whatever you use as a water delivery device involves catching the water somehow and then trucking this so-called "grey water" out of the area and dumping it off-site. Why? The order of the day is to "Leave No Trace!". Even water dumped on the playa can affect the land negatively. What's that you say? Does it not rain there you say? Sure it does. But rainwater is not contaminated with soap and body grime. Either way, it is part of Da Rulez of BRC LLC and dumping of water on the ground is verboten. So the simple act of taking a shower can be a somewhat complicated affair.
Well the PolyParadise camp has you covered! The Human Carcass wash! They have spray bottles of Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps and a series of stations for washing you off. Notice I did not say washing YOURSELF off, rather washing you off. In other words you are washed. Think of the movie "Coming To America". "The royal penis is clean your highness." Well nobody is called your highness and the stations are shallow plastic wash tubs and not a huge bath tub like the movie, but the end result is similar, a clean bod!
So here is the spiel from the official site for the group:
First you become one with the Car/Cass Wash Machine (the outer two rows), then you go through the middle row and get washed. Start with final rinse in either outer row - when there is an opening (free clear water bottle from another rinser moving up). The rinser uses a clear water spray bottle and their hands as a squeegee to rinse soap off the washee.
Then you become a hands-on scrubber (honoring boundaries!), a soaper (soapy water spray bottle), and a pre-rinse wetter (clear water spray bottle). We pass back the tools of each station (water bottles mainly) when we move forward to the next - the tools stay in place while the people percolate up. Wetters then become washees (alternating lines) and go through the middle getting washed.
When we have lots of helpers, there may be multiple scrubbers or rinsers on each side; just percolate up to the head one step at a time anyway.
We ask about and honor boundaries all along the line. These could be about soap or water near the face, about temporary tattoos not to be damaged, or about sexual or body boundaries, etc.
Now this much needed cleansing is not free. Nothing is allowed to be sold for money at Burning Man so as it is noted in the blurb the payment is to work the thing and wash other people.
After 3 days of feeling like a mothball I went for it. Now I am an exhibitionist at heart, poly and have no taboos with being touched. Of course it depends on the situation. Bus stop gropes by a hobo are not welcome. But being washed by the bare hands of complete strangers? Well at Burning Man one usually discovers that the normal taboos are no trouble at all while on the playa!
BTW, there are no photographs of this. For obvious reasons there was no photography allowed at the wash as everyone there is naked as the day they were born and unsolicited photography is hardly appreciated.
So here is a photo of The Man:
So I got there at the start of that days shift. We were given the speech on how to handle the public once we all stripped down. We were told to be certain to ask what boundaries they had and to respect any listed.
Well the question "What are your limitations or boundaries?" was answered "None" 100% of the time. Now these are hardly a bunch of bohemian hippie types who dance naked in the forest every weekend. These were a pretty vanilla looking group of men and women of all ages and races.
Never one to pass up mundane conversation with naked people while naked myself I chatted several of them up. One lady was a grade school teacher. One guy was a stockbroker. Several were students, many were simple working stiffs, I.E. the backbone of this country! Lots of professional types and the occasional guy who got there with friends, has been unemployed for the past 5 years and living on said friend's couches being for all intents and purposes a professional sponge. The perfect job! The school teacher was powerfully cute! All my grade school teachers made the Wicked Witch of the West look like Uma Thurman.
With the danger of describing the act of washing total strangers in explicit detail being somewhat tacky, I will simply say for you to use your imagination. Of course this did allow me to ask questions that I have never asked before and never will again (not unless I do this again) such as "May I wash out your nipple piercings?". Again, feel free to use your imagination.
We must have washed over 200 people that day. All in all an interesting volunteer experience. And something I highly suggest others do. It will shatter about 1.2 million taboos you may have, and that is always a good thing :-)
No take-home swag from this experience, but one day if I return to Burning Man I would like to camp with PolyParadise so in the future I may score some swag from them.
No comments:
Post a Comment