Clearly, the camp I was staying in was the grooviest anywhere. It’s called Poly Paradise, and is a 10-year Burning Man tradition. Starting with a modest four participants in 1999, the camp had grown to about 150 by 2009. The theme is a camp for people who are in committed, nonmonogamous relationships; or people experimenting with the idea; or their friends.
Our large, well-organized and moreover well-funded camp provided two free services to the community. The first was a “human carcass wash” of which I have no photos, since photos of this are banned. The carcass wash, using hands, soap and squirt guns, cleaned playa dust off of about 500 to 600 people per day, assembly-line style, in about three hours.
The second community function was the daily Poly High Tea, a talk or discussion group about relationships held at 11 o’clock each morning. This is in line with the cerebral viewpoint that most polyamorous people have. Poly High Tea’s speakers facilitated discussion and answered questions about options for relationship structure, including a talk by a scholar on the history of monogamy.
Because of its size, organization and infrastructure, Poly Paradise had an abundance of shelter, food and water which we could share with guests and visitors. The camp also featured a fairly large geodesic dome dedicated specifically to sexual activity, and (in the tradition of ‘while you’re at it, attempt the impossible’) hosted a pizza party and, later in the week, a turkey roast using makeshift, charcoal-fuelled “playa ovens” that actually worked. So did the dome…