Burning Man...Hmm...What is
it?
As I corresponded with people from my Yahoo group I realized that most people
are not familiar with the Burning Man project. To familiarize you with what
Burning Man is and (hopefully) get people interested in going, I will give a
short description of it here.
Every year there is a big get-together of people in a lake-bed in the desert in
northern Nevada. It is sort of an art festival, sort of a rave, sort of a huge
counter-culture event. The best way that I can describe the scene at the 2001
Burning Man is a combination of Woodstock (the 1969 version) with Mel Gibson's "Thunderdome"
movie, and the constant blare of techno in the background. One of the people I
camped with described it to me as "organized chaos". After spending a week doing
literally anything they want to, the participants watch a wooden effigy burn up.
Then everything else either is burnt or packed up and everyone goes home. Anyone
going can expect to be uncomfortable, because the northern Nevada desert is one
of the most inhospitable places in the US. People drive days to get to Burning
Man, they sweat, breath dust, get sunburnt, and then leave. In 2001 over 30,000
people were there.
Most people who go organize into "camps", groups of about 20 to 30 people who
set up a large tent and concentrate on a theme. The camp I hooked up with was "CampSpank".
My project was the sign that you can see in my
Burning Man 2001 photo
collection.
Burning Man is the only place I know of where it is possible to get a spanking
from strangers in a public setting. Besides our camp there were two other camps
that I know of that offered spankings, one of which was with "The Spankomatic",
an automatic spanking machine (no joke, that machine actually works!). Also,
every year there is The Temple of Atonement, which offers more formal and severe
punishments with leather implements. For a spanking fan, especially a spankee or
a switch, Burning Man offers a unique opportunity to seek out a variety of
spanking experiences.
Another thing about Burning Man is that the entire event is clothing optional.
It is not a nude event, only about 5% of the participants are fully nude and
another 5% are topless at any given time. People who go dress up in everything
imaginable, and nudity simply is one option out of many for how people want to
appear during the event.
To be honest, my desire to spark interest in Burning Man was one of my reasons
for posting this section. I urge all of you to go to the main Burning Man
website www.burningman.com and look at the photo albums they have posted. That
will give you an idea of what Burning Man is like.
The story behind the Burning
Man 2001 CampSpank pictures
I
had a question from one of my Yahoo group members about the CampSpank pictures,
so I'll give a little info about them here. I made the sign, spanking bench, and
several paddles before I went to Nevada. I am not a carpenter, but I have a few
of my grandfather's old tools, enough to cut the wood and drill screw-holes for
the camp items. I also collected some old, thick belts, so the items I
contributed to the camp were several home-made paddles and a couple of belts, as
well as the sign and bench.
I would say the visitors were evenly balanced between males and females,
although most of my pictures are of females because that is who I mostly
spanked. What happened was that people walking by our camp saw the signs and
came over to see what was going on. I invited them to take some paddle swats,
and about half of the visitors took me up on that. I asked them how hard they
wanted the swats and how many. As you can see by the pictures, most of the
guests only took a few light swats, but several did want a decent spanking. One
Canadian woman, who had never been spanked before, told me that she enjoyed it
so much that she would ask her husband to start spanking her. Also, one young
woman came back three different times for spankings. She was interesting,
because she totally dreaded each swat and had to nerve herself up between the
swats. However, she was determined to see how much she could take, and
especially the third day took quite a severe punishment with a belt. I also
paddled a couple of male guests, including one cross-dresser who left the camp
with some serious welts on his butt.
I always encouraged the guests who were wearing clothes to at least lower them
for the spanking. For me a spanking is not a spanking unless it is on the bare
bottom. Almost everyone took me up on that, although I did spank a few bottoms
over thongs and a few others over panties. I did not bother to scan photos of
the guests who posed at the sign in their panties, which is why there are no
panty shots included in the CampSpank photo collection. Most of the camp guests
were just ordinary people who had not experienced a spanking before, and the
camp gave them a chance to try something new.
The year that I was at Burning Man there were several places to get a spanking
apart from our camp. It seems that at Burning Man someone features spanking each year.
Unlike many of the spanking clubs and social groups I have seen featured on the
Internet, there is no dress code at Burning Man, so as far as I'm concerned what
you can get at Burning Man far exceeds what you can get from many of the socials
and parties I see advertised on-line.
So, for those of you who answered my poll question about Burning Man with "Hm...what
is it?", I hope that I have sparked your curiosity to check out their main
website and the event itself.
-EC-
