Sungod Part I: Rebirth in an Orgy

Finally, a breather!!! Now I get to tell you about the amazement that was the Sungod Festival!!! (Spoiler: I had an EPIC time) Each spring,  on the tantilizing brink of summer, the UCSD students are granted one day (though they extend the partying before and well after the festival) of promised and unlimited sex, debauchery, and shenanigans.

Just picture thousands of costumed (my favorite this year was the dinosaur), scantily clad (sometimes naked) undergrads stumbling to and fro.  Here the women are plentiful (they outnumber the guys), and overwhelmingly gorgeous (imo). UCSD girls are crazier than their male counterparts! Throughout the day dozens of girls were arrested, and even more were led to a detox area. I watched as an increasing number of students sat or lay lined on the edge of RIMAC field, dazed, shifty-eyed, and disoriented.

What could you expect? Under the grand California sun on a college campus, an event with live, loud music, inflatable obstacles courses, and access to drugs and booze in the nearby dorms and apartments mean that

things.
just.
get.
crazy.

“Hey, M, we’re good from here on out. Enjoy your night.” My supervisor said. I had been working since 5 AM, setting up and directing people to where they needed to be.

I threw him a grateful smile and handed over my walkie-talkie. Freed from my responsibilities I joined up with my friends and we made our way over to the make-shift amphitheatre where Girl Talk was playing. (I highly suggest you click on the link and to get a sense of the music, but 100000x more amazing live!!!!)

Little did I know did the time of my life await…

Walk towards the light...

Towards the back the crowd stayed loosely packed, but Girl Talk’s set was soon coming to a close, and we wanted a piece of the action. We began to make our way through the mass of bodies, and soon the deep bass and crowd buzz spurred our quest to the front. It was now a game: duck under the tall guy’s arm here, slide past the sun dress-wearing hipster there. Soon we were running to the beat. I grabbed my friend J’s hand behind me and I led the pack through the never-ending maze of people, some entwined in gyrations, other people stuck to one another out of necessity. Personal space disappeared, the air was becoming hot, heavy. We were nearing the front.

After becoming momentarily separated from my group, I clasp J’s hand again and look back.  Grasping my hand is a stranger, a girl who looks at me with the same fierce determination and uncontainable excitement. She smiles with her mouth open. “JUST GO!!!!” she screams. She gives me the motivation to push forward, literally. I was now at the front, pushed up against a guy wearing a sweat-drenched white t-shirt.

“I said I love havin’ sex but I’d rather get some head,
but I’d rather get some head
but I’d rather get some head”

blared through the crowd, and I laughed out loud as two girls in aviators and not much else yelled these lyrics and high-fived.

Girl Talk: former biomedical engineer, now the party of your life. (Not a pic from that night)

I get a glimpse of Girl Talk AKA Gregg Gillis. A glimpse and nothing more, but it’s enough. He’s shirtless and sweaty, his long brown hair plastered to his forehead, his scruffy beard glistening.  Armed with just his laptop, Girl Talk touched the masses. If this was Jesus, we were his sinners, rejoicing in his return.

We were repenting, writhing bodies, our sins being exorcised. My friends had become lost in the crowd, and I was now alone in a sea of strange limbs. Sweet, sweet sin. Long sheets of toilet paper were being shot into the air, falling onto the crowd. People used these wispy white streamers to tie around their foreheads, to mop the sweat seeping from their pores.  Giant balloons were thrown onto the raised hands and fingers, only to pop, showering us with shiny confetti.

The bass moved us, spurred us.  We were once individuals, now united as one mass. We swayed, clapped, and yelled. We were crying sanctuary.  This had to be the most sensual, non-sexual orgy ever. We were complete strangers, yet so intimately, deeply connected with every note, every start-up of a new song.  The fallen were pulled back up to their feet. We wanted you safe, we wanted you to dance with us, we wanted you to experience this with us. We were strangers, but right now we were all inherently connected.  Hips swayed, feet stomped; we were as mashed up as Girl Talk’s mixes. The sounds we emitted, the movements of our legs, arms, and torsos raw and animalistic; the music pulsed in each of our hearts, drowning out any coherence left within.

We moved like this for what seemed like an eternity, a delicious, rolling eternity.  I felt myself being lifted, high into the air, above heads and shoulders. I blinked and looked up into the ceiling, where the shows’ lights reflected and bounced off its thin plastic walls.   I was spread-eagle on dozens of hands. Hands that were all over me- on my back, the back of my neck, my butt, my legs. No groping, no grabbing, nothing creepy.

Blips of different genres resonated throughout the tent: Kelly Clarkson, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Three 6 Mafia, ’80s music, current hits, they all came together in a grand composition. He was playing songs we listened to as kids running around our backyards with the sprinklers on, songs we listened to as awkward pre-teens, songs that played as we sat in the backseats of our friends’ cars, songs we danced to at our proms. We were re-living our very lives, re-tracing our very steps, in a way we never had before.

I was set down safely back amongst the crowd. Our energy was red-hot, and Girl Talk sensed it.  The beats became steelier, the roar in our ears became deafening.  Our brains, our hearts threatened to explode out of our heads and chests. The end was coming, we could feel it, hear it, as Girl Talk began to build us up, take us high– far past what we thought was our breaking point. I felt the need to scream, to release built up pressure. The sweat dripped off our bodies, the air became almost choking. The streamers flew, the confetti dazzled, and the explosive end washed over us. We screamed, we were purged of our very beings.

We were left breathless.

In the moments during, everything became a haze to me.  Girl Talk stood on the stage, hugged, squeezed, and revered by fans onstage.  While the front of the crowd surged forward to get a piece of him, I needed out.  I had a sense of urgency, I had this huge rush of energy that threatened to explode, this was the most intense natural high I’ve experienced in a while. Again, I pushed my way through, this time against the throngs of people.  Faces loomed around me- dazed and intense eyes peered into my face as I struggled my way out.  The heat was caught in the tent, the scent musky and stale. I kept squeezing myself between others, my skin slick and wet.

Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. Finally, an out. Popping into the cool night air, the fresh scent of grass pierced my senses. Catching my breath, I felt my heart beat return to normal. I wobbled completely out, regaining my footing on the solid ground. I was covered in bodily fluids not of my own and my hair damp and sticky. The night had fallen.  I breathed deeply. I was at peace. Standing in the dark with this wide, open sky above me,

I felt
renewed,
refreshed,
reborn.