There was almost none of that to be found there; the aesthetics were pure, clean, almost virginal...
Very strange for a sub-genre born out of LGBTQIA+, "free love" and similar sub-subcultures.
I guess part of it is the whole 60s, psychedelia, cyberdelia concept that runs through this sound... the initial acid house boom was called "second summer of love" for a reason (a reference to the first "summer of love", the zenith of the hippie movement in the Bay Area).
"We are cosmic dancers now, we move upwards to the sky, we leave our bodies behind... and our bodily needs, too".
And yeah, the heavy drug use associated with that scene means that, most of the time (and contrary to popular belief), they did not want to get it on.
And then there is the whole "future" vibe... original techno sounds like "alien music from planet alien"... it's tracks about hexadecimal dimensions, interstellar signals, journeys to the seven stars...
Too abstract, too nerdy, too brainiac to think about skin2skin action.
And the fallout of that is that 99 out of 100 early techno tracks are not about intimacy. (To put this into perspective; look up the regular pop/rap/dance top 100 charts and ponder how many of these tracks are about it...)
Now let's look at the few "unicorns" inside this group that are different in that regard.
1. Model 500 - Night Drive (Thru-Babylon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Woah! That's a sleaze-bomb right there. Juan Atkins, what were you thinking?
If you try to decipher the lyrics, it's about him driving his Porsche through Detroit until he meets... his girlfriend? a stranger? a sex worker?
And then... well, as the lyrics go, "she turns it... all the way"
2. LaTour - People Are Still Having Sex https://www.youtube.com/watch?
actually one of the first true techno hits and classics.
a witty satire and almost political commentary on human intimacy.
very direct, but also polite and modest enough to leave a lot to the imagination.
reverts the trope of the "sexual revolution" by saying "we didn't change anything, it was always here and will always be here".
3. LFO - Tied Up https://www.youtube.com/watch?
LFO were the heroes of bleep techno right? Warp records, warehouse raves.
And then they drop this one, many years later. A hymn to BDSM culture. Very heavy stuff.
If you still have a bit of innocence in your mind, listening to this track might haunt you forever.
4. Culture Trance - La Revolución Del Sexo https://www.youtube.com/watch?
This is what I wrote about earlier. Cosmic longing, cosmic trance, dancing under the night sky.
The "sexo" in this track feels very new age like too... hippies, gurus, shamans... unity with the stars. Bodily unity.
5. Marusha - Whatever Turns You On https://www.youtube.com/watch?
An early hit for "queen of hard trance" marusha... sound is a bit rougher than her later tracks.
Not very graphic or explicit at all, still, the sounds, vocals, and drums make you feel the ecstasy...
6. Charly Lownoise & Mental Theo - Ultimate Sextrack (Remix) https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Gabber producers never beat around the bush when it comes to any topic, and the track is exactly what the title says.
and now... "my favorite fantasy is..."
7. Lords Of Acid - Rough Sex https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Lords of Acid were probably the most sexual themed act of the rave scene... or in the history of music.
This track pushes back the "comic longing for love" aspect I mentioned earlier... and sports a more rough and hard outlook on the whole subject matter.
8. Legend B - Lost In Love https://www.youtube.com/watch?
The acid-trance vibes, the mood of the track, and the vocal samples ("Remember when we played together?") evoke a mystical, pure, almost innocent form of intimacy.
9. Moby - Everytime You Touch Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Moby went from being a depressed rocker to being a depressed raver and finally to being a depressed producer of world-famous electronica-pop.
This is not to put him down, not at all; his music is pure and genius in its melancholy and infinite sadness.
But I guess this track was the closest he ever got to feeling happy.
10. ''O'' - Another Orgasm https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Little nasty early EBM-Electro track.
Its author later became one of the most prolific producers in all the world of electronic music.
Ca. 1996/1997, the cosmic, new age mood of techno began to wane, and with it, the association with happiness, euphoria and ecstasy.
Now, the mood in electronica and dance music was more disillusioned, apocalyptic and pessimist; and this gave rise to a lot of very sleazy tracks.
The former "odd" period of almost bodiless electronic music was over.