Miami by Tom Austin

Sex, depending on individual perspective and how often you're actually having some, is either the ultimate party or a Technicolor plague. Miami is sex, a carnal city that has become one big erogenous zone, and sometimes it would be easier for all concerned, visitors and natives alike, if we could just take a pill (not that pill, you fool!) and make it go away. Despite the doll-house charm of Ocean Drive, South Beach feels at moments like the hot bottom of Bangkok, lust everywhere and nowhere at once. The invitation for the opening of Tommy Lee's Rok Bar featured a shirtless, excessively tattooed Lee holding up a slab of raw beef. Sex may be easy, but love is hard, and appropriate settings are equally tricky. Civilized romantics can find oases at Joe Allen or Pacific Time for dinner, and the Raleigh hotel at almost any hour. As palm fronds wave in the breeze by the Raleigh's famed pool, it's easy to imagine Esther Williams cavorting in the blue depths. Beach devotees, meanwhile, can roll right off the sand into one of Ocean Drive's more sensuous dance clubs.

But Miami is also the American Venice, poised between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, with a series of canals that wind their way through the metropolis. As William Faulkner observed, landscape is character--sometimes a scary notion for Miami natives--and every visitor is quickly transformed by the ease, pleasure, and pure sensuality of being surrounded by water. Embracing that singularity is simple, with places to rent speedboats, sailboats, and jet-skis all over town. A modest craft will do: it doesn't have to be one of those vaguely sinister Cigarettes or some other mega-powered vessel of the kind that always seems to be owned by an over-compensating, horny vulgarian with a silicone-slap-happy girlfriend draped across the bow like a mermaid gone wrong.

By boat, Miami Beach is pure romance, one gilded isle after another, a voyeur's delight. Start on the northwest end of the Beach, in the calm waters of Biscayne Bay, and take in the series of islands that Christo once encircled in pink fabric, precisely capturing the sex-and-fun-through-fluidity essence of the city. Drift down past the paparazzi pay-dirt of Indian Creek and North Bay Road, a gift box of excessively moneyed hideaways: the tiki-hut complex of Julio Iglesias; Carl Icahn's gleaming Xanadu; and Jennifer Lopez's sex-to-burn estate, between the Brothers Gibb and sharing the street with love-god Ricky Martin.

On the open bay, head south to the Miami River, which spills out past the towers of downtown. Take a drink at Big Fish, then linger over a dolphin sandwich at Garcia's while listing Haitian freighters slide by remnants of grit and whimsy such as the penis-shaped pediment on the old East Coast Fisheries building, a nod to the river's bawdy history. Or keep going, down to Matheson Hammock Park, home to the lagoon-side Red Fish Grill, and end up at the sunset mecca of improbably poised fishing shacks off Key Biscayne. From there, the confectionary skyline of Miami is as beautiful and exotic as Angkor Wat: this is the city through the haze of a softening filter, and as any lover understands, even true romance can benefit from a little distance and proper lighting.

MEET on the beach, of course. No stretch of sand is more promising than that outside the Nikki Beach Club at One Ocean Drive. Spread your towel, make eye contact, and you may eventually wander together right off the sand into this laid-back, elegant club, where you can sip the house specialty mojitos in chaise longues or a private cabana with billowing white curtains.

BUILD THE EXCITEMENT at Mango's Tropical Café, 900 Ocean Drive. A South Beach institution, the open-air Latin dance club is usually packed and throbbing with salsa and merengues. Inspired by the moves of Mango's hunky barmen and luscious barmaids, some of whom have triple-jointed hips, you'll end up doing the merengue too, and that has been known to lead to all sorts of things.

FIGHT in the surf, up to your chin. Try it. The pounding of the waves means you can yell at the top of your lungs without sharing all those intimate frustrations. There's nothing out there to throw at the idiot you're with, and the grandeur of the ocean will make your differences seem a whole lot less significant. When you're done arguing, you can ride a wave back in together.

HIDE & SULK by flagging down a cabbie and telling him you want to run away to the Café Sambal, the superstylish bayside café at the Mandarin Oriental hotel, 500 Brickell Key Drive. Lunch and dinner are busy with both locals and high-profile visitors, but the rest of the time the tables on the terrace offer a beautiful, peaceful view of Biscayne Bay. Just the place to think it over.

MAKE UP at B.E.D., 929 Washington Avenue. B.E.D.'s waiters will serve you dinner in private alcoves with platform beds, then close the curtains, leaving you to your own devices amid the large fluffy pillows. Feed each other or--whatever. B.E.D. doesn't just get you back together horizontally, it provides the necessary fuel for total reconciliation. Another option is to go old-world, with a night on Calle Ocho in Little Havana: dinner and café con leche at Versailles, followed by the dance club Hoy Como Ayer.

HAVE DARING SEX but not on the beach. Sand and thieves can ruin the moment. Mansion, 1234 Washington Avenue, is full of shadowy nooks. Other club-goers may watch discreetly out of the corners of their eyes, but no one will interrupt the dreamy-eyed lady, ostensibly sitting alone, whose boyfriend is under the table making her night memorable.

WHO ELSE: Just about every A-list star has "done" South Beach, and some have done it together. Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, Jay-Z and Beyoncé Knowles, J. Lo and Ben, J. Lo and Marc, J. Lo and--[Let's give Ms. Lopez a break here; at least she's out there emotionally, unlike some we could name. --Ed.]

ONLY IN MIAMI CAN YOU... rollerblade along a major thoroughfare in a string bikini without anyone batting an eyelash.