When Burroughs goes to Tangier in early 1954, he is looking for yet another place where drugs and male partners come cheap and easy. Most stories of Interzone are set in the fictional city of Interzone, a utopian site of extreme laisser-faire permissiveness. As Burroughs continues the fictional mapping of this imaginary city, Interzone comes to take on more and more of the trappings of Tangier, especially what Burroughs conceives as its Arabness. Burroughs writes about the city: “There is no line between ‘real world’ and ‘world of myth and symbol.’ Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination.” The architectural aspect of Interzone, with its mutations and sense of disorder, is not essential to the spatiality of this fictional city, which is made of tangible places like 1950s New York City and Tangier. What defines Interzone is the animating spirit of the place and the disconnected schizoid impressions from which it is assembled; thus it is a form of utopia, a place of escape from set identities and controlling agendas (religious, national, and cultural). The Tangier of Interzone features an exhilarating spirit of libertarian promiscuity. This promiscuity is both sexual, and the promiscuity of capitalism – a constant exchange between buyers and sellers where “everyone looks you over for the price tag, appraising you like merchandise in terms of immediate practical or prestige advantage." Burroughs' life in Tangier and his writing about it were supported by colonial relations of power, and it is ironic and morally questionable to look for greater freedom in a location where such freedom only exists due to the oppression of the native population. Burroughs' Tangier writings address the dynamic of subjugation, and justify this rapport through a misapprehension and misrepresentation of Arabs and Arab culture. It may seem strange to use the term "utopia" to describe a place as nightmarish, brutal and claustrophobic as Interzone. However, Burroughs presents it as an ideal place not only for the libertarian freedom it affords, but also in the sense that nothing is secret or concealed there. Raw control and power are used openly, and these dynamics are glaringly ugly. Interzone, in forming a point of contrast with American society, allows Burroughs to satirize 1950s America – its aspirations, conformity and institutional violence.