Clare Give
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She actually is spent the past season currently talking about
queer ladies lifestyle
within her urban area. She documents the atmosphere, songs, trends, feeling (are you going to get laid or make brand-new mates?), and people behind the nights.
Clare
decided so it would not end up being directly to just report dyke night life in one urban area, so she stuffed her handbags and hit the highway. She actually is discussed the thriving scenes in
Nyc
,
San Francisco Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin to date; this record keeps expanding. Keep close track of her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.
Evening One
The initial thing i really do once I arrive at another town is Bing my personal solution to my personal peepsâ”Queer taverns inâ¦,” “Lesbian bars inâ¦,” “Gay bars in⦠.” Bogotá’s results were guaranteeing, with a lesbian club called Moza and a handful of homosexual barsâmainly for the town’s brand new active cultural center, Chapinero.
On monday night, my sweetheart and I whizzed anywhere in somewhat yellowish cab to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode out, and found that Moza was forget about. It shut down not long ago, explained the security guard at (hetero) club that appears with its wake. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual cousin club) was actually coming, so we nipped over truth be told there to find this had vanished too.
We made a decision to recover in a non-gay bar; the venue was actually live with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (right) partners. Lone men, their own breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide alcohol; just what tequila should Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to access the unclaimed dames. These were all very polite and understood that a no designed no, nevertheless heteronormative body weight contained in this club had been much, particularly when we might psyched ourselves right up for every night of hanging out with countless Latin-lesbians.
We quickly remaining and went old-school. Switching on all of our queer-dar, we mooched round the roads selecting the colleagues. It didn’t take long before we stumbled across (what we made the decision had been) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying in the period of their particular fingernails, looking to perhaps discover a secret lesbian club or something with the type.
These were extremely keen on the convo and spoke with our company for some time regarding the lackluster lesbian scene in their city. In a short time, the dykiest-seeming your brand new team (who’d also been many singing on the subject) remaining to go to a residence celebration. We were kept aided by the additional two who hadn’t involved with the join us for discreet gay chat thus adamantly but were eager to hang completely with our company.
âYou want girls?” she requested eagerly.
We stated we did, assuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked us out for a beneficial few blocks before ending up at an inconspicuous doorway in the exact middle of no place. Both protection guards (which understood the chaperones) checked united states with utter bemusement. “Qué?” they mentioned over repeatedly to our tips guide, as though she was attempting to simply take multiple wildebeest in to the club.
We ascended the mirror-covered staircase presuming we had been heading around a key queer mecca but eventually realised that individuals’d been taken up to a brothel. Without a doubt there’s nothing completely wrong with brothelsâi am all for safe places for gender employees accomplish their own jobâhowever, the ambiance in this destination ended up being awful; a number of ideal guys, egos pulsating as they surveyed the space of half-clothed ladies. Everyone gave all of us interested looks. They presented the expectation that people were both gonna purchase or offer intercourse whenever all we actually desired was to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We kept fairly quickly, went residence and mulled on the epic problem of your huge gay date.
Night Two
Let us attempt again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually prepared for all, but it is a homosexual dance club (to be accurate, the greatest homosexual nightclub inside american Hemisphere) in mind. At 10 p.m., we got inside 200-people waiting line, which covered across site’s belowground car parking like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped through the threshold, and everybody jittered with excitement.
Once inside, we settled 55,000 pesos ($17) and got some plastic cup for limitless products forever. This can be a common part of Colombian organizations, and possesses a truly good influence on the atmosphere in; cash and trade tend to be taken from the space, and no one risks being plunged into an existential crisis whenever examining their own lender stability another morning.
We roamed all over site bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this is not actually a venue. It’s a village that provides haven to several thousand pleasure-seeking men and women each week. Staff orchestrate the area meticulously; herding flocks of individuals, keeping stairways free of charge and churning out mixer-after-mixer.
You would require weekly inside location to actually get to grips along with it. Home songs played for the main open-air place. It’s created like an urban area heart, with elevated DJ decks at the center and beverage pubs, food shops, and pubs on its outskirts. There were at the least ten DJs every night. They mixed many types in a variety of distinctive rooms. Reggaeton played in a chapel, enter a giant amphitheater. Donna Summers played inside psychedelic disco area, Celia Cruz is on when you look at the salsa collection, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to take-over the techno chamber.
From my findings that evening, it would appear that different types draw in various degrees of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton had been all about the heteros dry-humping according to the church’s tarnished glass windows. The pop space was actually mostly younger, jubilant gay guys flailing their hands as they drunkenly serenaded their unique pals. Techno did actually entice probably the most alternative lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It actually was by far the most queer space, though dominated by tanked homosexual guys whom jumped capsules and de-clothed as night changed.
A lot of people were Latin American; there had been multiple gringos from regional hostels and just some Black men and women. In general, there were perhaps three additional queer femme lovers floating around the site. One duo had matching reddish and blue-dyed bobs. Another had been a Mexican couple I would sat alongside about plane to Bogotáâ we obviously move around in little groups.
We gravitated into queerness of techno roo but kept at about midnight to attend (everything we thought had been) the women’s toilets: a pink doorway, a security shield out front side, together with word “Eve” written above the home.
We thought this is a really glam access to a lavatory even as we mounted the glittery-pink stair case. As soon as we strike the very top, we realised this was actually no commode and we also had unintentionally found a secret lesbian club. In fact, Bogotá’s just lesbian barâperiod.
The space was kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot green club, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the walls. There is a-pole dance phase (that was positively becoming utilised), a big dance-floor, in addition to just female DJ within the building.
There had been about thirty of us within. To start with most of us danced in a huge kumbaya asexual circle, as it was actually cold and unknown who had been queer and who had been simply enjoying the femme energy (in a good way).
As the evening evolved and DJ began flowing more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms around group, couples began building kept, correct, and hub. The room eventually turned into exactly what can only be referred to as a clothed live-demo in the A-to-Z of standing up lesbian sex roles. Couples new and outdated were definitely choosing it. It actually was natural, hedonistic, Sapphic secret.
Though we were properly encased in an enormous homosexual nightclub, having less door plan, safer space policy, or productive prioritization at site’s main access required this specified place proved a blessing for all of us lezzas. This secret lesbian club had been the only real set in the venue in which a lady could hug a girl without having the anxiety about opening a close look to a sniveling drunk guy baring his teeth with glee. We embraced the liberty of Eve, associated with key lesbian club.
In front on the club (we might may be found in the medial side doorway) stood a massive steel gate, 2 meters by 2 yards (6.5 feet by 6.5 legs), with three door ladies claiming “solamente por chicas” on perform. Many started using it and moved on, but tiny batches of men lurked away from gate, ongoing for five or ten full minutes, looking at their unique tip-toes like sexy meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak in the restricted region.
Given that time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried our selves from the Eve therefore we could experience more of the venue. While doing the rounds within beautiful, sprawling town of hedonism, we stumbled across Lotus, a “solamente hombres” location (presumably built to generate a safer room for homosexual guys to understand more about from the blended audience). Its safe to express, there are no categories of females clambering to have a peek inside truth be told there.
We went as a result of the techno place and invested the remaining handful of hours acquiring flushed with the folks. We left at 5 a.m., pleased to have found this certainly distinctive venue, as well as happier to have uncovered Bogotá’s secret lesbian club.
Theatron Calle 58 #10-32, Bogotá, follow
@theatronbogota
.