Clare Hand
is a self-described flaming London lesbian. She is invested the final year currently talking about
queer ladies night life
in her urban area. She files the atmosphere, music, styles, feeling (might you get set or generate brand new friends?), and those behind the nights.
Clare
determined it would not end up being right to just document dyke lifestyle in one single city, therefore she packed the woman handbags and strike the highway. She actually is discussing the thriving scenes in
Ny
,
San Francisco
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin up until now; this number will keep expanding. Monitor her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.
Night One
The first thing i actually do when I arrive at a new town is actually Google my way to my personal peepsâ”Queer bars inâ¦,” “Lesbian bars inâ¦,” “Gay bars in⦠.” Bogotá’s effects happened to be guaranteeing, with a lesbian nightclub known as Moza and a handful of homosexual barsâmainly inside the town’s brand-new active social hub, Chapinero.
On Friday evening, my personal girlfriend and I whizzed anywhere in somewhat yellowish taxi to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode away, and discovered that Moza was actually no more. It shut down not long ago, explained the safety shield within (hetero) club that stands within the aftermath. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual buddy bar) ended up being coming, so we nipped over indeed there locate which had vanished as well.
We chose to recover in a non-gay bar; the venue was actually live with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (right) partners. Lone men, their unique breaths sweet with aguardiente (Colombia’s national alcohol; just what tequila is always to Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to retrieve the unclaimed dames. These people were all very courteous and realized that a no implied no, but the heteronormative fat contained in this club was a whole lot, specially when we would psyched ourselves right up for every night of hanging out with numerous Latin-lesbians.
We eventually remaining and moved old school. Turning on the queer-dar, we mooched round the roads selecting our colleagues. It didn’t take very long before we stumbled across (what we should determined happened to be) three other lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar homosexual,” while eying up the period of their nails, wishing to maybe discover a secret lesbian club or something like that of this type.
These people were really thinking about the convo and spoke with our team for a while regarding lackluster lesbian scene in their area. Eventually, the dykiest-seeming in our new staff (who would also been the essential vocal on the topic) left to go to a house party. We had been kept aided by the different two who’dn’t engaged in the homosexual cam thus adamantly but were keen to hang aside with us.
âYou wish girls?” she asked eagerly.
We said we did, presuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked us away for good few blocks before winding up at an inconspicuous entrance in nowhere. The 2 security protections (exactly who understood our very own chaperones) looked at you with utter bemusement. “Qué?” they said continually to your manual, as though she was actually trying to just take a few wildebeest inside club.
We ascended the mirror-covered staircase presuming we were going around a secret queer mecca but eventually realised that people’d already been taken to a brothel. Of course you’ll find nothing incorrect with brothelsâI’m all for safe places for sex staff members to accomplish their jobâhowever, the ambiance in this destination was actually bad; some appropriate men, egos throbbing because they surveyed the area of scantily clad ladies. Every person gave us wondering looks. They held the hope that individuals were either likely to get or offer intercourse when all we actually wanted would be to sip a cerveza and party to Sylvester. We remaining rather quickly, walked home and mulled over the unbelievable breakdown of our own huge gay evening out for dinner.
Night Two
Let’s try again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is ready to accept all, but it is a gay club (is precise, the biggest gay club inside the american Hemisphere) in mind. At 10 p.m., we had gotten in 200-people waiting line, which wrapped across venue’s belowground car parking like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped through the ceiling, and everyone jittered with pleasure.
When around, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and received only a little synthetic mug for endless drinks forever. It is one common thing in Colombian clubs, and has now a very positive impact on the environment inside the house; cash and exchange are taken from the room, with no one concerns getting plunged into an existential crisis when checking their bank stability next morning.
We roamed round the venue bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and figured this isn’t truly a place. It is a village that provides sanctuary to countless pleasure-seeking individuals every week. Personnel orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of people, keeping stairways free and churning out mixer-after-mixer.
You’d probably require per week from inside the place to truly will grips along with it. Home music played during the main open-air region. Its created like an urban area centre, with elevated DJ porches at the center and beverage taverns, food stores, and bars on the borders. There had been at least ten DJs every night. They mixed numerous types in several unique areas. Reggaeton played in a chapel, pop in a big amphitheater. Donna Summers played in psychedelic disco area, Celia Cruz is on inside the salsa room, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to dominate the techno chamber.
From my personal observations that night, it would appear that different types attract different quantities of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton had been all about the heteros dry-humping in church’s stained cup windowpanes. The pop music room was actually mainly young, jubilant gay guys flailing their hands because they drunkenly serenaded their own friends. Techno appeared to entice probably the most renewable lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It had been by far the most queer space, though controlled by tanked homosexual guys which jumped capsules and de-clothed once the evening evolved.
People happened to be Latin American; there have been a few gringos from local hostels and only a handful of Ebony individuals. In general, there have been possibly three different queer femme couples floating around the place. One duo had corresponding red and blue-dyed bobs. Another had been a Mexican few I would sat alongside regarding plane to Bogotáâ we demonstrably move around in small circles.
We gravitated into queerness from the techno roo but kept around midnight to visit (what we believed was actually) the ladies’s toilets: a red entrance, a protection protect out front, as well as the term “Eve” created over the doorway.
We thought this was a very glam entry to a bathroom even as we mounted the glittery-pink stair case. Once we smack the leading, we realized that this was no toilet and we had unintentionally discovered a secret lesbian bar. Indeed, Bogotá’s sole lesbian barâperiod.
The space was kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot red bar, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger lined the walls. There seemed to be a pole dance level (that was certainly getting utilised), a massive dance-floor, together with sole female DJ during the building.
There were around thirty folks in there. To start with we-all danced in a big kumbaya asexual group, because it had been cool and confusing who had been queer and who was merely experiencing the femme power (in a good way).
Because the night progressed in addition to DJ started pouring a lot more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms across the group, partners began building remaining, correct, and hub. The area shortly turned into so what can simply be called a clothed live-demo regarding the A-to-Z of one night stand lesbian gender jobs. Couples brand new and outdated happened to be absolutely choosing it. It was raw, hedonistic, Sapphic magic.
Though we were properly encased in a massive gay nightclub, the possible lack of doorway plan, safer space plan, or active prioritization on venue’s major access designed that the designated region showed a godsend for people lezzas. This key lesbian club was actually truly the only devote the location in which a girl could hug a female minus the fear of starting a watch to a sniveling drunk man baring their teeth with glee. We accepted the liberty of Eve, in the secret lesbian bar.
At the front end of the bar (we might enter the medial side door) endured an enormous material door, 2 meters by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 foot), with three doorway women saying “solo por chicas” on repeat. Many got it and shifted, but small batches of dudes lurked beyond your door, lingering for five or ten minutes, sitting on their particular tip-toes like aroused meerkats, attempting to sneak-a-peak during the restricted territory.
Since the clock hit 3 a.m., we pried ourselves away from Eve therefore we could discover a lot of place. While undertaking the rounds inside breathtaking, sprawling town of hedonism, we came across Lotus, a “solamente hombres” place (presumably designed to make a safer space for gay men to explore off the combined crowd). It really is safe to state, there were no groups of women clambering to have a look inside truth be told there.
We went down to the techno area and spent the residual number of hours obtaining sweaty with these men and women. We kept at 5 a.m., delighted getting located this certainly unique place, plus happier to have revealed Bogotá’s key lesbian bar.
Theatron Calle 58 #10-32, Bogotá, follow
@theatronbogota
.