Clare Give
is a self-described flaming London lesbian. She’s spent the very last 12 months writing about
queer women’s nightlife
within her area. She files the environment, songs, fashions, vibe (might you get set or create brand-new mates?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
decided it won’t be directly to merely report dyke nightlife in one single area, thus she stuffed the woman handbags and strike the path. She’s discussing the thriving views in
Ny
,
San Francisco Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin at this point; this record could keep broadening. Monitor her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Evening One

To begin with i actually do once I can a brand new area is actually Google my personal way to my peeps—”Queer bars in…,” “Lesbian pubs in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s results had been promising, with a lesbian nightclub labeled as Moza and a number of homosexual bars—mainly in city’s new busy social center, Chapinero.

On Friday evening, my girlfriend and I also whizzed across town in a little yellowish cab to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode out, and unearthed that Moza was actually forget about. It shut down not long ago, explained the safety safeguard from the (hetero) club that stands in aftermath. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual uncle bar) had been just around the corner, so we nipped over here to acquire that it had vanished also.

We decided to recover in a non-gay club; the venue was actually live with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (right) lovers. Lone dudes, their particular breaths sweet with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide alcohol; just what tequila is to Mexico), was available in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to recover the unclaimed dames. They certainly were all extremely courteous and comprehended that a no suggested no, but the heteronormative fat within club was a large number, particularly when we would psyched our selves up for per night of hanging out with a huge selection of Latin-lesbians.

We quickly kept and moved old school. Turning on all of our queer-dar, we mooched around the roadways interested in the colleagues. It did not take very long before we found (what we should decided happened to be) three other lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar homosexual,” while eying up the duration of their particular nails, hoping to maybe get a hold of a secret lesbian bar or something of this sort.

They certainly were really interested in the convo and talked with our team for some time towards lackluster lesbian scene within their town. Before long, the dykiest-seeming of one’s brand-new team (who’d been the absolute most singing on the topic) left to go to a residence party. We had been kept together with the other two that hasn’t involved with the gay chat therefore adamantly but had been eager to hold down around.

‘You desire girls?” she requested enthusiastically.

We mentioned we performed, assuming we had been on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked us out for a beneficial couple of obstructs before finding yourself at an inconspicuous entrance in the center of no place. The 2 protection guards (whom realized our chaperones) checked us with total bemusement. “Qué?” they stated over repeatedly to your manual, like she ended up being wanting to simply take multiple wildebeest to the club.

We ascended the mirror-covered stairway assuming we were proceeding doing a key queer mecca but quickly realized that people’d been taken up a brothel. Obviously there is nothing completely wrong with brothels—I’m all for secure spaces for sex workers to complete their own job—however, the ambiance in this particular spot had been terrible; some appropriate men, egos pulsating as they surveyed the area of scantily clad women. Everybody else offered united states interesting appearances. They presented the expectation that individuals had been sometimes browsing purchase or offer sex whenever all we actually desired would be to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We kept pretty easily, went home and mulled during the epic breakdown in our large gay evening out for dinner.

Evening Two

Why don’t we attempt once more. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is available to all, but it is a gay nightclub (are exact, the largest homosexual dance club within the Western Hemisphere) in your mind. At 10 p.m., we got into the 200-people waiting line, which wrapped across the place’s underground car parking like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from the roof, and everyone jittered with pleasure.

When inside the house, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and got just a little synthetic cup for limitless beverages through the night. This is one common thing in Colombian groups, and it has a really positive impact on the atmosphere around; money and exchange are taken off the area, without any risks getting plunged into an existential situation when examining their particular lender balance the following day.

We roamed around the place bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and figured this is not actually a place. It’s a village which provides haven to lots and lots of pleasure-seeking people each week. Employees orchestrate the area meticulously; herding flocks of individuals, maintaining stairways complimentary and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You’ll require each week for the place to truly arrive at grips along with it. Residence music played for the main open-air region. Its designed like a town centre, with elevated DJ porches at the center and beverage pubs, food stores, and bars on their outskirts. There have been at the very least ten DJs each night. They mixed many types in various unique places. Reggaeton played in a chapel, play a large amphitheater. Donna Summers played into the psychedelic disco area, Celia Cruz is found on within the salsa collection, and a DJ flew in from Berlin to dominate the techno chamber.

From my observations that night, it appears that different styles draw in various amounts of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton were exactly about the heteros dry-humping in church’s tarnished glass house windows. The pop area ended up being generally young, jubilant gay men flailing their hands because they drunkenly serenaded their own friends. Techno appeared to entice one particular alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It had been one particular queer space, though ruled by tanked gay men just who jumped capsules and de-clothed while the evening evolved.

The majority of people were Latin-American; there are various gringos from local hostels and just a number of Black people. In general, there have been perhaps three other queer femme lovers going swimming the place. One duo had matching purple and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican few I would sat next to from the jet to Bogotá— we plainly relocate little groups.

We gravitated into the queerness from the techno roo but remaining around midnight to visit (what we believed was actually) the ladies’s toilets: a red entrance, a safety shield out front, together with term “Eve” written over the home.

We realized this was a rather glam entrance to a lavatory once we mounted the glittery-pink stairway. Whenever we smack the leading, we realized that the was no bathroom and now we had inadvertently discovered a secret lesbian bar. In reality, Bogotá’s sole lesbian bar—period.

The area had been kitschy: fuchsia pleather sofas, a hot red bar, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the wall space. There seemed to be a pole dancing period (that was positively being utilised), a large dance-floor, therefore the sole female DJ in the building.

There have been about thirty people within. At first most of us danced in a big kumbaya asexual group, since it was cool and confusing who had been queer and who was just experiencing the femme electricity (in a great way).

Because the evening advanced additionally the DJ began pouring more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms on the group, partners began developing left, right, and center. The room soon evolved into so what can only be called a clothed live-demo of A-to-Z of standing up lesbian intercourse jobs. Couples brand new and old were definitely opting for it. It absolutely was raw, hedonistic, Sapphic magic.

Though we were successfully encased in a massive gay club, the lack of door plan, better space policy, or effective prioritization at venue’s major access required that this selected area proved a godsend for all of us lezzas. This secret lesbian bar was actually truly the only invest the site where a lady could hug a woman minus the anxiety about beginning a watch to a sniveling drunk guy baring their teeth with glee. We embraced the freedom of Eve, of the key lesbian bar.

In front of this bar (we would can be bought in the medial side home) endured a massive steel door, 2 meters by 2 meters (6.5 feet by 6.5 foot), with three doorway women saying “solamente por chicas” on recurring. Most started using it and managed to move on, but tiny batches of guys lurked outside of the door, lingering for 5 or 10 minutes, sitting on their particular tip-toes like sexy meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak during the forbidden area.

Because time clock hit 3 a.m., we pried our selves away from Eve so we could encounter a lot of location. While performing the rounds within stunning, sprawling community of hedonism, we came across Lotus, a “solo hombres” area (apparently designed to create a safer room for homosexual dudes to understand more about away from the mixed group). It is safe to express, there have been no groups of ladies clambering getting a glance inside truth be told there.

We oriented right down to the techno space and spent the residual handful of several hours obtaining flushed with our folks. We kept at 5 a.m., delighted to own located this really unique venue, plus happier getting revealed Bogotá’s secret lesbian club.

Theatron Calle 58 #10-32, Bogotá, practice
@theatronbogota
.