Clare Hand
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She’s invested the last 12 months currently talking about
queer women’s lifestyle
in her town. She files the atmosphere, songs, styles, feeling (might you get laid or generate new friends?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
made the decision which won’t end up being to just report dyke night life within one city, therefore she stuffed the woman bags and smack the street. She actually is discussed the thriving views in
New York
,
San Francisco
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin up to now; this list could keep increasing. Keep an eye on the woman
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Evening One

The first thing i actually do when I get to an innovative new city is Google my personal solution to my peeps—”Queer bars in…,” “Lesbian pubs in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s outcomes had been promising, with a lesbian club called Moza and a few gay bars—mainly from inside the area’s brand new bustling social center, Chapinero.

On saturday evening, my personal girl and I also whizzed across town in slightly yellow taxi to Moza. We pulled up, strode out, and discovered that Moza had been no more. It closed down a while ago, demonstrated the protection safeguard at the (hetero) bar that stands within the aftermath. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual uncle club) was actually just around the corner, therefore we nipped over there to acquire so it had vanished as well.

We chose to recover in a non-gay club; the location had been alive with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dance (straight) lovers. Lone dudes, their own breaths sweet with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide alcohol; just what tequila is Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to recover the unclaimed dames. These were all very courteous and recognized that a no intended no, although heteronormative body weight within club ended up being a whole lot, specially when we’d psyched our selves right up for per night of hanging out with countless latin lesbians.

We soon left and moved old school. Turning on all of our queer-dar, we mooched around the streets looking the peers. It failed to take long before we stumbled across (that which we made the decision were) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying up the period of their unique fingernails, aspiring to perhaps get a hold of a secret lesbian club or something for the sort.

They were very thinking about the convo and talked around for some time in regards to the lackluster lesbian scene in their city. Before long, the dykiest-seeming your brand new staff (who would also been the absolute most singing on the topic) remaining to attend a property celebration. We had been remaining because of the various other two who hadn’t engaged in the homosexual talk very adamantly but happened to be eager to hang completely with us.

‘You desire girls?” she requested enthusiastically.

We said we did, presuming we had been on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a taxi, which whisked united states away for a few obstructs before finding yourself at an inconspicuous doorway in the exact middle of no place. The 2 security guards (whom realized all of our chaperones) checked you with complete bemusement. “Qué?” they said over repeatedly to your manual, as if she had been wanting to just take several wildebeest into the club.

We ascended the mirror-covered stair case presuming we had been going doing a secret queer mecca but quickly realized we’d already been taken to a brothel. Definitely you’ll find nothing incorrect with brothels—i am all for secure spaces for intercourse employees doing their own job—however, the ambiance in this particular spot ended up being bad; some ideal males, egos pulsating while they surveyed the bedroom of scantily clad women. Everybody else offered united states inquisitive appearances. They held the expectation that people happened to be sometimes attending purchase or sell sex whenever all we actually wished was to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We kept very quickly, wandered home and mulled on top of the impressive breakdown of one’s large gay night out.

Night Two

Why don’t we try once more. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is open to all, but it is a gay nightclub (as accurate, the largest gay dance club in the american Hemisphere) at heart. At 10 p.m., we got from inside the 200-people queue, which covered round the venue’s belowground car park like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped through the roof, and everyone jittered with enjoyment.

Once internally, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and received a tiny bit plastic glass for limitless beverages through the night. This is exactly a typical thing in Colombian groups, and possesses a truly good effect on the atmosphere inside the house; money and trade are removed from the room, and no any concerns becoming plunged into an existential situation whenever checking their unique lender balance next early morning.

We roamed round the location bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this is simply not actually a place. It is a village that provides haven to 1000s of pleasure-seeking people each week. Team orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks men and women, maintaining stairways cost-free and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You’ll require per week during the site to really reach grips with-it. House music played within the central open-air place. It is created like an urban area middle, with elevated DJ porches in the middle and cocktail taverns, food stores, and pubs on the borders. There were about ten DJs every night. They mixed many types in a variety of distinctive areas. Reggaeton played in a chapel, play a large amphitheater. Donna Summers played in the psychedelic disco room, Celia Cruz is on for the salsa package, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to take control the techno chamber.

From my observations that evening, it appears that different styles attract various levels of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton happened to be about the heteros dry-humping in church’s stained glass windows. The pop music place ended up being generally young, jubilant homosexual guys flailing their particular arms because they drunkenly serenaded their own friends. Techno appeared to draw in by far the most alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish gear). It absolutely was many queer space, though dominated by tanked gay guys just who jumped capsules and de-clothed since the night evolved.

We were Latin American; there had been a couple of gringos from neighborhood hostels and only a few dark individuals. In general, there had been perhaps three additional queer femme couples floating around the site. One duo had matching red and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican few I would sat next to throughout the airplane to Bogotá— we obviously relocate small circles.

We gravitated with the queerness of the techno roo but remaining at about midnight to go to (what we believed ended up being) the women’s commodes: a green doorway, a security protect out top, and the term “Eve” composed above the home.

We figured this was an extremely glam entrance to a commode even as we climbed the glittery-pink staircase. Whenever we hit the very top, we realised this had been no bathroom therefore had accidentally discovered a secret lesbian club. Indeed, Bogotá’s only lesbian bar—period.

The area had been kitschy: fuchsia pleather sofas, a hot red club, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger lined the walls. There was clearly a-pole dance stage (that was seriously being used), a massive dance-floor, in addition to just feminine DJ inside building.

There have been about thirty people in there. At first all of us danced in a huge kumbaya asexual circle, since it was actually cool and uncertain who was queer and who was merely experiencing the femme electricity (in a great way).

Once the evening progressed therefore the DJ started flowing much more passionate Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms within the group, partners began developing kept, correct, and center. The space quickly evolved into exactly what do just be referred to as a clothed live-demo in the A-to-Z of waiting lesbian gender positions. Couples brand new and outdated had been absolutely going for it. It had been raw, hedonistic, Sapphic miracle.

Though we had been effectively encased in a massive homosexual nightclub, having less doorway policy, better space policy, or effective prioritization on site’s primary entry suggested this particular specified location showed a godsend for people lezzas. This key lesbian bar had been the only real set in the place where a female could kiss a girl minus the concern with opening a close look to a sniveling intoxicated man baring his teeth with glee. We accepted the liberty of Eve, associated with the key lesbian bar.

In front for the bar (we would can be bought in the medial side door) stood a large metal door, 2 yards by 2 meters (6.5 feet by 6.5 legs), with three home females saying “solo por chicas” on perform. Most started using it and shifted, but little batches of men lurked outside the entrance, lingering for five or ten full minutes, standing on their tip-toes like sexy meerkats, attempting to sneak-a-peak inside the forbidden territory.

Once the clock struck 3 a.m., we pried our selves far from Eve so we could encounter a lot of place. While carrying out the rounds inside beautiful, sprawling town of hedonism, we stumbled across Lotus, a “solamente hombres” place (apparently enabled to produce a safer area for gay guys to explore from the mixed audience). Its secure to express, there were no categories of women clambering to possess a look inside truth be told there.

We headed right down to the techno area and spent the remaining handful of many hours getting sweaty with this people. We kept at 5 a.m., pleased to own found this genuinely distinctive place, and even more content getting uncovered Bogotá’s secret lesbian club.

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