Clare Give
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She is invested the last year writing about
queer ladies’ night life
in her own city. She documents the environment, music, styles, ambiance (might you get put or create brand-new mates?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
determined that it won’t end up being directly to just record dyke night life in one urban area, thus she stuffed her bags and strike the roadway. She’s discussing the thriving scenes in
Nyc
,
Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin to date; this record could keep increasing. Keep close track of her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
here.

Night One

The very first thing I do once I get to another area is actually Google my personal way to my personal peeps—”Queer taverns in…,” “Lesbian taverns in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s outcomes were encouraging, with a lesbian club labeled as Moza and a number of homosexual bars—mainly in the area’s brand-new busy social center, Chapinero.

On saturday night, my personal sweetheart and I whizzed anywhere in only a little yellowish cab to Moza. We pulled up, strode out, and found that Moza ended up being no more. It closed down not long ago, revealed the security safeguard on (hetero) club that appears in its wake. El Mozo (Moza’s gay cousin bar) was just around the corner, so we nipped over indeed there discover so it had vanished also.

We decided to recoup in a non-gay club; the place had been lively with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dance (right) couples. Lone men, their unique breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s national alcohol; what tequila would be to Mexico), was available in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to access the unclaimed dames. They were all really polite and understood that a no suggested no, however the heteronormative body weight contained in this bar ended up being plenty, particularly when we would psyched our selves right up for per night of hanging out with hundreds of Latin-lesbians.

We soon kept and moved old-school. Flipping on the queer-dar, we mooched across roads finding our very own colleagues. It didn’t take very long before we stumbled across (what we decided had been) three other lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying in the length of their fingernails, wishing to possibly discover a secret lesbian club or something like that on the kind.

They were very interested in the convo and spoke around for some time about the lackluster lesbian scene within urban area. Before long, the dykiest-seeming of your new crew (who’d also been the most vocal on the subject) kept to visit a residence party. We had been remaining with the various other two that hasn’t involved with the gay cam so adamantly but were keen to hold on with our company.

‘You want girls?” she requested enthusiastically.

We said we did, assuming we had been on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked all of us away for a great few blocks before finding yourself at an inconspicuous doorway in no place. The two safety guards (whom understood our chaperones) checked united states with total bemusement. “Qué?” they mentioned continually to your guide, just as if she was actually wanting to take a few wildebeest into the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered stairway presuming we were proceeding as much as a secret queer mecca but eventually realised that individuals’d already been taken up to a brothel. Obviously there is nothing completely wrong with brothels—I’m all for secure rooms for sex employees to-do their particular job—however, the feeling in this place had been awful; a number of ideal men, egos pulsating while they surveyed the room of scantily clad females. Everybody else provided you interesting appearance. They presented the hope that individuals happened to be possibly likely to buy or promote gender when all we really wanted would be to sip a cerveza and dancing to Sylvester. We kept pretty quickly, moved house and mulled over the epic problem of our own big gay evening out for dinner.

Night Two

Why don’t we try once again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually available to all, but it’s a gay nightclub (becoming exact, the biggest gay dance club in american Hemisphere) at heart. At 10 p.m., we got into the 200-people waiting line, which covered round the site’s underground carpark like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from ceiling, and everybody jittered with exhilaration.

Once in, we settled 55,000 pesos ($17) and received a tiny bit synthetic mug for endless products all-night. That is one common part of Colombian organizations, and it has a very good impact on the environment in; money and trade are taken out of the space, and no any risks becoming plunged into an existential crisis when checking their unique bank stability next morning.

We roamed around the venue bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and figured this is not really a location. Its a village that offers sanctuary to thousands of pleasure-seeking folks every week. Employees orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of individuals, keeping stairways cost-free and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You’ll require each week during the site to truly get to grips with it. Residence music played for the central open-air location. Its created like a town hub, with elevated DJ porches in the centre and beverage taverns, food shops, and pubs on the borders. There are at the least ten DJs every night. They mixed numerous genres in various distinctive rooms. Reggaeton played in a chapel, pop in a big amphitheater. Donna Summers played inside psychedelic disco place, Celia Cruz is on within the salsa collection, and a DJ flew in from Berlin to take control of the techno chamber.

From my personal findings that evening, it appears that various genres attract different degrees of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton happened to be exactly about the heteros dry-humping beneath the chapel’s stained cup house windows. The pop music space ended up being primarily youthful, jubilant homosexual men flailing their hands because they drunkenly serenaded their unique friends. Techno did actually draw in the quintessential alternative lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It absolutely was by far the most queer space, though controlled by tanked homosexual men just who popped pills and de-clothed since the evening developed.

People had been Latin American; there were many gringos from local hostels and simply a small number of Black individuals. On the whole, there are maybe three different queer femme partners floating around the location. One duo had corresponding purple and blue-dyed bobs. Another happened to be a Mexican couple I would sat next to regarding jet to Bogotá— we obviously move around in small sectors.

We gravitated towards the queerness associated with techno roo but left at about midnight to go to (that which we believed had been) the ladies’s lavatories: a red doorway, a protection protect out top, additionally the term “Eve” composed over the home.

We figured it was a really glam entrance to a commode while we climbed the glittery-pink staircase. Whenever we strike the top, we realized this was actually no commode therefore we had unintentionally discovered a secret lesbian club. Actually, Bogotá’s sole lesbian bar—period.

The area was actually kitschy: fuchsia pleather sofas, a hot red club, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the walls. There clearly was a pole dancing stage (that was positively becoming utilised), a giant dance-floor, plus the just female DJ inside the building.

There were about thirty folks in there. To start with each of us danced in a huge kumbaya asexual circle, as it was actually chilled and not clear who was queer and who was simply simply enjoying the femme power (in an effective way).

While the evening progressed additionally the DJ started flowing a lot more passionate Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms across the audience, partners started creating kept, appropriate, and hub. The space eventually turned into so what can simply be described as a clothed live-demo in the A-to-Z of waiting lesbian sex roles. Couples brand-new and old happened to be positively choosing it. It actually was natural, hedonistic, Sapphic miracle.

Though we had been properly encased in a massive gay nightclub, having less doorway policy, safer room policy, or energetic prioritization at the site’s primary entry created that the designated area showed a godsend for us lezzas. This secret lesbian bar ended up being truly the only invest the location in which a female could kiss a female without having the anxiety about beginning an eye to a sniveling drunk man baring their teeth with glee. We accepted the independence of Eve, of key lesbian bar.

At the front of the bar (we’d come in the side door) stood a large metal door, 2 meters by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 legs), with three door women stating “solamente por chicas” on recurring. Many first got it and moved on, but little batches of guys lurked beyond your entrance, ongoing for five or ten minutes, sitting on their particular tip-toes like sexy meerkats, attempting to sneak-a-peak when you look at the forbidden area.

While the time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried ourselves far from Eve so we could enjoy a lot of venue. While undertaking the rounds within this beautiful, sprawling village of hedonism, we found Lotus, a “unicamente hombres” place (presumably made to develop a safer room for homosexual men to understand more about off the blended crowd). Its secure to say, there have been no groups of females clambering to possess a look inside indeed there.

We headed down to the techno area and spent the residual few hours obtaining flushed with this people. We left at 5 a.m., pleased for discovered this undoubtedly special venue, and even more content to own revealed Bogotá’s key lesbian club.

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