Clare Hand
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She actually is spent the past season currently talking about
queer ladies’ night life
in her urban area. She files the environment, songs, styles, vibe (are you going to get set or create brand new mates?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
made the decision so it wouldn’t end up being straight to just report dyke night life in one city, so she stuffed her bags and hit the street. She is written about the thriving moments in
Ny
,
Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin to date; this number will keep growing. Keep close track of the woman
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
here.

Night One

First thing i actually do once I will a new city is actually Google my strategy to my personal peeps—”Queer bars in…,” „Lesbian taverns in…,” „Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s effects were encouraging, with a lesbian nightclub called Moza and a small number of homosexual bars—mainly in city’s new bustling social hub, Chapinero.

On Friday evening, my personal gf and I also whizzed across town in some yellow cab to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode away, and found that Moza was actually you can forget. It sealed down a while ago, revealed the safety safeguard on (hetero) bar that appears in its wake. El Mozo (Moza’s gay brother club) was actually just around the corner, therefore we nipped over here to obtain which had vanished as well.

We made a decision to recoup in a non-gay club; the place was actually alive with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dance (straight) lovers. Lone dudes, their own breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide alcohol; what tequila is always to Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to retrieve the unclaimed dames. These people were all extremely courteous and comprehended that a no implied no, but the heteronormative weight within this club ended up being a large amount, specially when we would psyched our selves upwards for a night of partying with numerous Latin-lesbians.

We eventually remaining and moved old school. Switching on our queer-dar, we mooched round the roads in search of our very own peers. It failed to take long before we found (what we should made the decision happened to be) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and „bar homosexual,” while eying up the period of their fingernails, hoping to possibly discover a secret lesbian club or something of this sort.

They were extremely keen on the convo and spoke with our company for some time towards lackluster lesbian scene within their city. In a short time, the dykiest-seeming of our brand new staff (who’d also been the most singing on the topic) remaining to attend a residence party. We had been remaining with all the various other two who’dn’t engaged in the homosexual cam so adamantly but happened to be keen to hang aside with our company.

‘You wish women?” she questioned enthusiastically.

We stated we performed, assuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a taxi, which whisked all of us out for a great few blocks before ending up at an inconspicuous doorway in the center of no place. The 2 security protections (whom knew the chaperones) considered us with utter bemusement. „Qué?” they said continuously to the manual, as though she was attempting to simply take a few wildebeest in to the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered staircase presuming we were heading to a key queer mecca but soon realised that individuals’d already been taken up a brothel. Needless to say there’s nothing incorrect with brothels—I’m all for secure spaces for gender workers to accomplish their unique job—however, the feeling in this location had been bad; a small number of appropriate men, egos throbbing because they surveyed the space of scantily clad ladies. Every person gave you wondering appearances. They presented the expectation we were often gonna buy or offer intercourse whenever all we really wished were to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We remaining pretty quickly, moved house and mulled throughout the impressive breakdown your large homosexual evening out for dinner.

Night Two

Let us take to once again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually available to all, but it’s a homosexual club (to be accurate, the greatest homosexual dance club during the Western Hemisphere) in mind. At 10 p.m., we had gotten inside 200-people queue, which covered around the place’s underground carpark like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from the roof, and everyone jittered with pleasure.

As soon as around, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and got just a little synthetic cup for unlimited beverages all-night. That is a typical part of Colombian organizations, and contains an extremely positive effect on the atmosphere inside the house; money and trade are removed from the space, no one concerns becoming plunged into an existential situation whenever examining their own bank balance next day.

We roamed across place bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this is simply not truly a place. It’s a village that offers refuge to a great deal of pleasure-seeking people every week. Staff orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of men and women, maintaining stairways cost-free and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You’d probably require a week for the place to actually can grips along with it. House songs played for the central open-air place. Its created like a town heart, with elevated DJ porches in the centre and cocktail pubs, food stores, and pubs on the outskirts. There have been about ten DJs each night. They combined many styles in several distinctive spaces. Reggaeton played in a chapel, pop in a large amphitheater. Donna Summers played from inside the psychedelic disco space, Celia Cruz is found on into the salsa collection, and a DJ flew in from Berlin to take-over the techno chamber.

From my observations that evening, it seems that various types attract various degrees of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton had been about the heteros dry-humping according to the church’s tarnished glass windows. The pop place was primarily young, jubilant gay men flailing their arms while they drunkenly serenaded their particular friends. Techno seemed to bring in probably the most renewable lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It had been the absolute most queer room, though controlled by tanked gay guys whom jumped capsules and de-clothed because night evolved.

People happened to be Latin-American; there had been a few gringos from regional hostels and simply some dark folks. Overall, there had been possibly three various other queer femme couples going swimming the place. One duo had matching purple and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican pair I’d sat alongside on plane to Bogotá— we obviously move in small circles.

We gravitated on queerness regarding the techno roo but kept around midnight to visit (that which we thought had been) the ladies’s commodes: a pink doorway, a protection guard out front, together with phrase „Eve” composed over the home.

We realized this was a rather glam entry to a lavatory while we mounted the glittery-pink staircase. When we smack the top, we realized this particular had been no lavatory therefore had inadvertently discovered a secret lesbian bar. Actually, Bogotá’s only lesbian bar—period.

The area was kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot red bar, pop-art paintings of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger lined the wall space. There seemed to be a-pole dancing phase (that has been definitely becoming used), an enormous dance-floor, additionally the just feminine DJ inside building.

There were around thirty people inside. In the beginning most of us danced in a big kumbaya asexual group, since it was cold and unclear who was simply queer and who was merely enjoying the femme power (in an effective way).

Since night advanced additionally the DJ started pouring more passionate Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms within the audience, lovers began developing left, correct, and middle. The room shortly turned into so what can just be described as a clothed live-demo of A-to-Z of standing lesbian sex positions. Couples brand-new and outdated happened to be completely opting for it. It absolutely was raw, hedonistic, Sapphic miracle.

Though we had been properly encased in an enormous homosexual nightclub, the lack of home plan, much safer space plan, or energetic prioritization at the venue’s primary access suggested this particular selected location showed a godsend for all of us lezzas. This key lesbian bar was actually the only real invest the site where a lady could kiss a girl without having the anxiety about beginning a watch to a sniveling intoxicated guy baring their teeth with glee. We embraced the freedom of Eve, from the key lesbian bar.

In front with the bar (we’d may be found in along side it door) endured a large metal gate, 2 meters by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 foot), with three home females saying „solamente por chicas” on repeat. Many first got it and moved on, but small batches of dudes lurked outside the entrance, lingering for five or 10 minutes, looking at their tip-toes like aroused meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak for the restricted territory.

While the time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried ourselves away from Eve therefore we could encounter a lot of place. While carrying out the rounds inside beautiful, sprawling community of hedonism, we came across Lotus, a „unicamente hombres” region (apparently meant to generate a safer area for homosexual dudes to understand more about from the mixed group). It really is safe to state, there had been no groups of ladies clambering to have a glance inside indeed there.

We headed as a result of the techno room and spent the residual number of several hours obtaining wet with the help of our folks. We left at 5 a.m., delighted having located this really special location, and even more content to own uncovered Bogotá’s key lesbian bar.

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