Clare Hand
is a self-described flaming London lesbian. She’s invested the last season authoring
queer ladies lifestyle
in her area. She files the environment, music, fashions, vibe (will you get set or generate brand-new mates?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
decided that it won’t end up being right to only document dyke nightlife in one single city, so she stuffed the woman bags and strike the road. She is written about the thriving views in
Ny
,
Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin to date; this number will keep growing. Monitor the woman
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Night One

First thing i really do whenever I reach a unique area is actually Google my strategy to my personal peeps—»Queer pubs in…,» «Lesbian taverns in…,» «Gay bars in… .» Bogotá’s results had been guaranteeing, with a lesbian club known as Moza and some homosexual bars—mainly inside town’s new active cultural hub, Chapinero.

On monday night, my personal girl and I also whizzed across town in a little yellow cab to Moza. We pulled up, strode away, and discovered that Moza ended up being no more. It sealed down a while ago, revealed the protection shield in the (hetero) club that appears with its aftermath. El Mozo (Moza’s gay sibling club) ended up being coming, therefore we nipped over indeed there discover it had vanished too.

We chose to recoup in a non-gay bar; the venue had been lively with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (right) partners. Lone dudes, their particular breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s national liquor; just what tequila is always to Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to access the unclaimed dames. They were all very polite and comprehended that a no implied no, but the heteronormative fat contained in this bar was actually much, especially when we’d psyched ourselves up for a night of hanging out with countless latin lesbians.

We soon kept and moved old-school. Flipping on the queer-dar, we mooched around the roads looking our colleagues. It didn’t take long before we came across (what we decided happened to be) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and «bar gay,» while eying in the duration of their particular nails, hoping to perhaps get a hold of a secret lesbian bar or something on the kind.

They certainly were very interested in the convo and spoke around for some time in regards to the lackluster lesbian scene within their area. Before long, the dykiest-seeming your brand new staff (who’d been the most vocal on the topic) remaining to attend a residence celebration. We were remaining making use of some other two who’dn’t engaged in the gay talk so adamantly but happened to be keen to hold around around.

‘You wish girls?» she requested eagerly.

We mentioned we did, assuming we had been on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a taxi, which whisked united states out for an effective few obstructs before ending up at an inconspicuous doorway in the middle of nowhere. The two security protections (which understood all of our chaperones) looked over you with total bemusement. «Qué?» they mentioned over and over repeatedly to our manual, as if she was actually attempting to get a couple of wildebeest in to the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered staircase presuming we were heading up to a secret queer mecca but eventually realised that individuals’d been taken fully to a brothel. Without a doubt you’ll find nothing incorrect with brothels—I’m all for safe rooms for gender workers to complete their own job—however, the ambiance in this place ended up being terrible; a number of appropriate men, egos throbbing as they surveyed the space of half-clothed ladies. Everybody else gave united states inquisitive appearances. They presented the expectation we happened to be either planning get or offer intercourse when all we really wanted were to sip a cerveza and dancing to Sylvester. We kept rather rapidly, went home and mulled during the impressive breakdown of our huge gay night out.

Evening Two

Let us try again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is available to all, but it’s a gay pub (is precise, the biggest homosexual pub inside the Western Hemisphere) in your mind. At 10 p.m., we got when you look at the 200-people queue, which covered across the venue’s underground carpark like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped through the ceiling, and everybody jittered with pleasure.

Once internally, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and were given a tiny bit plastic cup for endless beverages forever. This can be one common thing in Colombian clubs, and has now a really positive effect on the atmosphere inside the house; cash and trade are taken out of the area, without one risks getting plunged into an existential crisis whenever examining their bank stability another morning.

We roamed round the site bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this is simply not really a place. Its a village which provides sanctuary to countless pleasure-seeking individuals each week. Personnel orchestrate the space meticulously; herding flocks of people, keeping stairways complimentary and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You would require per week into the place to really will grips with it. Residence music played for the central open-air place. It is designed like an urban area middle, with increased DJ porches in the centre and cocktail pubs, meals shops, and pubs on the borders. There had been about ten DJs each night. They blended numerous styles in several unique areas. Reggaeton played in a chapel, play an enormous amphitheater. Donna Summers played in psychedelic disco room, Celia Cruz is found on when you look at the salsa package, and a DJ flew in from Berlin to take over the techno chamber.

From my observations that night, it would appear that various types attract various degrees of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton happened to be all about the heteros dry-humping according to the church’s tarnished cup house windows. The pop music space ended up being primarily youthful, jubilant gay guys flailing their particular hands as they drunkenly serenaded their pals. Techno seemed to draw in the most alternative lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It was probably the most queer area, though dominated by tanked homosexual guys whom jumped products and de-clothed because night changed.

A lot of people had been Latin-American; there were various gringos from local hostels and just a small number of dark people. All in all, there are perhaps three different queer femme partners floating around the location. One duo had matching red-colored and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican pair I would sat next to regarding the jet to Bogotá— we obviously move around in small groups.

We gravitated into queerness of the techno roo but kept around midnight to go to (everything we believed was) the ladies’s lavatories: a pink doorway, a security safeguard out top, and word «Eve» authored over the home.

We realized this was an extremely glam access to a lavatory while we mounted the glittery-pink stairway. As soon as we smack the leading, we realised this particular was actually no lavatory and in addition we had unintentionally uncovered a secret lesbian club. Actually, Bogotá’s just lesbian bar—period.

The space had been kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot red bar, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the walls. There was a-pole dance stage (that has been absolutely getting used), a huge dance-floor, in addition to just female DJ from inside the building.

There were about thirty of us inside. In the beginning we-all danced in a huge kumbaya asexual circle, given that it ended up being chilled and unknown who was simply queer and who was merely experiencing the femme power (in a great way).

As the night advanced therefore the DJ started flowing a lot more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms across the crowd, lovers started building kept, appropriate, and hub. The area soon turned into what can simply be described as a clothed live-demo with the A-to-Z of standing lesbian intercourse positions. Couples new and outdated were absolutely opting for it. It had been raw, hedonistic, Sapphic magic.

Though we had been properly encased in an enormous homosexual nightclub, having less doorway policy, less dangerous room plan, or active prioritization from the place’s main entrance required that this selected region showed a blessing for people lezzas. This secret lesbian club was actually the actual only real place in the site where a lady could hug a female without having the anxiety about starting a close look to a sniveling drunk man baring his teeth with glee. We accepted the independence of Eve, regarding the key lesbian bar.

At the front of bar (we might are offered in the medial side home) stood a large material entrance, 2 meters by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 foot), with three door females stating «solamente por chicas» on recurring. The majority of got it and managed to move on, but tiny batches of dudes lurked outside the gate, ongoing for 5 or ten minutes, looking at their particular tip-toes like sexy meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak in forbidden territory.

Just like the time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried our selves from the Eve therefore we could discover a lot of site. While performing the rounds inside breathtaking, sprawling community of hedonism, we found Lotus, a «unicamente hombres» location (presumably made to generate a safer room for homosexual dudes to explore away from the mixed crowd). It is safe to express, there are no sets of females clambering to possess a glance inside there.

We oriented down seriously to the techno area and spent the rest of the couple of several hours obtaining wet with our people. We kept at 5 a.m., pleased to have found this really unique site, and also happier to have revealed Bogotá’s secret lesbian bar.

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