Clare Give
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She actually is spent the final season currently talking about
queer ladies’ lifestyle
in her town. She files the environment, music, fashions, vibe (might you get set or create brand-new mates?), and those behind the nights.

Clare
decided so it wouldn’t end up being to just document dyke lifestyle in one area, so she packed the woman bags and hit the road. She is discussing the thriving moments in
New York
,
Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin to date; this number will keep growing. Monitor the woman
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Evening One

The initial thing I do when I will another town is actually Bing my personal strategy to my personal peeps—”Queer pubs in…,” “Lesbian bars in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s effects happened to be guaranteeing, with a lesbian club called Moza and a small number of homosexual bars—mainly during the city’s new busy cultural hub, Chapinero.

On tuesday evening, my personal sweetheart and I also whizzed anywhere in just a little yellowish taxi to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode away, and unearthed that Moza ended up being no more. It closed down not long ago, described the protection protect from the (hetero) club that stands in its wake. El Mozo (Moza’s gay uncle club) ended up being just around the corner, therefore we nipped over there discover so it had vanished as well.

We chose to recoup in a non-gay bar; the venue was actually lively with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dance (right) lovers. Lone guys, their own breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s national liquor; what tequila will be Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to access the unclaimed dames. These were all really courteous and comprehended that a no suggested no, nevertheless the heteronormative fat within this club had been a lot, particularly when we’d psyched our selves right up for every night of partying with countless Latin-lesbians.

We shortly left and moved old school. Turning on all of our queer-dar, we mooched around the roadways in search of the colleagues. It didn’t take long before we stumbled across (everything we decided were) three other lezzas. We contacted and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying within the amount of their own fingernails, looking to maybe discover a secret lesbian bar or something like that associated with the kind.

These were extremely thinking about the convo and talked with our company for some time concerning lackluster lesbian world inside their town. Eventually, the dykiest-seeming of your brand new staff (who’d already been probably the most singing on the topic) remaining to attend a property celebration. We were kept making use of various other two who’dn’t involved with the gay chat very adamantly but had been eager to hang around.

‘You want women?” she questioned enthusiastically.

We said we performed, assuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a taxi, which whisked all of us out for an excellent couple of blocks before winding up at an inconspicuous doorway in the center of nowhere. Both safety guards (just who knew our chaperones) looked at us with utter bemusement. “Qué?” they mentioned repeatedly to our guide, like she ended up being attempting to just take a few wildebeest into the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered stairway presuming we had been heading up to a key queer mecca but eventually realised that we’d already been taken up to a brothel. Needless to say you’ll find nothing wrong with brothels—I’m all for safe areas for gender workers accomplish their job—however, the vibe in this particular place ended up being terrible; some appropriate males, egos throbbing while they surveyed the room of half-clothed ladies. Everyone else provided united states interested appearance. They held the expectation that we happened to be possibly planning get or sell intercourse whenever all we actually wanted would be to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We kept pretty quickly, strolled residence and mulled on top of the epic breakdown in our big gay night out.

Night Two

Let’s attempt once more. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually available to all, but it is a gay pub (is precise, the largest homosexual dance club within the american Hemisphere) in your mind. At 10 p.m., we had gotten inside 200-people waiting line, which covered across the location’s belowground car parking like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from the threshold, and everybody jittered with pleasure.

When inside, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and got slightly plastic cup for unlimited drinks all-night. This is a common part of Colombian organizations, and it has a really good influence on the atmosphere inside; money and trade are taken from the room, and no any concerns being plunged into an existential crisis whenever examining their unique lender balance next day.

We roamed around the site bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this isn’t really a venue. It really is a village which provides haven to thousands of pleasure-seeking men and women weekly. Team orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of individuals, keeping stairways free of charge and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You would need per week in the place to really reach grips with-it. Home music played in central open-air place. It is developed like a town hub, with increased DJ decks in the centre and beverage pubs, food shops, and pubs on its borders. There had been at the least ten DJs every night. They blended numerous types in a variety of unique areas. Reggaeton played in a chapel, enter a massive amphitheater. Donna Summers played in psychedelic disco room, Celia Cruz is found on inside salsa suite, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to take over the techno chamber.

From my personal observations that night, it would appear that different types draw in different quantities of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton were about the heteros dry-humping in chapel’s stained glass windowpanes. The pop music area was generally young, jubilant gay dudes flailing their arms while they drunkenly serenaded their unique pals. Techno did actually draw in more alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish gear). It absolutely was the quintessential queer room, though reigned over by tanked gay guys whom jumped supplements and de-clothed due to the fact evening developed.

A lot of people were Latin American; there were several gringos from regional hostels and simply a small number of Ebony folks. Overall, there were perhaps three different queer femme lovers boating the location. One duo had matching reddish and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican few I’d sat next to in the jet to Bogotá— we demonstrably move in tiny groups.

We gravitated to the queerness in the techno roo but left at about midnight to attend (what we thought was actually) the women’s commodes: a green entrance, a security safeguard out top, while the term “Eve” created over the door.

We realized this was a tremendously glam access to a toilet even as we mounted the glittery-pink stairway. Once we hit the very top, we realized that was no toilet and in addition we had accidentally discovered a secret lesbian bar. In fact, Bogotá’s just lesbian bar—period.

The room had been kitschy: fuchsia pleather sofas, a hot pink club, pop-art paintings of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the wall space. There is a pole dancing phase (which was definitely getting utilised), an enormous dance-floor, as well as the sole feminine DJ into the building.

There had been around thirty folks within. At first everyone danced in a huge kumbaya asexual circle, given that it ended up being cold and not clear who was queer and who was merely enjoying the femme energy (in an effective way).

Once the evening developed while the DJ began pouring a lot more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms throughout the audience, couples began creating remaining, right, and middle. The space quickly evolved into exactly what can only be called a clothed live-demo on the A-to-Z of standing up lesbian intercourse opportunities. Couples brand-new and old were definitely choosing it. It had been natural, hedonistic, Sapphic secret.

Though we had been successfully encased in a huge gay club, the possible lack of doorway plan, safer room policy, or productive prioritization at the site’s major entrance required that the specified location showed a blessing for us lezzas. This key lesbian bar ended up being really the only set in the place in which a girl could kiss a woman without any anxiety about opening a close look to a sniveling drunk guy baring his teeth with glee. We embraced the liberty of Eve, on the secret lesbian club.

In front of the club (we would are offered in the medial side doorway) endured a giant metal entrance, 2 yards by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 legs), with three door ladies saying “solamente por chicas” on recurring. Many first got it and moved on, but small batches of dudes lurked outside of the door, lingering for 5 or ten minutes, looking at their own tip-toes like horny meerkats, wanting to sneak-a-peak within the forbidden region.

Once the time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried ourselves from the Eve therefore we could experience more of the place. While doing the rounds in this gorgeous, sprawling town of hedonism, we came across Lotus, a “solo hombres” area (apparently meant to generate a safer space for homosexual dudes to explore away from the combined crowd). Its secure to state, there have been no sets of females clambering getting a peek inside truth be told there.

We went as a result of the techno space and spent the rest of the handful of hours getting sweaty with these people. We kept at 5 a.m., pleased to have discovered this genuinely unique place, plus more content to possess uncovered Bogotá’s key lesbian bar.

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