Dyke Nightlife Diaries: The Trick Lesbian Club In Bogotá’s Gay Superclub

Clare Hand
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She actually is spent the very last year authoring
queer women’s night life
in her own town. She documents the environment, music, styles, ambiance (are you going to get laid or create new mates?), and people behind the evenings.

Clare
decided it won’t be to merely report dyke lifestyle within one area, thus she stuffed the woman bags and hit the road. She’s written about the thriving scenes in
Nyc
,
San Francisco Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin so far; this listing keeps broadening. Monitor her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Evening One

The very first thing i actually do once I will a unique area is actually Bing my option to my personal peeps—”Queer bars in…,” “Lesbian bars in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s results had been promising, with a lesbian nightclub labeled as Moza and a few gay bars—mainly in the town’s brand-new active social center, Chapinero.

On Friday evening, my personal girl and I also whizzed anywhere in slightly yellow taxi to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode out, and discovered that Moza ended up being no. It sealed down a while ago, described the safety safeguard at the (hetero) club that stands within the wake. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual brother club) was just around the corner, so we nipped over truth be told there locate so it had vanished too.

We decided to recover in a non-gay bar; the site was lively with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (straight) couples. Lone guys, their particular breaths sweet with aguardiente (Colombia’s national alcohol; exactly what tequila should Mexico), was available in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to retrieve the unclaimed dames. They certainly were all extremely courteous and understood that a no intended no, nevertheless heteronormative fat within bar had been a whole lot, especially when we’d psyched ourselves up for every night of partying with numerous Latin-lesbians.

We quickly kept and moved old school. Switching on our queer-dar, we mooched around the roadways finding all of our peers. It failed to take long before we found (everything we decided were) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying within the period of their unique fingernails, hoping to perhaps find a secret lesbian club or something for the sort.

These people were really keen on the convo and spoke with our team for a while concerning lackluster lesbian scene within area. In a short time, the dykiest-seeming of your new crew (who would already been more vocal on the subject) left to attend a home party. We were kept with the additional two who’dn’t engaged in the homosexual talk very adamantly but happened to be eager to hang away around.

‘You wish women?” she requested enthusiastically.

We said we performed, presuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked us away for a good couple of obstructs before finding yourself at an inconspicuous doorway in nowhere. The 2 security protections (exactly who understood the chaperones) looked over you with complete bemusement. “Qué?” they mentioned over repeatedly to your guide, as if she was attempting to simply take multiple wildebeest to the club.

We ascended the mirror-covered stair case presuming we had been going around a key queer mecca but soon realized we’d already been taken to a brothel. Obviously there is nothing completely wrong with brothels—I’m all for secure rooms for gender workers to-do their unique job—however, the ambiance in this destination ended up being awful; a handful of ideal guys, egos throbbing because they surveyed the bedroom of scantily clad females. Every person offered united states inquisitive appearances. They presented the expectation that individuals had been sometimes attending buy or offer sex whenever all we actually desired was to sip a cerveza and party to Sylvester. We remaining pretty quickly, went residence and mulled across impressive troubles of your large homosexual evening out for dinner.

Evening Two

Why don’t we attempt again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually prepared for all, but it’s a gay club (to get exact, the largest gay nightclub in the american Hemisphere) in mind. At 10 p.m., we got when you look at the 200-people queue, which wrapped around the location’s underground carpark like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from ceiling, and everybody jittered with enjoyment.

As soon as in, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and received only a little plastic glass for limitless drinks through the night. This is exactly one common part of Colombian organizations, and contains an extremely positive effect on the atmosphere in; cash and change tend to be removed from the room, and no one concerns becoming plunged into an existential crisis whenever checking their lender balance the following day.

We roamed all over location bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and figured this is not really a location. Its a village that provides sanctuary to several thousand pleasure-seeking people each week. Staff members orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of men and women, maintaining stairways free and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You would need each week during the venue to actually get to grips with it. Home songs played when you look at the main open-air region. It is developed like an urban area heart, with increased DJ decks in the centre and cocktail pubs, meals stores, and pubs on the borders. There have been at least ten DJs each night. They combined countless types in several distinct areas. Reggaeton played in a chapel, play a giant amphitheater. Donna Summers played during the psychedelic disco area, Celia Cruz is found on during the salsa suite, and a DJ flew in from Berlin to take control of the techno chamber.

From my observations that night, it seems that different styles attract various amounts of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton happened to be about the heteros dry-humping underneath the church’s stained glass windows. The pop music space had been generally youthful, jubilant homosexual men flailing their unique arms because they drunkenly serenaded their unique friends. Techno appeared to attract the absolute most alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It absolutely was one particular queer room, though controlled by tanked homosexual men which popped supplements and de-clothed since evening evolved.

Many people were Latin-American; there are many gringos from regional hostels and simply a few Black people. Overall, there have been possibly three some other queer femme partners boating the location. One duo had matching yellow and blue-dyed bobs. Another were a Mexican couple I would sat alongside regarding plane to Bogotá— we demonstrably move around in little circles.

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

We figured this was a tremendously glam entry to a lavatory once we mounted the glittery-pink stair case. As soon as we hit the leading, we realised this ended up being no commode and we also had inadvertently uncovered a secret lesbian club. In fact, Bogotá’s only lesbian bar—period.

The room was kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot pink club, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the wall space. There seemed to be a-pole dancing phase (that has been positively being used), a big dance-floor, and just feminine DJ during the building.

There are around thirty of us in there. Initially everyone danced in a huge kumbaya asexual group, given that it was chilled and confusing who was simply queer and who had been only enjoying the femme power (in a great way).

Just like the evening progressed together with DJ started pouring a lot more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms across the audience, lovers began developing left, correct, and heart. The space shortly evolved into exactly what do just be referred to as a clothed live-demo from the A-to-Z of standing lesbian sex jobs. Couples brand-new and outdated happened to be positively choosing it. It actually was natural, hedonistic, Sapphic secret.

Though we had been successfully encased in an enormous gay club, having less doorway plan, safer room plan, or productive prioritization on venue’s primary entry created this designated area proved a godsend for people lezzas. This secret lesbian club had been the only devote the site where a woman could kiss a lady without the concern with opening an eye to a sniveling drunk guy baring his teeth with glee. We embraced the liberty of Eve, associated with secret lesbian club.

In front on the club (we might can be found in the medial side doorway) endured a big material door, 2 yards by 2 meters (6.5 foot by 6.5 feet), with three door females stating “solo por chicas” on perform. The majority of first got it and managed to move on, but tiny batches of guys lurked outside of the entrance, ongoing for 5 or ten minutes, sitting on their tip-toes like sexy meerkats, attempting to sneak-a-peak from inside the restricted region.

Because the time clock struck 3 a.m., we pried our selves far from Eve so we could experience a lot of site. While performing the rounds within this beautiful, sprawling town of hedonism, we stumbled across Lotus, a “solamente hombres” area (apparently meant to create a safer space for homosexual dudes to understand more about off the combined audience). It is secure to state, there were no groups of ladies clambering having a glance inside truth be told there.

We headed as a result of the techno place and invested the remaining number of many hours getting sweaty with these men and women. We left at 5 a.m., delighted having found this certainly special venue, plus more happy getting uncovered Bogotá’s secret lesbian club.

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