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

Clare Give
is actually a self-described flaming London lesbian. She is spent the past year writing about
queer ladies lifestyle
in her own area. She files the atmosphere, songs, styles, ambiance (are you going to get put or make new mates?), and people behind the nights.

Clare
decided which would not be right to merely record dyke lifestyle in a single town, so she stuffed the woman handbags and strike the road. She is discussed the thriving moments in
Nyc
,
San Francisco Bay Area
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin yet; this number could keep expanding. Keep an eye on her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
right here.

Night One

To begin with I do when I reach an innovative new urban area is actually Bing my personal strategy to my peeps—”Queer bars in…,” “Lesbian bars in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s effects were guaranteeing, with a lesbian nightclub labeled as Moza and some homosexual bars—mainly from inside the city’s brand new bustling social center, Chapinero.

On monday evening, my personal girlfriend and I whizzed across town in only a little yellowish taxi to Moza. We pulled up, strode out, and unearthed that Moza was no further. It closed down not long ago, explained the protection guard at the (hetero) bar that appears within its aftermath. El Mozo (Moza’s gay sibling bar) ended up being coming, therefore we nipped over here locate that it had vanished also.

We chose to recover in a non-gay bar; the place was alive with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dance (right) lovers. Lone dudes, their own breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide alcohol; just what tequila is to Mexico), came in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to recover the unclaimed dames. These were all really polite and realized that a no designed no, but the heteronormative weight in this bar had been lots, especially when we’d psyched our selves up for a night of partying with a huge selection of Latin-lesbians.

We soon left and moved old-school. Switching on our very own queer-dar, we mooched across roadways looking for all of our peers. It failed to take long before we stumbled across (what we should chose happened to be) three fellow lezzas. We contacted and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar homosexual,” while eying within the duration of their unique nails, aspiring to possibly discover a secret lesbian bar or something in the kind.

These people were very thinking about the convo and talked around for a while in regards to the lackluster lesbian scene within their urban area. Before long, the dykiest-seeming your brand-new team (who’d also been many vocal on the subject) left to visit a house celebration. We had been left making use of the additional two that hasn’t engaged in the homosexual talk so adamantly but happened to be eager to hang away with our company.

‘You desire women?” she requested enthusiastically.

We said we did, assuming we had been on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a cab, which whisked us out for an excellent few blocks before winding up at an inconspicuous entrance in no place. The two security protections (just who knew all of our chaperones) checked you with complete bemusement. “Qué?” they said over repeatedly to your guide, as though she was actually wanting to take several wildebeest to the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered stairway presuming we had been proceeding as much as a secret queer mecca but eventually realized that individuals’d already been taken fully to a brothel. Needless to say there is nothing incorrect with brothels—i am all for secure rooms for intercourse staff members to accomplish their job—however, the feeling in this particular spot had been awful; a handful of suited males, egos pulsating while they surveyed the room of scantily clad women. Everyone offered united states inquisitive appearances. They conducted the hope that people were possibly planning to buy or offer intercourse when all we really wished were to sip a cerveza and dance to Sylvester. We left rather rapidly, moved residence and mulled throughout the epic breakdown your large homosexual night out.

Evening Two

Why don’t we take to once again. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is open to all, but it’s a gay dance club (to get precise, the greatest gay club from inside the Western Hemisphere) in your mind. At 10 p.m., we got in the 200-people queue, which covered around the location’s underground car park like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped through the roof, and everyone jittered with excitement.

Once around, we paid 55,000 pesos ($17) and received somewhat plastic mug for limitless beverages all night. This really is a common part of Colombian clubs, and contains a really positive impact on the environment inside; cash and exchange are taken off the space, no one risks becoming plunged into an existential situation whenever checking their bank balance the following early morning.

We roamed across the place bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and determined that this is not truly a venue. It’s a village that provides haven to lots and lots of pleasure-seeking men and women weekly. Staff members orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks of people, maintaining stairways free of charge and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You’ll need weekly in place to really will grips with-it. House songs played when you look at the main open-air place. It really is developed like a town centre, with elevated DJ decks in the middle and beverage pubs, food shops, and pubs on its borders. There have been at least ten DJs every night. They blended many genres in several distinctive spaces. Reggaeton played in a chapel, pop in a big amphitheater. Donna Summers played into the psychedelic disco place, Celia Cruz is on inside the salsa collection, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to take control the techno chamber.

From my personal observations that evening, it appears that different genres draw in different levels of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton had been all about the heteros dry-humping according to the chapel’s stained glass house windows. The pop music space ended up being mostly youthful, jubilant homosexual men flailing their particular arms while they drunkenly serenaded their unique pals. Techno appeared to draw in probably the most alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish equipment). It was one particular queer room, though controlled by tanked homosexual dudes which jumped products and de-clothed since the evening changed.

We happened to be Latin American; there were multiple gringos from neighborhood hostels and just a few dark folks. All in all, there have been maybe three different queer femme couples boating the place. One duo had corresponding yellow and blue-dyed bobs. Another had been a Mexican few I would sat next to from the jet to Bogotá— we clearly relocate small sectors.

We gravitated towards queerness associated with the techno roo but left at about midnight to go to (what we thought had been) the women’s commodes: a red doorway, a protection safeguard out top, therefore the phrase “Eve” authored above the home.

We figured it was an extremely glam entrance to a bathroom once we mounted the glittery-pink stair case. Whenever we strike the very top, we realised that the was no commode therefore we had inadvertently uncovered a secret lesbian club. Actually, Bogotá’s sole lesbian bar—period.

The room had been kitschy: fuchsia pleather couches, a hot red club, pop-art mural art of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger lined the wall space. There was a-pole dance level (which was seriously getting utilised), a big dance-floor, additionally the only feminine DJ inside the building.

There had been about thirty of us in there. At first everyone danced in a big kumbaya asexual group, given that it was chilled and ambiguous who was queer and who was merely enjoying the femme electricity (in an effective way).

As night advanced in addition to DJ started flowing more steamy Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms within the crowd, couples started developing left, right, and center. The area quickly evolved into exactly what do only be called a clothed live-demo of A-to-Z of standing lesbian intercourse roles. Couples new and outdated happened to be positively choosing it. It was raw, hedonistic, Sapphic magic.

Though we were efficiently encased in a massive homosexual nightclub, the deficiency of door plan, less dangerous space policy, or effective prioritization during the place’s main access intended that designated region proved a godsend for people lezzas. This key lesbian bar had been really the only set in the place where a woman could hug a female without concern about starting an eye to a sniveling inebriated guy baring his teeth with glee. We embraced the liberty of Eve, of secret lesbian club.

At the front regarding the club (we’d arrive the side home) stood a huge material door, 2 yards by 2 yards (6.5 legs by 6.5 foot), with three home women stating “unicamente por chicas” on recurring. Most first got it and managed to move on, but little batches of men lurked outside the door, ongoing for five or ten full minutes, looking at their tip-toes like sexy meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak for the forbidden region.

Since the clock struck 3 a.m., we pried our selves from Eve so we could encounter a lot of place. While carrying out the rounds within stunning, sprawling community of hedonism, we found Lotus, a “solamente hombres” region (apparently meant to generate a safer space for homosexual dudes to explore from the combined audience). It’s secure to express, there were no groups of females clambering to own a peek inside indeed there.

We oriented as a result of the techno area and invested the remaining couple of hours getting sweaty with these folks. We left at 5 a.m., delighted for found this truly distinctive location, and even more happy to possess revealed Bogotá’s key lesbian bar.

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