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

Clare Hand
is a self-described flaming London lesbian. She actually is invested the final 12 months currently talking about
queer ladies’ nightlife
inside her town. She documents the environment, music, fashions, ambiance (will you get put or create new mates?), and those behind the nights.

Clare
decided it would not be right to just document dyke night life in one single city, so she packed the woman bags and hit the street. She actually is discussed the thriving moments in
New York
,
San Francisco
, Bogota, São Paulo, Berlin, and Dublin at this point; this listing could keep expanding. Monitor her
Dyke Nightlife Diaries
here.

Evening One

The first thing i really do while I can a brand new city is actually Google my solution to my peeps—”Queer pubs in…,” “Lesbian taverns in…,” “Gay bars in… .” Bogotá’s outcomes happened to be guaranteeing, with a lesbian nightclub labeled as Moza and a number of gay bars—mainly for the city’s new busy social center, Chapinero.

On Friday night, my personal gf and I whizzed across town in a little yellow cab to Moza. We pulled upwards, strode away, and discovered that Moza had been no longer. It shut down a while ago, revealed the protection shield at (hetero) bar that stands in wake. El Mozo (Moza’s homosexual bro club) was actually coming, so we nipped over there locate it had vanished as well.

We chose to recover in a non-gay bar; the venue was actually live with Latin rhythms and passionately Salsa dancing (right) couples. Lone men, their own breaths nice with aguardiente (Colombia’s nationwide liquor; just what tequila would be to Mexico), was available in mosquito-like droves, each on a mission to retrieve the unclaimed dames. These people were all very polite and comprehended that a no suggested no, although heteronormative fat in this bar was a large number, especially when we would psyched ourselves up for a night of hanging out with a huge selection of Latin-lesbians.

We shortly left and moved old-school. Flipping on our very own queer-dar, we mooched round the streets searching for the colleagues. It didn’t take long before we came across (what we should decided happened to be) three fellow lezzas. We approached and tentatively enquired about Moza and “bar gay,” while eying in the period of their nails, wishing to maybe discover a secret lesbian bar or something regarding the sort.

They certainly were really keen on the convo and talked with our team for a time about the lackluster lesbian scene in their town. Before long, the dykiest-seeming of one’s brand new team (who’d been probably the most singing on the subject) kept to attend a house celebration. We had been kept making use of the various other two who hadn’t involved with the homosexual talk therefore adamantly but had been keen to hang with our team.

‘You desire girls?” she asked enthusiastically.

We stated we did, assuming we were on a gay-level. Off we hopped in a taxi, which whisked us out for a couple of obstructs before finding yourself at an inconspicuous doorway in the middle of nowhere. The 2 safety protections (just who realized our very own chaperones) looked at you with total bemusement. “Qué?” they stated repeatedly to our guide, like she was actually attempting to take a few wildebeest to the bar.

We ascended the mirror-covered stair case assuming we were going as much as a secret queer mecca but soon realized that we’d been taken to a brothel. Without a doubt you’ll find nothing completely wrong with brothels—i am all for safe rooms for sex staff members to accomplish their own job—however, the vibe in this particular spot ended up being terrible; a number of appropriate men, egos throbbing as they surveyed the bedroom of scantily clad women. Everyone provided all of us fascinated appearance. They held the hope that individuals happened to be possibly planning purchase or sell gender when all we actually wished would be to sip a cerveza and party to Sylvester. We left fairly quickly, went residence and mulled on top of the unbelievable troubles of our large gay night out.

Evening Two

Why don’t we attempt once more. Theatron, Bogotá’s fourteen-room superclub, is actually available to all, but it’s a homosexual club (as accurate, the biggest homosexual club in american Hemisphere) at heart. At 10 p.m., we had gotten in 200-people queue, which covered across location’s underground carpark like an anaconda. A techno bass thumped from the roof, and everybody jittered with enjoyment.

As soon as inside, we settled 55,000 pesos ($17) and were given only a little synthetic cup for endless drinks through the night. That is one common thing in Colombian organizations, and has now a truly good influence on the environment internally; money and trade are taken out of the space, without one risks getting plunged into an existential situation when examining their own bank stability another morning.

We roamed across venue bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and figured this isn’t really a venue. It is a village which provides sanctuary to many pleasure-seeking individuals each week. Employees orchestrate the room meticulously; herding flocks men and women, maintaining stairways no-cost and churning out mixer-after-mixer.

You would need per week within the location to essentially arrive at grips with-it. House music played for the central open-air area. It is designed like an urban area heart, with increased DJ decks at the center and beverage bars, meals stores, and bars on the outskirts. There are at the very least ten DJs each night. They mixed numerous genres in a variety of distinct spaces. Reggaeton played in a chapel, play a large amphitheater. Donna Summers played for the psychedelic disco place, Celia Cruz is found on when you look at the salsa suite, and a DJ travelled in from Berlin to take control of the techno chamber.

From my observations that evening, it seems that different styles draw in different quantities of heteronormativity. Salsa and reggaeton were all about the heteros dry-humping underneath the chapel’s stained glass windowpanes. The pop place was actually generally young, jubilant gay guys flailing their hands because they drunkenly serenaded their friends. Techno appeared to bring in probably the most alternate lewks (piercings, died-hair, some fetish gear). It absolutely was by far the most queer area, though controlled by tanked homosexual dudes exactly who jumped capsules and de-clothed since night changed.

We had been Latin American; there had been a couple of gringos from neighborhood hostels and simply some Black folks. Overall, there are possibly three some other queer femme lovers boating the site. One duo had corresponding red and blue-dyed bobs. Another had been a Mexican couple I would sat next to from the plane to Bogotá— we clearly move around in little sectors.

We gravitated towards queerness associated with techno roo but left around midnight to attend (what we should thought was) the ladies’s toilets: a pink entrance, a safety safeguard out front side, and also the term “Eve” authored over the home.

We realized this was a very glam entry to a commode while we mounted the glittery-pink stair case. When we hit the leading, we realised that this was no bathroom and we also had accidentally found a secret lesbian club. In fact, Bogotá’s only lesbian bar—period.

The room was actually kitschy: fuchsia pleather sofas, a hot pink club, pop-art paintings of dykons like Ellen, Gwen, Gaga, and Ginger covered the walls. There was clearly a pole dance phase (which was seriously being used), a large dance-floor, in addition to just female DJ from inside the building.

There were about thirty folks inside. To start with we danced in a large kumbaya asexual circle, because it had been cool and unclear who was simply queer and who was simply only enjoying the femme power (in an effective way).

Since the night evolved therefore the DJ started flowing more passionate Latin (Reggaeton and dancehall) rhythms over the group, lovers started building left, correct, and centre. The space soon turned into what can only be described as a clothed live-demo of A-to-Z of standing up lesbian sex jobs. Couples brand new and outdated happened to be definitely going for it. It had been natural, hedonistic, Sapphic secret.

Though we were effortlessly encased in a huge gay nightclub, the possible lack of doorway policy, better room policy, or effective prioritization in the place’s main access designed that the designated area proved a godsend for people lezzas. This secret lesbian bar had been the actual only real devote the place in which a lady could kiss a female with no fear of opening a close look to a sniveling intoxicated guy baring their teeth with glee. We embraced the freedom of Eve, in the key lesbian club.

At the front on the bar (we would come in the medial side door) endured a large steel entrance, 2 yards by 2 meters (6.5 legs by 6.5 foot), with three home ladies saying “solamente por chicas” on perform. Many started using it and shifted, but tiny batches of dudes lurked beyond your gate, lingering for 5 or 10 minutes, standing on their own tip-toes like sexy meerkats, trying to sneak-a-peak within the restricted territory.

Since time clock hit 3 a.m., we pried our selves from the Eve therefore we could experience a lot of location. While undertaking the rounds contained in this gorgeous, sprawling community of hedonism, we stumbled across Lotus, a “solamente hombres” region (apparently designed to develop a safer area for homosexual dudes to understand more about from the blended crowd). Truly safe to express, there were no categories of ladies clambering to have a glance inside indeed there.

We went down seriously to the techno space and invested the remaining handful of many hours getting wet with the folks. We remaining at 5 a.m., happy to own found this truly distinctive site, and even happier to have revealed Bogotá’s secret lesbian club.

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