“Nightclubs were once groove havens exclusively for the 21 and over crowd. But now all-age and teen nightclubs can be found throughout the Hollywood and downtown L.A. areas. I was 16 when my friends and I decided to try one. We weren’t familiar with the club scene and didn’t know what to expect, but we were all tired of wasting our money on parties that broke up as soon as we got there. Going to a club certainly gave us a change of environment.
When we first walked into the club, I felt like I was entering a wet dream. Guys were casually strolling around with their shirts off while girls walked by them in their halter tops and panty shorts. Some females looked like all they had on was a bra with panties. On the dance floor, red-and-white beams of light pierced through the darkness and flashed down onto hundreds of dancing bodies. Girls were freaking other girls; go-go dancers were performing on four-foot pedestals; two guys danced with one girl or vice versa. My mind was blown. I no longer felt real. Instead I felt like a character out of a comic book. My animated feeling might have been provoked, however, by the eight-by-12 foot screen located right in front of my face which was playing Japanese cartoons.
I snapped out of my daze as my friends walked over to me. None of us were ready to dance yet so we walked up a ramp on the side of the club to a loft where were sofas and a bar selling non-alcoholic drinks. We bought drinks and stood at the edge of the loft, looking down on the countless grooving bodies. I wanted to sit on one of the sofas but they were all occupied by very affectionate couples. I began to feel sexy as I watched all of the people dancing seductively with each other, especially the go-go dancers.
After we finished our drinks, we went down to the dance floor. Acid jazz and deep house pumped through my veins as the bass vibrated through my body. We had to bump and grind our way through sweaty bodies to find an opening on the dance floor. As we walked, various hands groped me. I felt my skirt being lifted several times. I had on black knee-high boots with three-inch heels and if I had to, I was prepared to stomp down on any guy who got too fresh with me.
We knew how to deal with rowdy guys
Before my friends and I came to the club we had devised our game plan for the evening. Since the club was open to gays, we decided that we were going to dance with the guys and have a good time, but if any of them got too rowdy then we were all girlfriends. You know what I mean? We weren’t gay but we were ready to act like we were.
We found a spot on the dance floor and got our groove on for an hour straight. We were all having a good time. As soon as some guy started pushing up too close on any of us then one of our “girlfriends” would cut in and dance us away from him. Several boys got cussed out for trying to reach under our skirts or cup our breasts from behind. The behavior of these guys disturbed me but as I looked around the club I saw that this was how almost everybody was dancing. I guess I couldn’t really blame them for trying that stuff with us.
We got tired after a while and went back up to the loft to sit down. Then this clean-cut man who looked 25 or so started staring at me. After he left, one of my homegirls told me that older men often picked up on teen prostitutes in the club. I asked how she knew there were prostitutes and she said another girl told her.
When we left at 2 a.m., the club was too crowded to move. As we were walking out, cross-dressers wearing yellow feathers and costumes were walking in. When we found my car, we piled in and went out for breakfast. We all had a blast despite some of the raunchy encounters we had on the dance floor. In a way it was our rite of passage into the Hollywood nightlife for teens. I’ve since gone to other clubs and have had a good time but none have been as outrageous as the club we went to that night.”