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Cape Town Nightlife
 
     Regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in the world, known as heaven at the tip of Africa and voted as one of the worlds TOP 5 gay destinations.

A cosmopolitan city with beautiful people, breathtaking scenery and far much to do in one visit most visitors return year after year.

 

Vibrant nightlife

     Cape Town has much to offer the gay tourist. For a start, it is a very gay city - some claim that there are more gay men per capita in Cape Town than anywhere else in South Africa, and the claim may be justified - though some inhabitants of Gauteng do quibble.

Certainly, Cape Town nightlife gives the impression that this is a very gay-friendly city. Aside from the cluster of gay clubs and bars in the De Waterkant area, the vast majority of Cape Town's nightspots (and there are many of them) offer relaxed spaces in which gay and straight clientele can mix freely and easily in a stylish atmosphere.

Many businesses, though not designed to cater to an exclusively gay market, are gay-owned and/or gay-run; an example would be Lola's, the charmingly bohemian vegetarian restaurant in Long Street.

Some venues do, however, cater very specifically for gay clients. The De Waterkant area mentioned above includes the long-standing Bronx Bar and the nightclub Angels, as well as the newer club 55, all popular venues.
 
 

Mother City Queer Project

     Mother City Queer Project's annual costume party, an event that began as a largely gay drag-oriented party was so successful that it soon expanded to accommodate partygoers of every possible stripe. It is still, however, an important date on the gay holiday calendar, and has now become something of an institution, taking place about 10 days before Christmas every year. Themes have included "Locker Room", "The Twinkly Sea" and "Safari Camp".

Some of Cape Town's much-lauded beaches, among the prettiest in the world, have evolved into gay enclaves. "Third beach" at Clifton is not an exclusively gay beach, but it is the one where a large number of gay men congregate during the summer season. For those keen to cast their eyes over some attractive nearly-naked bodies, this is the place to go.

Those who want to see those bodies entirely naked will have to make the trip to Sandy Bay, alongside Llandudno, further down the coast. Sandy Bay is one of the world's most famous nudist beaches, and the far, rocky end of this large stretch of sand and sea is its gayest part. The low scrub and trees on the slopes above the beach offer shelter to those who want a bit of shade - or just privacy.

The city's tourism authority has put its weight behind attracting gay tourists to the city. "Cape Town is the gay capital of Africa and we hope that some day it will become the gay capital of the world
 

PAST & PRESENT
Protection from discrimination

     The reasons for Cape Town's prominence as a destination for gay travellers are not hard to find; many of them are the same reasons Cape Town is a holiday destination for travellers of any kind. Its natural beauty is world-renowned, and it has over the past decade increasingly geared itself for a steady stream of international tourists.

For the gay traveller, however, it is perhaps South Africa's post-apartheid Constitution that tips the balance in our favour. Adopted in 1996 after lengthy discussion, debate and fine-tuning, the Constitution offers protection from discrimination on the grounds of race, gender or sexual orientation. It is the first Constitution in the world to do so, and is justly famous for this reason.

This new freedom forms a stark contrast, of course, to South Africa's history, in which homosexuals were legally restricted and persecuted. Laws against homosexual activity were on the statute books alongside the race laws that restricted black/white interaction and limited opportunities for black people.

In the 1960s, for instance, the state promulgated the "Three Men at a Party" Law in the wake of a police bust of a gay party in Forest Town, Johannesburg. This slightly laughable law forbade gatherings of three or more men for what the state defined as purposes of mutual stimulation.

Such laws, including the common law forbidding "sodomy", a legal category that used to cover more than is understood today by the term, were swept away by the new Constitution and subsequent legal challenges to old laws.
 

Convictions and imprisonment

In the 1700s, when the Cape was a part of the Dutch East India Company's domain, men convicted of same-sex sexual transgressions were imprisoned on Robben island.

Punishments for the exercise of "dirty passions", when the crime was deemed less heinous than full "sodomy", were usually flogging, hard labour, and/or banishment to the Netherlands.

This caused some problems, however, because often the punishment meted out in the Netherlands was exile to the colonies. One Francois David Le Pron, 14 years old in 1765, was put ashore and left in Cape Town by his captain for such offences. A little later, he was convicted in Cape Town of making sexual advances to another man, whipped, and sent back to the Netherlands.

In severe cases, such as that of Nicolaas Modde, the sentence was imprisonment on Robben Island and was often followed by execution. Modde was found to have engaged in sodomy with two slaves while imprisoned on the island. The three men confessed to their crimes before the Court of Justice (torture was often used to extract such confessions) and they were sentenced to death. This sentence was carried out by drowning: the three men were bound together, loaded with weights, and thrown into Table Bay.