Hot Flash Dances let lesbians hook up, celebrate

At Cherry Lounge and Pit (Credit: Jeremiah Toller/Special for Metromix)

As a young woman, Pauline Miriam of Portland, Ore., was a leader at the grassroots level of the lesbian and women's movements.

She marched. She organized. She raised money and awareness.

And now at 58, she just wants to have fun.

But with a past like hers, Miriam's version of fun is still a little about activism, community organizing and awareness-raising.

As well as about hooking up, dancing all night long and filling a club with hundreds of lesbians, most of whom are 35 or older.

For five years, Miriam's been throwing the all-women series of monthly Hot Flash Dances in cities across the country. Saturday night the Phoenix contingent celebrates its one-year anniversary at the Cherry Lounge and Pit in Tempe as part of Phoenix's Pride weekend.

“We are creating for ourselves now what has never been created for us,” she said. “It's amazing how free the women are here—there's just a big difference in how things are when you get a bunch of women together.”

Judy Kinney of Tucson just stepped down after having coordinated the Valley dances for a year. She still organizes the ones in Tucson, and said they're growing in popularity in both cities. Phoenix's dances average about 300 women and Tucson's draw about 125.

“I love being smack-dab in the middle of a dance floor filled with hundreds of women, most of them my age,” said Kinney, 49. “The dances give women a place to gather, enjoy the music they like and to sing the words and dance at the same time. It's really fun and easy and relaxed and drama-free.”

Now in eight cities, Hot Flash Dances play everything from Shakira's “Hips Don't Lie,” one of Kinney's favorites, to 1960s Motown, '70s disco to '80s new wave. They appeal to women ranging from their early-30s to their late-60s, those no longer enamored of the traditional lesbian bar scene.

At 50, Miriam was unexpectedly single after a 10-year relationship ended. But when she was finally ready to date again, she found her opportunities to meet new age-appropriate women limited to potlucks and other things she thought sounded “rather boring.”

Because unlike men in the gay community, lesbians tend to stop supporting bars and clubs as they get older, instead socializing in homes or at less traditional venues.

This is where Hot Flash Dances come in, serving as places where volunteers and paid staffers greet guests at the door, have them identify as first-timers or regulars, as members of a couple or as singles—who then get glow-in-the-dark bracelets to ID them for other singles—and ask them if they want to sign up for mailing lists.

Newbies are also walked around, introduced to regulars and made to feel welcome in a way that Kinney said is more like a party and less like a club.

The most popular Hot Flash Dance is in Seattle, which runs every other week, and also sponsors a women's softball team.

But Miriam said Phoenix's is strong, supported in part by the two predominantly lesbian mobile-home retirement communities just outside the Valley.

“What we find is that the women who come, because they're a little older, we're much friendlier, and what women find is connections that are romantic, political, social and professional,” said Miriam.