A new lesbian social club, Pink Sappho, offers themed events in iconic venues designed to allow LGBTQ+ women to connect in engaging settings that aren’t too loud to have a conversation in.
“Our main goal is a bit generic; we want people to connect and hopefully leave having made a new friend, but I also want these events to feel like a piece of art to be observed and experienced,” said founder and creative director Aderinsola Akeju.
Pink Sappho’s next event will be a Sip & Shop at the designer lingerie shop Journelle, 1725 N Damen Ave., June 13 from 5:30-9 p.m. Tickets can be purchased here for $20 or $25.
“We’ll be sipping on non-alcoholic beverages, eating from charcuterie boards and engaging with each other in cute little fluffy robes while we walk around a lingerie store and do some retail therapy,” Akeju said.
Pink Sappho is designed to offer LGBTQ+ women, especially Black and brown people, “a soft moment of escape into a world made just for sapphics looking for fun and luxury,” according to the group’s news release.
Akeju launched Pink Sappho earlier this year, after she was awarded a $10,000 grant from Queer To Stay, an initiative created by the civil rights organization Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and the entertainment company SHOWTIME that supports small LGBTQ+ businesses. Since the initiative launched in 2020, it has provided $1 million in funding to 100 queer businesses, according to HRC.
Akeju began hosting small events last year, after moving to Chicago for a job in 2022 and spending a few years getting her bearings in the city’s queer social scene.
“I made a few friends here and there, and then I found the confidence to start hosting events,” Akeju explained. “We had an all-girls pink slumber party at my apartment, and it was incredible. We all stayed up laughing and talking until like 5 a.m.”
Shortly after that first event, Akeju hosted another slumber party, this time, at her friend’s penthouse apartment. It went so well that she decided she wanted to keep creating those kinds of spaces for queer women, and the Queer To Stay grant allowed her to turn her passion for hosting small gatherings into a small business.
For Pink Sappho’s first official event in February, Akeju rented out the historical Stan Mansion in Logan Square to transform the ballroom into a pink bedroom for a much larger slumber party and brought in food, drinks, a DJ, as well as a closet of designer lingerie for people to dress up in.
Since then, Pink Sappho has hosted a kickback at a Black-owned firehouse as well as a Sapphic Sensations party at a wedding venue, The Atria, that featured BDSM demos, intimacy teachings, pole dancing, and oil massages.
“Usually I fall in love with a historic building or architecturally interesting venue and then try to create a story and event around it,” Akeju described.
When planning events, Akeju incorporates the club’s three core values—authentic connection, wellness and sex education—through the venues, activities and general theming of each gathering.
“Those values are our north star, so when I feel like we’re losing the vision, that’s our reference, and we make sure that every event we host will touch on those pillars,” Akeju said.
For example, the Sapphic Sensations event highlighted wellness through essential oil massages and sex education by featuring a domme describing how she safely connects with her partner while showcasing a BDSM scene. The gatherings are all designed to give people space to connect organically, but the organizers also encourage people to engage with each other through conversation games, classic bar games like pool and other interactive activities.
“We have so many beautiful queer social clubs, but a lot of the events are at bars or clubs,” Akeju said. “That can be really fun, but it’s not always what you want because it can be hard to actually socialize in that environment. Sometimes, we want to feel like we’ve been transported to a different world.”
To learn more about Pink Sappho, visit the club’s Instagram, TikTok, or website.