Move over, it's Saturday night at Club Bounce and people are bouncing onto the dance floor in a big, big way. These are big, big people, all dressed to the nines and many tipping the scales at 250, maybe 300 pounds.
That's because this expansive nightclub a couple blocks from the
Pacific Ocean, with its flashing lights, friendly atmosphere and wall-rattling hip-hop sounds, caters specifically to fat people.
That's right, fat people. Not just any fat people, either, but fat people who are proud to call themselves fat people. People who joke that they are part of the new Fat is Phat movement.
"Self-conscious? No! Not at all," laughs
Monique Lopez, a curvaceous woman of 23 as she arrives in a tight, black dress and heels. "I was like, 'I'm going to Club Bounce tonight. I'm going to wear my shortest skirt.'" (Which she did.)
The movement for equal rights for plus-sized people is nothing new of course. The
National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, with chapters around the country, was founded 40 years ago. A nonprofit group, it advocates that everyone be treated equally regardless of size, arguing that we don't live in a one-size-fits-all world.
But what has been slower coming, fat advocates say, are places like Club Bounce, where people who might have some trouble getting past the velvet ropes at other night spots because of their size are made to feel like they fit right in.
"When you're not what they consider ideal, you know, and you're out there trying to get your dance on at those other places, you get the looks, the stares. But not here. Everything's accepted here," says
Vanessa Gray of Long Beach, an attractive 30-something woman who acknowledges jovially that after giving birth to three children, "I've got a little more meat on my bones."
Such clubs are still a relatively new phenomenon, however, with a handful scattered across California, mainly in coastal cities from
San Diego to
San Francisco.
"The whole thing really started on the Internet, with clubhouse parties organized online," says
Kathleen Divine, who runs another Southern California plus-size club, the Butterfly Lounge. "Now you see a lot more large people out in public, not hiding behind their keyboards anymore."
A Web site for "big beautiful women" (bbwnetwork.com) sponsors an annual "
Vegas Bash," for example, and there are similar gatherings in cities like
Atlanta and
Seattle.
But veteran fat activist
Lynn McAfe of the
Council On Size and Weight Discrimination would like to see more clubs....(MORE ON PAGE TWO)
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