‘World of fat people’

LONG BEACH, Calif.

Move over; it’s Saturday night at Club Bounce, and people are bouncing onto the dance floor in a big, big way. And these are big, big people, all dressed to the nines, many tipping the scales at 250 to 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, 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,” Monique Lopez, a curvaceous woman of 23, says with a laugh 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.’ ”

The movement for equal rights for plus-size people is nothing new. The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance, with chapters across the country, was founded 40 years ago. A nonprofit group, it advocates that everyone be treated equally regardless of size and argues that we don’t live in a one-size-fits-all world.

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 that 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.”

Veteran fat activist Lynn McAfee of the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination would like to see more such clubs.

“It’s nice to have a place to go where you can do a little flirting and maybe bring your thin sister or somebody from work who isn’t fat, and they’ll be in your world for awhile,” says Miss McAfee, a pioneer of the fat-advocacy movement. “That’s an amazing experience for a lot of people who aren’t fat, to spend a day or night in a world of fat people.”