Fat and happy
Big Beautiful Women show us that being large isn’t the end of the world
The politics of weight aside, Kathy and her girls are fat and having fun. Back at Padre Gold the morning after Club Catalina, Kathy and three friends show up for a “passion party,” a new take on the Tupperware parties of old, only with candles, sex toys and lotions instead of air-tight lids and durable plastic. The passion party, though, falls through, and the ladies make the best of it by chatting over a pitcher of ice water instead.
“Forget it,” one of the women, Cynthia, says. “I’m having a party soon…. This one, the lady brings plus-size lingerie. She has up to size 8X.”
“What size do you guys think Somber is?” asks Kathy. “I want to buy her a present.”
“Somber” is Susan Marquis. She’s what’s known as a super-size BBW, and she helps Kathy charge cover at the door.
Somber is upward of 500 pounds and, because of her size, has to order her clothing custom-made. She’s never had any luck in the lingerie department, so she makes all her bras and underwear herself. Somber got her nickname years ago. She used to work in the complaint department for a local business and was the only one who could ever calm anyone down. It’s easy to see how—Somber is hilarious and more confident than most women, thick or thin. She drove up to Club Catalina in a small Toyota truck covered in mostly political bumper stickers, including one small yellow one that reads, “Fat people are harder to kidnap.” A long black custom-made velvet dress she was wearing cost her $500. She walked in limping because her heart medication had given her gout.
Healthy or not, Somber thinks it’s important to support Club Catalina and other BBW events. She herself runs a Yahoo! meetup group, San Diego BBW and BHM (big handsome men), which is a group geared toward family-friendly socializing, and she also runs a nonprofit that provides clothing for plus-sized people with low incomes.
“I always try to support this establishment, obviously because I’m a big girl,” Somber says. “But, say if I go out by myself—which I do go by myself because I’m not shy—say I go to ’Canes or InCahoots, people will give me attention because I’m different. And it’s not necessarily negative—I mean, it can get negative sometimes because there are jerks, unfortunately, but you tend to just brush them off because, especially me, I literally have thick skin.” Somber laughs, then goes on to explain that, both outside and inside the BBW world, people as big as her can fall into the fetish category. There are men, like a little Mexican man who was at Club Catalina the night before and has been following Somber around for the past decade, who are fascinated or obsessed with large women. There also exists what are known as “feeders,” men who target mildly overweight women and feed them until they’re huge. And then there are “squashers,” men who pay women over 500 pounds to sit on their chests.
But outside the fetish realm there are men with simple preferences—belly men who like girls with jiggly tummies and, of course, boob guys and butt guys who like the plus-size versions better.
Eventually, the girls decide they don’t know Somber’s size and it’d be better to buy her something else. They move on to the topic of dieting and weight loss.
“It’s my choice not to lose 50 to 60 pounds,” Kimberly Johnston says. “I mean, it’s a vicious cycle, I could tell you all about being fat: You’re depressed, so you eat. Then you feel bad, and then you eat—you know what I mean? I understand how it happens, and it doesn’t make me a bad person because I can’t get out of it. But I did do something about it. I got to the point where I had severe health problems. I was diabetic and severely depressed. My cholesterol was so bad I should be dead. It was so out of control. My whole life was being depressed, sleeping then driving through a drive-through. I couldn’t pull out of it, and I didn’t, so I got weight-loss surgery to get better, and I’ve put some weight back on since then. It’s like any addiction, and I have to learn to live with it. And coming to Club Catalina helps me. I don’t have what it takes to weigh 140 pounds. I weigh 200 pounds and, realistically, I’ll probably weigh 200 pounds for the rest of my life.”
“You know what,” Cynthia adds, “I work in the medical field, and you would not believe the skinny people’s health problems: hypertension, anemia, cholesterol. Matter of fact, just two days ago, a skinny person had cholesterol over 1,000—the whole lipid panel. You know, unreal. And big people come in with lipid panels that look great. You know, I don’t have any health problems at all. In my eyes, health is 90-percent mental, 10-percent physical. It’s the circumstances of what goes on in your life and how you deal with it. I went from 348 and lost 70 pounds. Now I feel fine. If you’re comfortable in your skin being big, who gives a shit, you know what I mean? Promote how you feel. Promote who you are.”
Club Catalina happens every Saturday night at Padre Gold, 7245 Linda Vista Road. Check out groups.yahoo.com/group/bBWClubCatalina or www.myspace.com/bbwclubcatalina.
Got something to say? Write to kinseem@sdcitybeat.com.
Published: 03/18/2008
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I am a bbw girl on pluscupid.com and feel happy with my size. Size is only a number. I like the motto" Fat and Happy".