Club Offers Options for the Large-Sized

Ronda Wood and her partner, Donna Moore, won’t mind if you call them “fat”--in fact, they prefer it. Prefer it, that is, to being called “overweight” or “obese,” terms they contend are pejorative.

“Fat is not a dirty word,” and “fat is what we are,” insists Moore, who with Wood started Mor-2-Luv, a Los Angeles-based dating service and social club tailored to large-sized singles “and their admirers.”

After “15 to 20 years working toward ‘fat liberation,’ we decided to create something that would offer social options to large-sized singles,” Moore says. The pair, who cheerfully divulge that each of them weighs more than 200 pounds, opened the unique dating service in 1985 to a virtually untapped market.

The dating service offers three matches for $50 or five matches for $75, and the social club holds monthly house parties, dances, seminars and workshops. The group has been drawing an increasing number of participants from this area, so Wood and Moore are in the process of establishing chapters in North and South Orange County.

It was their own personal experience that convinced the pair that there were eligible single men who would not merely tolerate their corpulence, but be attracted to it--a hunch that paid off. “Of our male members,” says Moore “only about 10% are fat--the rest are F.A.’s (fat admirers).”

Many fat admirers are “still hiding in the closet,” Wood says, believing the myth that “any man who finds large-sized women attractive is looking for a surrogate mother or has a fat fetish.”

“I’m sick of being told I have a fat fetish,” says Tom Iles, 43. “Who has the fetish--the man who won’t date a woman over 5-foot-6 and 110 pounds or the man who likes women who are 5-foot-6 and over 160 pounds?”

Iles, a Brea optical manufacturer, admits that he hid his attraction to “big girls” out of fear that he would be chided by friends for being “weird.”

“From the time a person is small, they are told what is and is not attractive--and fat is not currently attractive to the majority of people in our society,” he says. In high school and college, he dated slimmer girls, but secretly found himself drawn to those whom his friends would never go out with.

“Slender women tend to be self-centered and worry about every minute detail of their lives. I found larger ladies to be freer, kinder, gentler and, in many cases, happier than their slender counterparts,” he says.

Iles fell in love and later married “a chubby--very chubby girl--so sweet, so adorable. She had a wonderful laugh and sparkling eyes, and I saw her as incredibly sexy.” But the marriage ended after 10 years. The reason, he believes, was that “she never really accepted herself, and she couldn’t believe that I or anyone else could ever love her just as she was--5-foot-4 and 175 pounds.” That insecurity, he says, eroded their relationship.

One female member of Mor-2-Luv who requested anonymity appears to understand those insecure feelings: “Given a fat woman’s self-consciousness, which stems from not being accepted by society, if a man does flirt with her or ask her out, she thinks he must be kinky or playing a cruel joke.” This, she believes, carries over into relationships “until she has made peace with herself.”

Dixie Jones accepts herself today, but she says her self-acceptance came at a high price. “It is easy to feel ostracized in a so-called ‘normal’ world,” says the Anaheim insurance company employee. Jones, who is 34, admits to having attempted countless diets, stomach-stapling, a “tummy tuck” and starvation--”mostly as a desperate reaction to the way I was treated by so-called ‘normal’ people.”

She recalls the poignant event that led her to join the Mor-2-Luv dating service: “I thought I had a pretty decent social life through work--I had been included in after-hours socializing. One night a friend at work invited me out dancing with her group.” Later, while freshening up in the employee lounge, Jones overheard two of the women talking about her: “Why did you invite her? Now no one will ask us to dance!” Even now it is a painful memory.

Jones says she found immediate acceptance and a great deal of support within “Mor-2-Luv’s cocoon.”

Judy Richardson, 44, an attorney, joined the group 18 months ago. “Before, I went into social situations assuming that I would have to meet someone who would like me in spite of my size. It was a big negative. The group has helped me feel good about socializing, and it has made a real difference in my self-confidence.”

Bill Earl, 43, an Anaheim health care professional, is a member who maintains that acceptance of self and others is crucial. He stands 5 feet, 8 inches and weighs 300 pounds. “As with any minority there are prejudices against one’s own kind. There are large women--and men--who want to date only thin people. Oftentimes they haven’t accepted themselves--it’s like saying, ‘Well, I can’t be thin, but look who I can attract.’ ”

Martha Young, 36, of Fountain Valley joined the group shortly after its inception. “I met a lot of terrific men and dated a lot. Then I heard about the parties and decided to go.” Young says she wasn’t sure what she would find. “I gained some true friendships, but I also learned that people who accept you for who you are inside--not outside--are more willing to accept other things about you too.”

Young met her current beau, Tom Woolf, 34, also of Fountain Valley, at a club party seven months ago. What attracted the 6-foot, 170-pound man to the 5-foot, 4-inch, 250-pound Young?

“I’ve always been attracted to women of all sizes--I didn’t have some obsession with dating a fat lady. She was sweet and warm. She is happy, which is more than you can say for a lot of women half her size--and she’s just a lot of fun to be with. That is an unbeatable combination for me.”

Although nearly all female members are large-sized, Moore and Wood insist that a person of any size may join the dating service and club--provided they admire big, beautiful people. “We are vehemently opposed to size discrimination of any kind,” says Moore, “so we wouldn’t be very sincere if we attached a weight qualifier to our memberships, would we?”