1
Coming Together
Post-Stonewall, diversity within the U.S. urban gay community became apparent. This led to the formation of groups such as leathermen, associations for older gay men, and, most relevant to this discussion, the chub/chaser subculture.1 Girth & Mirth was organized in the 1970s as a national social movement in response to weight discrimination in the gay community, with activities designed to transform big gay menâs experiences with shame.2 The organization was founded by Dick Bernolt and Charlie Brown, a big man and his thin admirer, respectively. It was Brown who took out an ad in the alternative newspaper The Berkeley Barb, inviting interested parties.3 Eventually, the first two Girth & Mirth clubs were started in San Francisco and New York.4 Then, by 1985, the Affiliated Bigmenâs Clubs (ABC) was formed in Seattle to coordinate Girth & Mirth clubs at the national level. In turn, ABC led to an annual Labor Day Convergence.5 Within the next two decades, national events like Convergence, which originally started with about 100 people, had grown to anywhere from 300 to 1,000 guests, depending on the year.6 Regionally, smaller Convergences also cropped up. Today, some go through ABC to avoid scheduling conflicts, while others remain rogue events.
The first mention of the Girth & Mirth subculture in mainstream media was in the 1975 play The Ritz by Terrence McNally.7 I learned this from a local Girth & Mirther one night at the hamburger joint Red Robin during the groupâs monthly âBig Eats,â as insiders have coined their dinner outings. This member told me that when he was in a Scottish Catholic high school, he grew tired of being in their dramas and musicals. During his senior year, the musical was Brigadoon. With his parentsâ permission, he instead went outside the school to pursue a part in The Ritz, in which he was cast in the role of the chubby-chaser. The folks at the Catholic school were not pleased. In this farce, a fat Cleveland businessman runs away to Manhattan in search of a hiding place from his mobster brother-in-law and unsuspectingly checks into a gay hotel. There, an overzealous chubby-chaser stalks him, literally chasing him around the bathhouse. Thus, we get the first popular reference to the terms chub and chaser and the subculture to which they belong.8
Like many social movements with a collective identity, media and later virtual realities made it easier for subcultures to organize globally. The big menâs community was organized around publications, and later around Internet communities. Magazines like Bulk Male emerged in the 1970s through the 1990s. This is also where big menâs personals ads appeared. By the late 1990s, personals as well as the magazines that used to feature them had moved to the Internet. Websites began to emerge for big men, such as Chubnet and, later, BiggerCity, and personals ads in turn went online and communication became more interactive via chatrooms.9 The limited research on the now international culture of Girth & Mirth focuses on these media and virtual representations as well as on chaser odysseys, rather than chronicle the immediate and direct personal experiences of big men.10
Becoming a Girth & Mirther
According to a longstanding theoretical paradigm in sociology, symbolic interactionism, people sometimes foray into a subculture in response to feeling relegated to the margins, which is indeed the case in big menâs seeking out companionship at Girth & Mirth. Clubs worldwide offer a friendship circle to draw big gay men out of social isolation. In this chapter, I chronicle narratives of how big men become Girth & Mirthers, and I explore the clubâs identity and mission. In response to my question as to what brought them to the club, some said they came for the first time after reading about the club online or in the gay paper or upon the insistence of a friend. Many of them shared with me stories of how they almost gave up on finding happiness as gay big men before they encountered the safe space of Girth & Mirth.
Following Pride Weekend, one member posted on the groupâs listserv his testimonial. In it, he expressed his deep gratitude to Girth & Mirthers for providing him with a family.
I didnât come out of the closet until the tender age of thirty-seven. When I met my husband, I was over the whole âgay scene.â I figured I had my kids, my family, my life (however miserable it was), and could live that way the rest of my life. I didnât need no stinkinâ man! But, I met someone different, someone who showed me life isnât all that bad and someone who has the uncanny ability to see the silver lining in everything. So, as you all know, I married him! He was the one that brought me to Girth & Mirth and I have to say he was right when he said, âThey are a wonderful bunch of guys and I think youâll like them.â I do! Iâm very blessed to have met each and every one of you. Iâm blessed to have turned the corner instead of becoming a bitter queen! For that, I thank my wittle bald man (my love, my life, my support system) and you guys! You showed me that all gay men are not alike. Iâll be forever grateful to you. Happy Pride everyone! Enjoy the rest of Pride month and thanks! See you Friday night at coffee!
Another Girth & Mirther relayed his story of how he got involved in the group the very day he learned he was HIV-positive. As he told me in his interview, his friend ran an intervention and took him to Girth & Mirth. His introduction to the club came in the nick of time when he may have socially isolated himself.
The day I found out I was positive, my friend and I were going out for dinner that evening, and I sat down and talked with him that night because I was freaked out. I completely forgot he was coming over, and he showed up and I wasnât ready. Heâs like, âDude, we gotta get you outta the house.â He said, âI know youâre not in the mood for socialization, I know youâre not in the mood to be in public, but you know what, think about this problem another day. Get the hell out of the house.â He forced my hand. And he took me to Girth & Mirth that night. Before that, I didnât even know they existed.
Yet another man told me he came across an ad for Girth & Mirth when he was looking for a suicide hotline number. As an artist, he worked alone, and when his relationship of eleven years ended, he found himself at a loss. He was suffering from the social injuries inflicted on him as a big gay man, and he finally found the kind of support he needed when he came to join Girth & Mirth. In the interview, he told the following story:
I had no friends. I was eleven years older, I wasnât in the same physical shape, I was a little biggerâthe gray hair and all that stuff. And I kind of felt, I have to get out and I have to socialize or Iâm gonna go insane. And quite frankly, I was having suicidal thoughts. I mean, it got badâbecause I thought no one would ever even want to speak to me. Thatâs how the bars work. Youâve gotta be thin and have the right clothes and have the right hair and the whole thing. And I was reading one of these gay newspapers, and looking for some kind of support group for suicide prevention, and came across Girth & Mirth, and thought, âWhat the hell is that?â So, I called and talked to somebody and thought, âWell, maybe Iâll look into that!â And Iâm certainly glad I did. It saved my life, quite frankly. Absolutely, I would have, I would have done it.
The three foregoing narratives share the sense of fictive kin that Girth & Mirth offers these big men. Each relays a transitional point when the men were finally able to enjoy a sense of belonging. Such stories have become part of the repertoire of origin stories for many Girth & Mirthers; for the members, they are as important as the historical accounts of the founding of the group.
A Social-Sexual Club
The Ohio chapter of Girth & Mirth is a social club; elsewhere, some chapters are also sexual clubs. Locally, the club has to do with the role of the ordinaryâordinary people attending ordinary events like a pot-luck dinner with friends. It is a place where big men can be friendly and can receive friendship in a normal way, without the hassle of preachy weight-loss sermons.11 As one member admitted, he simply goes âto make friends and to hang out with other big men from time to time, instead of being at home all the time.â Another Girth & Mirther remarked on membersâ unconditional acceptance of gay men of all sizes.
It gives people the opportunity to socialize in a way in which they donât have to worry about being chastised or looked down upon because of their size. So thereâs that format; itâs set up so people are expected to be nonjudgmentalâitâs in its own way more friendly than we see with a lot of other gay groups. One can relate to people that are the same and appreciate people the way they are. Gay men of size are generally one of the most ostracized groups out there, so we provide an environment where we donât allow that to happen.
It became clear from my observations and interviews that Girth & Mirth is about both male companionship and sexuality. One member compared the group to the Centurions, a leather/Levi club, which, according to him, is âwilder.â He said, âI hung out with them a lot, at a time when I myself was a little bit wilder.â The same man went on to then contrast Girth & Mirth with a Catholic gay menâs group in Texas that was, in his words, âalmost as if folks were sitting around in a circle apologizing to each other for being gay. It was all about trying to reconcile your sexuality with your spirituality.â This is indeed a far cry from what Girth & Mirth is all about: It is neither about apologizing for your sexuality nor about having to apologize for your size.12 This man went on to add, âThere were certainly a lot of people at the Catholic gay menâs support group who werenât terribly far along with this reconciliation.â Some Girth & Mirthers will likewise confess that they too are not that far along in terms of making peace with their size and sexuality.
Others grapple with the choices offered to them that may go beyond their comfort level, like the sexual tourism that takes place extralocally at big menâs national reunions, such as Convergence or the Super Weekend. However, in response to the needs of most of its members, Girth & Mirth prefers to identify itself as a social club or a family, rather than as a gay group interested in creating sexual opportunities. The following comments of one Girth & Mirther express his wish for the ordinary possibility of simply getting together with friends.
One of the things I pride myself on with this club is, itâs not about sex. Itâs about camaraderie. Itâs actually about friendship. Itâs not about who can screw who first. Itâs more about people getting together and enjoying each otherâs company, talking about their week, enjoying each otherâs lives, and the bad things; and so, when I first joined, I was impressed it wasnât about having sex. It was about actually being with a group of people who like to get together and actually do things together. And if somebody is having a hard time or going through trouble, the group definitely provides support. The way they have reached out to folks whoâve been going through a rough patch I think is just wonderful.
This club member was not alone in his sentiments that the group primarily serves a social, rather than a sexual, function. Members of Girth & Mirth see their roles as being no different from those of any family member who would do anything to help a relative. Local events provide club members with a sense of comfort, in contrast to their experience of exclusion and humiliation in other public settings. Congregation and shared experiences take place in the supportive and nurturing environment the club provides.
A Dining Club
Girth & Mirth can also be characterized as a dining club, where members like to get together to eat, overcoming the social isolation of being fat. Members congregate to create a cultural comfort zone, surrounded as they are by those with similar physical attributes (both in public and private settings) to counter their embarrassment of eating in public and the exclusions that doing so might bring.13 However, food consumption among Girth & Mirthers is not necessarily the focus of this book, in part to avoid perpetuating the stereotype of fat people sitting around and eating all the time. In fact, as I got to know them, the Girth & Mirthers were about so much more than that. This was brought home when the manager at the bar where the group had its charity night suggested that Girth & Mirth have a hot wingsâeating competition or a beer-chugging contest. Some members rejected this suggestion because they thought it would send the wrong message. One member, proposing they instead do a game show night based on the television program âIdentity,â commented that this would âshow weâre not just fat guys who eat. Weâve done things and lived some life.â In suggesting this particular game show, this board member wanted to declare that fat gay men in fact constitute a diverse group.
It is important to consider the public/private dimensions of the big menâs engagements in and withdrawals from society. As an outsider in my thin privilege, it took me a while to see that big menâs making the effort to go out to eat together as a group is a remarkably courageous act.14 Millman writes about fat peopleâs relationship to food in her chapter âSet Apart: The Fat Person as an Antisocial Figure.â15 In it, she describes how ânormalâ people can freely go out to eat together, but for fat people, eating out is publicly indicted as âdeviant.â Therefore they may end up eating at home and, some of them, alone. Thus, they often come to embody the stereotype of the fat person who sneaks around raiding the refrigerator late at night. Girth & Mirth offers an alternative. As one member said of a weekend Convergence, âYou can go there, be yourself, pick up talking with people like it was olâ times, and eat in front of people without worrying what someone will thinkâitâs a comfortable environment.â Hence, âthose who eat and drink together are by this very act tied to one another by a bond of friendship and mutual obligation.â16 This is why members appreciate Girth & Mirth: It allows them to be together and not feel excluded from taking meals with one another in public.
In Girth & Mirth, âthe sharing of meals is reciprocal, and there is ⌠an exchange of food which constitutes the confirmation of a bond.â17 One member decided that out of the litany of groups he had tried, Girth & Mirth came closest to the Denton Dining Queensâa monthly pot-luck group for gay faculty at the University of North Texas. He said that like the Denton Dining Queens, Girth & Mirthers âare not necessarily about apologizing for your size; nor do they put you on the spot sexually. No sex, no agendas, just getting together and having wonderful dinners.â
The Girth & Mirthers hold pot-lucks that are no different from what one would see at a church social. On the groupâs listserv, the president of the local Girth & Mirth reported on the honor-your-mother pot-luck he attended:
There were twenty-eight who attended the pot-luck at our apartment complex party room. Twenty-eight! We sat inside at the dining tables, we used the coffee and end tables, we sat outside at the picnic tables (with a lovely view of the drained swimming pool), we were everywhere! And the food! Oh my gosh, it was a total gastronomic orgasmic event! Honoring our moms by bringing her favorite dish was a great theme. The salads, casseroles, fried chicken, side dishes, and desserts were so tasty! I wonder just how many quarts of that Paula Deen banana pudding were in that serving dish. Not a drip-drab morsel of a leftover for that one!18
Clearly, food plays a significant role in Girth & Mirthâs community formation. As members of a stigmatized and outcast group, the big men are able to use eating together as an affirmation of intimacy.19 Georg Simmel observes that eating is an individual need, while partaking of a meal fulfills a social function. The latter transcends the individual by bringing groups together to socialize and form communities, thereby rendering a seemingly ordinary activity like eating a shared experience.20 Eating is thus a social marker that both unites members and separates Girth & Mirthers from other gay groupsâwhen they have a pot-luck among their friends, they may still be inadvertently withdrawing from the larger society. Subsequent chapters in this book will explore the range of cultural play and social rituals Girth & Mirthers have developed, food being just one of them.
A Personal-Political Group
Girth & Mirth gives us an opportunity to look beyond what we traditionally tend to think of as political action groups. ...