Title (as given to the record by the creator): Getting Down at the Fat Girl’s Ball
Date(s) of creation: 1994
Creator / author / publisher: Betty Rose Dudley, Common Lives / Lesbian Lives 51
Location: Iowa City, IA, US
Physical description: 4 scanned pages
Source: JSTOR
Reference #: CLLL51-Betty
Links: [ PDF ] [ CL/LL Archives ]
Transcript:
Getting Down at the Fat Girl’s Ball
by Betty Rose Dudley
Make my body shiver, make my heart quake,
Watch the fat girls shimmy, see the fat girls shake,
Out on the dance floor strutting their stuff,
Good Goddess almighty, just can’t get enough.
See the fat girls shimmy, watch the fat girls shake,
Make my body shiver, make my heart quake.
April walks in the room with such confidence,
Way she moves her body, ain’t no coincidence.
You can tell by her outfit,
She’s doing high femme,
By the look in her eye,
She ain’t lookin’ for men.
Kim’s out doing it in her sporty wheelchair,
All over the floor, she’s everywhere,
Popping a wheelie among fancy twirls,
Using her arms to dance with the fat girls.
Sue does cool butch, just standing there,
Arms folded across her chest as if she don’t care.
When the music starts and the girls begin to dance,
Sue throws off aloof and takes her chance.
Make my body shiver, make my heart quake,
Watch the fat girls shimmy, see the fat girls shake,
Out on the dance floor strutting their stuff,
Good Goddess almighty, just can’t get enough.
Here comes Cecelia, a pc dyke,
She don’t do butch or femme, she just knows what she likes.
In cotton clothing with sturdy shoes,
Out on the dance floor,
It all gets moved.
It all gets used.
June’s been dancing since before most were born,
A silver-haired dyke who can toot her own horn,
She moves on the floor with such a mean stride,
The girls are lined up to join her for a ride.
Just standing there is Jo, ’cause she don’t dance,
She just came to the party, looking for romance.
pretty soon some girl will pull her on the floor,
Where she’ll move her body ’til her feet are too sore.
Make my body shiver, make my heart quake,
Watch the fat girls shimmy, see the fat girls shake
Out on the dance floor strutting their stuff
Good Goddess almighty, just can’t get enough.
See the fat girls shimmy, watch the fat girls shake,
Make my body shiver, make my heart quake.
Betty Rose Dudley: I am a fat, white dyke from a working-class family in Missouri. I currently live, work, write and love in San Francisco; all with the help and support of my dyke roommates Eddie and June, the fat women’s community, which centers mainly around the women who cause Making Waves, Robust and Rowdy, LIAHO (Let It All Hang Out), and Fat Lip Readers’ Theatre to happen, and, especially lately, the women of Mothertongue Feminist Readers’ Theatre.
COVER
Common Lives
LESBIAN LIVES
a lesbian quarterly
[Image: a black-and-white photo of a light-skinned, short-haired person smiling and flexing at the camera. They are wearing a short-sleeved white T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Pride Dyke College,” which are stylistically colored red in the photo. They are standing in front of a house and a group of other people.]
number fifty-one
inside page:
COMMON LIVES/LESBIAN LIVES
a lesbian quarterly
CONTENTS Number Fifty-one Summer 1994
3 Notes to Our Readers
4 A Spell to Bring Us Together, by Anne Haines
5 Going to P-Town, by Tina Passman
11 A Longing, by Rita Schiano
14 Two Poems by Suzanne Sherman
19 Beyond Endurance, by Carolyn Gammon
29 How to Be a Lesbian in 1957 in 7th Grade, by Helen Laurence
31 A Sisterly Affair, by Janet Mason
37 Wildflowers, by H. Hadar
42 Getting Down at the Fat Girls’ Ball, by Betty Rose Dudley
44 A Symbolic Interaction, by Amie Yoke
45 Tunk Lake, by Lisa Vice
55 Life Among the Hangers, by Robbin Anthony
58 Two Poems by Denise Neco Leto
63 Coming Out to Aaron and America, by Judy Freespirit
67 Lonesome? by Laurie Fitzpatrick
72 Two Poems by Alicia Litwin
74 Alone, by Patricia Demetri
75 The What’s It To Ya? Club, by Frances Snowder
86 Two Poems by Barbara M. Burrows
89 Why I Dance, by Gail S. Bernstein
9i Untitled, by Kathryn Eberly
95 Twq Virgos Ascending, by Jenn Christiansen
103 For Jada, by Constance Lynne
104 Heart to Heart, by Bobbi Vitello
106 lover’s haiku, by Shelley Adler
107 Snapshots, by Judith Berns
112 Honey Lover, by Eliza Galaher
115 Of Gays, Monogamy and Religion: An Open Letter to Dr.Stacy Johnson, by Leslie Salas
117 Chris, by Elizabeth Dillon
119 Two Poems by Kristin Peterson
121 Book Reviews: I read about it in Common Lives …
A drawing by Mary Vermillion appears on page 18. Photographs by Sonja de Vries appear on pages 3 and 66. Drawings by Vanessa K. Scott appear on pages 13, 28, and 88.
