It amazes me how people don't get the play on words. I guess there just aren't as many Jay Ward fans as there used to be.
I got the name when working on "The Big Board", one of the first Size Acceptance BBS' in the country. In the old days, kiddies, we had to manually dial into other computers instead of one local number. Bulletin Boards were perhaps the first flash point for the 'Net as we know it. They were the first customers for dial up net access, in order to send and receive e-mail, and access the newsgroups.
The Big Board was run by Cliff Wilson (sadly, lost to us via AIDS, as was another "sysop", Bradd Huddle, who ran a sister board in Hayward) who needed more of a gear-head to design and run the board. I volunteered. I sometimes think I haven't had a free moment since.
Anyway, you were asking about the name. Well, eventually I wanted to run my OWN board. I sat down to load up this pile of loosely connected electronics I laughingly called a PC with some software for the BBS. One of the configuration questions HAD to be answered before I could launch the software (bad design! No biscuit!), which was the actual name of the BBS. I really hadn't THOUGHT about what to call the board. I mean, almost everything I could think of had been done by various newsletters in NAAFA...in other words, had been done to death.
When I typed in "The Rotunda BBS" I was playing on the "rotund" part of the word. In hindsight the word's true meaning was also appropriate for what the board would evolve into...right up until today.
For the record, the name was first registered at InterNic (boo! hiss!) sometime in 1993, with an atrociously archaic method of updating the organization info re-setting the year to 1994 the following year (that procedure never was changed. Yes, I think the InterNic fees were an illegal tax, foisted upon people with a bullshit story about "covering expenses". Yeah, right. But I digress...)
If by "this" you mean the web-site, it was simply a matter of doing something that at the time just seemed like a geeky thing to do. I created the rotunda as a web entity when there are only about 30,000 web-sites, almost entirely consisting of the same grey background.
Imagine my surprise when URL's started showing up on billboards, in shop windows, and in TV ads. By sheer, unadulterated luck I had stumbled into The Next Big Thing, and have been riding that righteous wave ever since. Cowabunga, moondoggiecow!
As Far As I Know, "The Rotunda" was the first size acceptance web-site on the web. Which has gotten me a bit of attention, both positive and negative.
There was a time when I was terrified of being alone, rejected for being who I was. This wasn't some baseless paranoia -- my shredding at the hands of the public school system's tender mercies, my step-father who lovingly insisted upon my worthlessness as a human being, and "friends" who turned their backs on me when I wasn't "cool" to be around were all experiences that justified my phobia (hmmm...perhaps a justifiable phobia is a bit of an oxymoron. Sounds cool, though, so I'll keep it in.).
I make a crack on "my" page about the dangers of being a reformed shy person: I wasn't kidding. When you've been suppressed for that long, and discover that it really WAS okay to be yourself...well, you can see the results. Some are scandalized, others shocked, and even outraged.
Then there are the others...the ones who are intrigued, amused, even aroused. There is nothing that keeps this site in existence more than a single letter from someone who enjoyed the site for any reason. Being flirted with "cold" is an amazing thing as well: Many of the fat people out there know all too well the odd, shocking sensation of someone actually approaching them with appreciation and desire for the first time. As a high school geek of the first order I never imagined anyone would ever notice me unless I made the first move, jumped up and down and made it clear I existed. To have people not only approach me, but to do so because of my INTELLIGENCE... wow. Now that's validation (sung to the tune "That's Entertainment").
So no, I'm not worried about being out in any of the ways I am...I figure people need to know that they're not alone.
Well, my mother (bless her) wound up discovering my web site several years ago...and didn't bother to tell me about it for a couple of years. Needless to say, she and I disagree about the degree of information I post to the web. I have to remind her that I didn't tell her about the site, so if she's shocked it's her own fault.
Because there is NOTHING wrong with wanting to make some money.
I've already begun selling high quality CD-ROM's of tasteful and fun erotic BBW photography. Future plans include creating video DVD's, with the emphasis on being better than ANY BBW video erotica currently available.
For more information, keep an eye on the Shopping FAQ for more gory details. Be assured that the stuff currently on the site that's freely available (stories, erotica, an so on) will still be here...I'm just going to be selling CD-ROM's and DVD's as well.
