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About those Bears |
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By BuckcuB
Stand back, club bunnies -- the Bears have arrived. Sometime in the past twenty-five years, though no one can exactly say when, that sign on the carousel of gay culture which read "You must be this slim, buff, young, ripped, and blond to go on this ride" came crashing down. Beardom tore open its closet door amid that clatter. The men with fuzzy guts and hairy shoulderblades, lip-obscuring beards and thick- furred forearms stopped being "those fat hairy trolls" and became icons of gay masculinity. And the men who like bears stopped being ashamed to admit it. "I think that the fact that most bears love everybody is the best way to describe them," says J.D., Houston (TX) bear titleholder of Mr. Grin And Bear It. "Bears don't limit themselves to any stereotype for companionship." Wait a minute -- bear titleholder? Yep. Pageants are not the sole province of sequined drag queens and baby-oiled musclemen. Nearly every large urban area has its bear contests, and the competition is fierce but fun.
So it's just a big laid-back be-in, hmm? Not by a long shot. The 'A'-list circuit-party gays have nothing on Beardom. From Alaska to Florida, Maine to California, thousands of bears congregate at dozens of annual gatherings of their kind -- with "admirers" more than welcome. Chicago hosts Bear Pride. Washington D.C. has Bear Invasion. Bears gather for La Fiesta de Los Osos in Tucson, AZ. In late March, Dallas growls with Texas Bear Roundup. There are many, many more, with the grand-daddy of all bear gatherings, International Bear Rendezvous, hosted annually in San Francisco. The phenomenon isn't restricted to the United States. In addition to the dozens of bear events and thousands of bear organizations in the U.S., you will find similar events and clubs in cities all over the world. Beardom is truly global. "Okay, okay -- so there are a lot of bears, I get it," you say, "But what really IS a bear?!?!"
There you hit upon one of the few divisive issues among bears. Some
identify more closely with the powerful wild hunter of the woods --
grizzlies and Kodiaks. Others believe in a provenance from the furry,
huggable teddy-bear. Must bears be hefty? Depends on who you ask.
Facial hair required? Well, a majority agree on that, but not all -- and
not on how much facial hair's required.
"As for those who believe that the bear society is a bunch of 'fat hairy trolls', they are being narrow minded and not looking at the whole picture," says J.D., "I, personally, do not consider girth an attribute to beardom. I don't turn my back on them either." Confused yet? Ah, but you haven't even heard about the associated species within Beardom. There are not just bears -- but cubs, wolves, and otters too! And the definition of each is at least partly a matter of dispute. Some consider cubs to be young bears -- or short bears -- or bottom bears. Otters are generally slimmer men with fur -- but one bear's otter is another bear's cub. Bear nomenclature is pretty fluid. In an effort to solve this linguistic dilemma, two bears -- Bob Donohue and Jeff Stoner -- sat down in a Boulder, CO restaurant on Thanksgiving weekend in 1989, and created the NBCS: the "Natural Bears Classification System." Half in jest and half in earnest, the NBCS rates bearishness according to such factors as beard presence, fullness, and length; extent of body fur; weight and frame, and several more determinants -- with plenty of sublevels within each major factor. The NBCS didn't solve the perennial what-is-a-bear controversy; but for a number of bears it did permit a more-accurate self-description on the Internet.
And that Internet fairly teems with bear and bear-related lists,
websites, and discussion newsgroups. Type "bear" into any big
search engine, and you're a lot more likely to get hits for a well-furred
leather-Daddy in Detroit or nude photos of a cute Savannah cub, than
encyclopedia articles on the species Ursus.
A whole niche-erotica industry has grown dedicated to bears, too. There are magazines, erotic videos, and sexy photospreads devoted to the hirsute hunkiness of these men. And aside from the sensual, hundreds of vendors purvey everything from baseball caps to bumper stickers to suspenders, emblazoned with the ubiquitous bear-paw logo or grizzly-bear silouhettes, or the Bear Flag -- yep, there's even a Bear Flag! Beardom has moved into the realm of serious academe, as well. Dr. Les Wright compiled and edited "The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture." No longer are scholarly musings on gay culture confined to the strictly-mainstream offerings. Dr. Wright also coordinates the "Bear History Project," an ongoing undertaking exploring the origins and rise of Beardom to a major subculture. If there was any doubt that bear culture is making serious inroads into the gay landscape, the emergence of "bear bars" has removed that doubt. Nearly every large American city has a bear bar, and many bars in smaller cities host weekly "Bear nights. So -- you grew a new goatee, and were startled when you were walking down the street and a furry stranger muttered "Woof!" at you? The bear version of the time-honored wolf-whistle, "Woof" can be a compliment, an invitation, a friendly comment -- or all three. But don't say it "Woof" like a child imitating a dog's bark. It's softer and more guttural, a feral throaty growl of breath. And don't say it unless you mean it! This is merely scratching the surface of Beardom. Occupying a hazy middle ground between a 'look,' an obsession, a fetish, and a brotherhood, the only way to get to know Beardom is to get to know bears. And that isn't hard to do, these days -- for the bears have truly arrived on the global gay scene. Photos Courtesy: Bad Bears |
Beards. Back hair. Bellies. Furry arms, legs, chests -- everything.
Flannel shirts and no-name denim jeans; bib overalls and workboots.
An unashamed celebration of "traditionally-masculine" virility, with a
decidedly blue-collar bent.
© 1997-2000 BEI