Bear (gay slang)

The bear community is a subculture within the gay community. In homosexual slang, bears are considered to be men (mainly mature) with a stocky body and abundant facial and/or body hair. In the mature bear community, not everyone meets the definition of a bear in all its conditions; Some even have no resemblance to their physical features and are simply attracted to them and identify with their community. For this reason, there is its own terminology to describe its members according to their physical characteristics and age and body weight.

The bears have their own leisure places and numerous events are organized aimed at this homosexual community in which they can establish social relationships with other bears, with cubs and chasers.

The concept of bear can function as an identity or an affiliation, and there is ongoing debate in bear communities about what constitutes a bear. Some bears place importance on presenting a clear masculine image and may disdain or avoid men who exhibit effeminacy, while others consider acceptance and inclusion of all types of behavior to be an important community value.

History

In the mid-1980s, gay men in the San Francisco Bay Area who called themselves "bears" They met informally at parties called "Bear Hug" ("bear hug", created in 1987) and through the emerging Internet. The term bear was popularized by Richard Bulger, who, along with his then partner Chris Nelson (1960-2006), founded Bear Magazine in 1986. George Mazzei wrote an article for The Advocate in 1979 titled "Who's Who in the Zoo?" ("Who's who at the zoo?") that characterized homosexual men as seven types of animals, including bears. On July 3, 1989, the Lone bar opened in South of Market Star Saloon, which became a meeting point for bears in San Francisco.

At the beginning of the bear movement, some of them broke away from the general gay community and formed "bear clubs" to create their own social and sexual opportunities. Many clubs are loosely organized social groups; Others follow the motorcycle club model, with a strict set of bylaws, membership requirements, and charities. Bear clubs often sponsor large annual events such as Southern HiBearNation in Melbourne, Bear Pride and Bear Essentials in Sydney, Bearstock in Adelaide, HiBearNation in St. Louis, Missouri, SF Bear Weekend, CBL's Bear Hunt, Bear Pride in Chicago, Atlanta Bear Pride, Texas Bear Round Up (TBRU) in Dallas, Orlando Bear Bash, Bear Week in Provincetown (since 2001), and Mad Bear in Madrid (created in 2001), attracting regional and national visitors. and international. Many LGBT events attract many bear fans, such as Southern Decadence in New Orleans.

"Sociology of the Urban Gay Bear" ("Sociology of the Urban Gay Bear"), written by Les K. Wright, was the first article to appear in print in Drummer magazine, edited by Jack Fritscher. Fritscher was the founding editor of San Francisco's California Action Guide (1982). With California Action Guide, Fritscher became the first editor to publish the word bear (meaning gay culture) on the cover of a magazine (November 1982).

In addition, with producer Mark Hemry in 1984, Fritscher co-founded the pioneering Palm Drive Video that featured homo-male entertainment. Palm Drive Video expanded in 1996 to Palm Drive Publishing, San Francisco. For Palm Drive, Fritscher wrote, broadcast and directed more than 150 videos. His work includes documentary footage of the first bear contest (Pilsner Inn, February 1987). A bear pageant is a feature of many bear events, a type of male beauty pageant that awards titles and sashes (often made of leather) to the winners. This footage is no longer for sale, as Fritscher refused to switch to the DVD format and closed the video company.

An example of a bear contest was International Mr. Bear, which was previously held each February at the International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. It attracted contestants, often with local titles, from all over the world. The first Mr. Bear International was held in 1992, and the last one was held in 2011. The contest included the titles "Bear", "Daddy", "Cub" and "Grizzly" and the contestant receiving the score The tallest earned the title of bear, regardless of what type it was. The "leather bears" ("leather-bears") homosexuals have competed in leather contests, and "muscle bears" ("muscle-bears") are another subculture that stands out for their muscle mass.

The International Bear Brotherhood Flag is the pride flag of the bear community. Craig Byrnes created this flag in 1995.

The Bear History Project, founded by Les L. Wright in 1995, documented the emergence and early evolution of the bear identity and community. It became the source material for much of The Bear Book (1999) and The Bear Book II (2001). The publication of The Bear Book led the United States Library of Congress to add "bear" as a category. The Bear History Project is archived in the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University and continues to grow.

The bear community has spread throughout the world, with bear clubs in many countries. Bear clubs often serve as social and sexual networks for their members, who can contribute to their local gay communities through fundraising and other functions. Bear events have become very common, to include smaller cities and many rural areas. Most gay-oriented campgrounds now include some type of bear-related event during their operating season.

The bear community constitutes a specialty niche in the commercial market. It offers T-shirts and other accessories, as well as calendars and porn movies and magazines with bear icons, for example, Jack Radcliffe. Catalina Video has a bear-themed line, called "Furry Features Series" ("Hairy Presentations Series"). Other adult studios that feature bear-type men include Bear Magazine, 100% BEEF Magazine, BearFilms, Bear, Butch Bear, Raging Stallion and Titan Media. There are also social media websites and smartphone apps that market to men in the bear community.

As the bear community has matured, so has its music and literature, as well as other (non-pornographic) arts, media, and culture. Examples include Bearapalooza, a traveling bear music festival; Bear Bones Books, an imprint of LGBTQ publisher Lethe Press, which markets fiction, nonfiction, and poetry titles written by and for bears; BearRadio.net, streaming bear and LGBT music and bear-themed podcast shows. "Bear Icons" ("Bear Icons"), the first bear-themed art exhibit (1999-2002), toured Boston, Provincetown, New York, and Washington, D.C., and others offer items for sale. As more gay men have identified as bears, more bars, especially leather-themed bars, have become bear-friendly. Some bars specifically cater to bear customers.

Customs

In addition to physical references, bear groups tend to promote certain values, or "a certain attitude": friendship, solidarity, masculinity, tolerance and giving importance to playfulness, are some of values often found in bear environments. According to this concept, the bear is a sociable person who appreciates his friends and family, accepts himself as he is, does not worry about stereotypes and does not care what society says.

The bear phenomenon has generated its own forms of organization, image and activism in the 1990s. Nowadays there are bear groups and bars in many countries around the world. Also in many cities, meetings are held periodically, called meet-ups, which generally last a whole weekend, in which there are parties and other recreational activities, and give the opportunity to meet people from other places.

Numerous magazines are published (American Bear, Bear Magazine, Husky, etc.). There are many contact websites aimed at the group. And there are also porn film production companies aimed specifically at this sector, with several bear porn stars, perhaps the best known being Jack Radcliffe.

Movies have been made with bears as protagonists and a very long essay has even been published analyzing the social phenomenon of bears: The Bear Book. Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture, two volumes, by Les Wright. Every year, and as a tradition of the bear culture, the IBR (International Bear Rendezvous) is held in San Francisco, a meeting with the objective of collecting funds to help different organizations, and to make the bear clubs of the Bears known to each other. everyone. During this weekend the contest is held to choose Mr. Bear International, Mr. Cub International, Mr. Daddy International and Mr. Grizzly International. Participants are representatives of various bear clubs or organizations from around the world. In recent years there have been winners of the highest award from Spain; They have crossed the Atlantic to put the Spanish-speaking bears in high esteem. Examples include Pedro Veral (Mr. Bear International 2006), Andrés Piedehierro (Mr. Bear International 2007) and Juan Viera (Mr. Cub International 2004), also famous for their prevention campaigns against HIV/AIDS.

Terminology

Some terminology from the bear community:

• Bear English bear): a man with a beard and usually with hair in the body and of strong or thick complexion; usually of mature appearance.
• Cachorro English cub): a young man with appearance and complexion of bear.
• Hunter (in English, chaserLi. persecutor): someone who is attracted to bears and who does not correspond to the physical stereotypes of bear or puppy.
• Chubby or Chub (lit. chubby or regordete): obese man, usually without bodily hair.
• Muscle bear: musculate bear.
• Leather Bear (lit. leather bear): bear that also likes to wear black leather, as they mark the canons of the fetishism of the leather.
• Wolf English wolf): a man of normal and hairy complexion, usually shaved and bearded.
• Nutria English otter): a small or very thin and hairy man
• Polar bear English polar bear): a mature man with bear appearance but very tired, with beard and hair practically white.
• Dad bears English Daddy bear): He is a great and elder man who is attracted to young men (cachorros).
• Stay: organized meeting of bears.

Description code

In personal advertisements and Internet profiles, to describe oneself or indicate one's physical tastes, a code of letters, numbers and signs is used, mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries.

The first letter is B uppercase; It means beard and is regulated with numbers from 0 to 9 that follow it to indicate the length and density of the beard.

The other letters are followed by one of these signs: (--, -, +, ++, +++) to indicate in increasing order the intensity of the quality being specified, where "--" indicates nothing at all and «+++» very much. If there is no sign behind it, the letter indicates that the quality is average.

The letters of quality and their meaning are: f, fur (hair); t, size; w, weight (weight); c, puppy; d, daddy (daddy bear); g, grope (indicates the level of physical contact); k, kinky (morbid); s, monogamous (-) or promiscuous (+) sex; m, muscles; e, penis size; h, behr (mustached bear); r, if you prefer the house (-) or the outside (+).

The terms c and d in addition to youth or maturity can indicate the tendency to be protected or protective in the relationship, respectively.

References to bears in culture

Television

• The television comedy (sitcom or comedy of situations) Normal, Ohio tells the story of a character played by John Goodman, a separated father who has left the closet in California and returns to his traditionalist people inside the United States. The presentation showed that Goodman was finally joining Dan Aykroyd (although this never came to be seen in the series, because it lasted a few months).
• In episode 2 of season 5 (1994) of the American series The Kids in the HallOne. sketch "Grizzly" shows how the character played by Kevin McDonald is "attacked by a bear" in a gay bar. Survive thanks to your training as boy scout, making himself dead.
• In an episode of The Simpsonswhere a bear wanders through Springfield, Homer demands the mayor to provide a patrol to drive the bears out of the city. In the protest march at the City Hall, Homer sings “We are here, we are gay, we don’t want any more bears” (We’re here, we’re queer, we don’t want anymore bears; the first two phrases are of a motto popularized by Queer Nation. When Lenny asks Homer about the song, Homer says: “Ah, I heard it in a mustache parade that they have every year.” In another episode, Homer leaves Marge temporarily and will live with a gay. In a scene where they're both standing in a corner of the street, a group of gais goes by car and screams: "Who's the bear? Wolf! (referring to Homer).
• In the episode of American Dad on January 28, 2007, Stan Smith says: "Did you know that in the gay community a hairy man is called bear?"
• In the TV series Zone Blanche (White zone, 2019), co-production Franco-belga of police genre, the Martial Ferrandis character is called by his colleagues by the pseudonym Nounours ("Osito", in the translation into Spanish). French actor Hubert Delattre interprets a strong beard cop, friendly and sensitive, who reveals himself gay in the first season of the series.

Cinema

• Cachorro, directed by Miguel Abaladejo (Spain, 2004) Website (breakable link available on the Internet Archive; see history, first version and last). in English).
• To Dirty Shameled by John Waters (USA, 2004). This satirical film includes a family of bears: dad bear, mom bear and baby bear (official website in English).
• Chuecatown, directed by Juan Flahn, Spain, 2007.
• In More than a man (both before) (from Daddy Brieva, Argentina, 2007), the main hero is a fat gaychubby, played by Luis Ziembrowski.
• In I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (2007), a woman asks the character of Adam Sandler if he is a gordite hunter (chubby chaser), implying that the fat character played by actor Kevin James is gay.
• BearCity 2010 (2010), directed by Doug Langway (United States, 2010), is another film on the subject.
• BearCity 2: The Proposal (2012), directed by Doug Langway (United States, 2012), is a sequel to the previous tape.

Several short films about bears can be seen at gay film festivals:

• Men on Fur on Men (Men with skin over men), directed by Martin Borden and Clark Niklolai (Canada, 2003, miniDV, 8 minutes).
• A Bear’s Story (The story of a bear), directed by Vincent Mtzlpick (United States, 2003, video, 21 minutes).
  • Making of “A Bear’s Story”Say. Village TV (United States, 2003, video, 7 minutes).
• Porn Proof (Porn test), directed by Chris Street (Canada, 2003, miniDV, 3 minutes).
• More Than Hair Care Products (More than hair care products), directed by Pendra Wilson (Canada, 2003, miniDV, 5 minutes).
• Hard (Heavy fat), directed by Frederic Moffet (Canada, 2001, video, 23 minutes).
• Lazy Bear 2002 (Lazy bear), directed by Greg García (United States, 2002, DVD, 18 minutes).
• My Heart the Cook (My heart the cook), directed by Jerry McCadden and Clark Nikolai (Canada, 2001, miniDV, 2 minutes).
• 30 Bears in a Bathtub (Thirty bears in a bathtub), directed by Jonathan Robinson (presents the Manbears bear group, Manchester; 12 minutes).

Novels

• Teddyby Juan Ernesto Artuñedo, Spain, 2006
• Hunterby Juan Ernesto Artuñedo, Spain, 2007

Poems

• Sweet or Violetby Juan Ernesto Artuñedo, Spain, 2005

Essay

• The Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculturethe United States, 1997 and The Bear Book 22001 by Les K. Wright. Ed. Haworth Press.
• Javier Sáez del Álamo: «Excesos de la masculinidad. La cultura leather y la cultura de los bears». In Working Group Queer: The axis of evil is heterosexual. Spain: Sueño dealers, 2005

Comic

• Room for fiveJiraiya, Japan, 2003 (Spanish edition of ed. The Dome2006).
• Dear Professor, Jiraiya, Japan, 2008 (Spanish edition of ed. The Dome2006).
• Threesome of AsesJiraiya, Japan, 2009 (Spanish edition of ed. The Dome2009).
• Horror, I woke up with a Hunter!, by Rubén Gauna (dibujante), Argentina, 2011 (Argentine Edition of Ed. GaunaBeart, 2011).