I love bears; yay bears. But the BearWorld trailer (the website is here) lost me when one man said that bears “don’t fit in to the usual gay stereotypes.” Come on. Bears may have been an outcast minority at some point in the past, but these days bears are as much of a gay stereotype as circuit queens and leather daddies.
The goal of the documentary is to explore the question, “What is a bear?” It’s complicated, apparently. “If you think you’re a bear,” says one man, “you’re a bear.” If that’s true, then so is the statement, “If you go on Craigslist and say that you’re a masc jock whose girlfriend is out to brunch with her parents, then you’re a masc jock and your girlfriend is out to brunch with her parents.”
There are plenty of gay sub-cultures that are based more on mentality than on physicality, like latex fetishists, tweakers or Log Cabin Republicans. But other gay sub-cultures, like twinks, Chelsea muscle queens and, indeed, bears, require physical evidence for membership.
In conclusion, the director of this documentary fails to realize that his question — “What is a bear?” — is really much simpler than he thinks. A bear is a fag who is fat and hairy — hello. Now stop making documentaries about yourselves and go have sex instead, please.
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Bears are the LEAST complicated group/phenomenon to define. It’s all lookism that celebrates specific excesses directly, literally tied to the obvious, conscious (visible) elements.
If the doco is longer than 11 minutes, it’s overly padded.
And that would be ironic.
I think the term is convoluted. If a guy is 6’5, 250 lbs and built like a lumber jack and hairy, that’s a bear. The guys in this clip are chubs. They might have a lot of hair, but they are still fat. So then are they chub bears?
hmmmm. if you think you’re a bear you’re a bear? i’m one of the old fat guys who was around at the beginning, and that’s not really the way it’s supposed to be. not that there’s not plenty of room in the bear community for anyone. just don’t call yourself a bear when you’re not a bear. bears are supposed to be bigger and hairy, usually with facial hair. you don’t have to be fat, but a little meat on the bones is pretty important. the nice thing about being a bear is that each stage of life is followed by another one that’s even more interesting. back in the 80’s, i was a cub. then when i got into my 30’s and 40’s i was a bear. now that i’m in my 50’s i’m a daddy bear. and in another 10 years or so i’ll be a polar bear. and at each stage of being a bear, there’s plenty of hot guys who want to play.