Good words, Marvin. While I still don't know where I fit in when it comes to body type I do tend to appreciate the bear community because I feel like it's more inclusive and open than other groups within Homolandia. When the podcast "BTalk" was around (I LOVED that podcast, it made me feel good about being gay) they'd sometimes talk about the end of bear culture but I was just stepping out into it. I still feel kind of like an outsider but that has more to do with me than anything else. I tend to feel more drawn to gay circles that are more activist or cerebral focused. I can operate more intellectually without fear of feeling like an outcast. I still has a lot of body shame and issues like that so maybe getting out among the bears and risking more in those circles would be good for me.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks again for your thoughtful post.
The biggest part of bear culture is learning to accept yourself.
One key is hard to accept but it IS true. Everyone is someone's fetish. There are folks out there that will find you the hottest thing they have ever seen. Just have to keep putting yourself out there and keep batting down your deamons.
a few points. Bears started from 2 main groups. Girth &Mirth and the LeatherMen. The G&M got the whole body acceptance in part of Lesbians and the Earth Mother groups. This mix happened when some hefty leathermen were too heavy for the leather groups but didn't feel comfortable with the G&M. Then there were the men that were married and playing with men on the side. You pointed out the internet and it's part in this. These married men found there was something other than the Twink culture that was pretty much all you saw in the media (that was telling them they couldn't be gay because that wasn't what or who they were
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I think that one of the bigger influences on bear body image politics was the aging of the Baby Boomer population in the late 90s--the sudden realization among gay men born in the post WW2 to early 60's (either past or rapidly eclipsing 40) that gravity and genetics were working against them in ways that science and medicine just couldn't stop. Thus, as twink bodies began to gray, wrinkle, and sag, the bear community became a place where they could let themselves go physically and find a social community away from the clubs and discos of the 70's and 80's.
...Unfortunately, they brought with them classic twink body fascism, simply modified and adjusted for their new contexts. We saw the notion that "bear" (at least in the eyes of newly self declared boomer-bears) was more about the body and less about attitudes and personal self-declarations--a direct reaction against what we see in vintage (pre-Radcliffe) issues of Bear and in the community at large in the early to mid 90's. We saw fat men marginalized under the "chub" heading
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Anyway, I'm rambling. Thanks again for your thoughtful post.
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One key is hard to accept but it IS true. Everyone is someone's fetish. There are folks out there that will find you the hottest thing they have ever seen. Just have to keep putting yourself out there and keep batting down your deamons.
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...Unfortunately, they brought with them classic twink body fascism, simply modified and adjusted for their new contexts. We saw the notion that "bear" (at least in the eyes of newly self declared boomer-bears) was more about the body and less about attitudes and personal self-declarations--a direct reaction against what we see in vintage (pre-Radcliffe) issues of Bear and in the community at large in the early to mid 90's. We saw fat men marginalized under the "chub" heading ( ... )
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