I’m a 22-year-old gay male. I’m thin and “traditionally” good-looking enough to have done some modeling. So what’s the problem? I like bears. Big, hairy men with beards. I live in New York, and this city is full of cute, skinny, boyish guys, but there are some places to meet bears. The thing is, I don’t really fit in, and I’ve been told just that. A lot of bears seem to be primarily into other bears. And I’m not really one of them.
I’m familiar enough with your writing to know that you’re not a huge devotee of the bear scene, but do you have any suggestions for me?
— Wants Into The Den
A lot of fags work hard at being the type they’re into — and why not? It’s often a successful strategy. A guy into muscular guys puts on some muscle and starts pulling muscle guys; a guy into tattooed punks gets some tattoos and starts pulling punks; a guy into bears grows himself a gut and a beard and starts pulling bears.
But not every gay man can be the type he finds attractive, WITD. No matter how hard they work out, some guys can’t put on muscle; some guys are too angelic to pull off punk; and some wannabe bears can’t keep the weight on or are cursed with naturally hairless backs. Luckily for these guys, WITD, not all gay men are attracted to their body doubles. A lot of guys are into their polar opposites: Some muscular guys are into heavy guys; some punk fags dig corporate types; and some bears live to maul twinks.
On my recent book tour I met one of these guys: Mark, a skinny, tattooed, punk-rocker type. He’s been with William, a clean-cut, corporate-lawyer type, for four years. Opposites attracted, but at the beginning Mark’s punk friends gave him grief about his being with a clean-cut guy like William. “What could be more punk,” Mark told his friends, “then a guy like me making a guy like him lick my come up off the floor?” Only one thing, Mark: sending a guy like me some videotape.
So if some bears are into skinny guys, WITD, how come you’ve been made to feel unwelcome at bear venues? Because bear culture — a phrase I’m using under duress — has shown itself to be just as susceptible to the body-image fascism that its earliest adherents claimed to be rebelling against. Bear culture quickly moved from rejecting the notion that there should be one standard of gay male beauty — hairless, flat-tummied twinks — to enforcing its own monolithic standard of gay male beauty — fat-bellied, hair-covered bears. At best, the bears who go out of their way to make you feel unwelcome are mildly hypocritical; at worst, they’re so insecure that they feel threatened by your skinny, hairless presence.
