Bear community
The bear community is a subset of the gay community, which is often divided into subcommunities for the purpose of establishing common interests with peers. Thus, Bears are gay men who are generally either very heavyset or stocky, or very muscular. They have hairy bodies and some sort of facial hair, and often have a traditionally masculine gender role. (In fact, bears are often obsessed with presenting a hyper-masculine image and may shun interaction with effeminate homosexuals, particularly drag queens.)
The bear community was created by men who didn't feel that they fit into mainstream gay culture, believing it to place unnecessary emphasis on gay men who fit a particular bodily norm (thin, hairless and young). In turn, some, both in and out of the bear community, criticize it as tending to exclude people who do not fit into their own standards of what a "real man" is.
Bear men sometimes dissociate themselves from the gay community at large, having their own bars and social events where they can socialize with other members of the bear community, and their own groups. They may have pageants (much like beauty pagents but generally hyper-sexual) where titles and sashes (made of leather) are given out to winners. (Example: "Mr. Washington, D.C. Bear, 2002.")
Though relatively obscured from common knowledge of existance, the "bear" label and community have begun, against all likelihood, to surface in pop culture. For example, on the american television show "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy", a stocky and hairy man recieving a makeover was informed by the host that "In our community, you would be called a cub!" Additionally, film-maker John Waters (long known for exposing the world at large to sub-sects of life) incorperated a bear sub-plot in his 2004 film "A Dirty Shame."
The bear community has also spread all over the world. Bear clubs now exist all over the globe in Australia, South America, North America and pervasively in Europe. Bear events are now common in all those places and lots of flux and interaction exist between the members of the different communities.
Some terminology relating to the bear community includes:
- bear - a man with a full beard or van dyke, a hairy chest and body, masculine acting, usually older (or older looking), sometimes overweight or stocky, commonly found wearing flannel, leather, or blue jeans.
- cub - a younger (or younger looking) version of a bear, with a smaller frame.
- otter - a person who meets all of the above descriptions except for the weight - typically thinner, or with lean muscle
- chaser - a term that refers to someone who is not a bear, cub, or otter, but is sexually or romantically attracted to them (this term is used in various communities to describe an outsider who has sexual attraction to people within the community)
