There are many different subdivisions within the Bear community. They favor instead a body-model that may be predetermined by genetics, age, or heteronormative masculine beliefs (i.e., men should weigh more and be hairier) ( Wright, 1997). They consider “real” masculinity to include having comfort with other men’s bodies and eschew the more normative gay male body-model (i.e., one in which thinness, youth, hairlessness, and muscularity are revered) ( Drummond, 2005 Duncan, 2007). Bears self-present as having the “correct attitude” towards their “naturally developing/aging” male bodies ( Monaghan, 2005). One such subculture is comprised of gay and bisexual men who identify as Bears. The gay community is ultimately a heterogeneous one with many subgroups and subcultures-one of the commonalities among them being the desire to have same-sex encounters. Future analyses of the community’s health are warranted. This condition may produce the low self-esteem exhibited and may explain how the Bear culture developed to ensure that even the heaviest, hairiest, and/or shortest individual can partner. The partners they can attract may be limited and, in response to this limitation, they may be particularly attuned to seek out partners who will not reject them. We speculate that Bears are viewed as less attractive than what is traditionally considered to be attractive. We concluded that Bears are intensely sexual. Bears had lower self-esteem but were no less (or more) hypermasculine than non-Bears. Bears were more likely than mainstream gay men to enact diverse sexual behaviors (e.g., fisting, voyeurism) and were comparatively more masculine. They were less likely to reject sexual partners and the partners they did reject were more likely to be young or weigh too little (i.e., were not bearish). They reported wanting partners who were hairier and heavier. Our studies indicated that Bears were more likely to be hairier, heavier, and shorter than mainstream gay men. In response, we conducted two large-scale studies of gay men identifying as Bears ( n = 469) to survey their self-reported physical, behavioral, and psychological traits. While qualitative data document such self-identifiers as masculine-acting gay men who weigh more and have more body hair, there has to date been no quantitative analysis of this group’s characteristics.
It rejects the normative idealized male beauty revered by mainstream gay men.
The Bear community exists as a subculture in reaction to the larger gay community.