Fat bears gays
A lot of historical Bear writing, captured in delightful texts like Les Wright’s two Bear Books (1997; 2001), and Ron Suresha’s Bears On Bears (2009), shows that guys often come to Bear communities because they feel OK being bigger and fatter in them. That’s how it was for me, too. My own earliest encounters with ‘Bear’ were back in the adv 2000s, when I was in my mid- to late-20s. I had a bit of a beard, and I was attractive fat, and though I didn’t really know much about Bears it seemed like a good slot for me to fit into.
A few years later, when I actually started going to Bear events, I had that encounter that so many of us fat guys contain in them. For the first time ever in a gay venue, I took my top off. And instead of feeling totally humiliated thanks to my sagging tits and my roll of tummy fat, I felt freed from the weight of my body shame.
It’s the experience that first got me thinking seriously about the role of Bear spaces for fat GBQ guys. And since I’m an academic – specifically a Human Geographer – I wanted to study further through research.
Researching obese GBQ men
My academic function is influenced by this question: How can we mak
Historically, gay men have stigmatized other gay men for being ugly, being ancient, having a small cock, or being fat. The shame of such stigma often forced some queer men to keep a low profile or continue out of sight in the gay community. Who wants to be called an “old queen” or a “fat pig,” especially to their face? Girth and Mirth predates the increase of the new sex-positive gay bears by a decade. However, bears did not originate in the Girth and Mirth scene, as some academics include alleged. In a 1999 interview with Ron Suresha, Reed Wilgoren recounts how his friend Charlie Brown had placed an ad in the Berkeley Barb (a beacon for lgbtq+ voices in the 1970s) in 1976 called “Chubbies and Chasers, Unite!” The very positive response was overwhelming. This incentivized Charlie to found the first Girth and Mirth Club in San Francisco in 1976. This became a sex-positive, body-affirming, mutually supportive organized social group. The next year a Girth and Mirth chapter was stared in Boston, and then another chapter in New York City in 1978. Prior to this period one way individuals with special interests found each other in the days before the Internet was through private mailing lists. Someone
It is October 2020, and I am in a socially distanced cafeteria line of a boarding high school in Thessaloniki, Greece. The awkwardness of navigating different comfort levels of COVID-19 is still fresh, layered over the regular awkwardness of existing in high school. But today, I have taken a break from scolding dour fifteen-year-old boys who are trying to demonstrate off their sparse peach fuzz instead of wearing a mask. Instead, I am rapidly refreshing my handset, watching the results of the semi-final match of Fat Bear Week roll in. The humble website interface is not really made for the gentle of fan that I have become: one who has pinned her happiness on the triumph of a single bear in an internet competition and is convinced that his apparent victory could be wrenched away by the fickle voting public at any moment. I refresh the page again, scroll past the photos of the bears who are pitted against one another today, and peer at the small bars that report the votes to see if they hold inched further apart. Finally, I am confident enough to shout to my coworker Lina: “Otis has taken the lead! It’s a slim margin, but I think he’
“Historically, gay men have stigmatized other gay men for being ugly, being aged, having a small cock, or being fat. The shame of such stigma often forced some male lover men to keep a low profile or stay out of sight in the gay community. Who wants to be called an “old queen” or a “fat pig,” especially to their face? Girth and Mirth predates the soar of the new sex-positive gay bears by a decade. However, bears did not originate in the Girth and Mirth scene, as some academics own alleged. In a 1999 interview with Ron Suresha, Reed Wilgoren recounts how his friend Charlie Brown had placed an ad in the Berkeley Barb (a beacon for same-sex attracted voices in the 1970s) in 1976 called “Chubbies and Chasers, Unite!” The very positive response was overwhelming. This incentivized Charlie to found the first Girth and Mirth Club in San Francisco in 1976. This became a sex-positive, body-affirming, mutually supportive organized social group. The next year a Girth and Mirth chapter was stared in Boston, and then another chapter in New York City in 1978…” [Read the full article at bearworldmag.com] LikeLoading... .Reveling in the Gluttony and Glee of Fat Bear Week
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