“International Bear Brotherhood”
Part 1
Excerpted from Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions by Ron Jackson Suresha, including additional original material unpublished in the book
Discussions with:
Eduardo Chavez (Mexico) • Seumas Hyslop (Australia) • Xavier Navarro (Spain) • Marcelo P (Argentina) • Glen Purdon (South Africa) • Mali Sahin (Turkey) • Woody Shimko (U.S./Japan) • Justin Spooner (Wales)
Go to: Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Contributor biographies
Ron: How did you first hear about Bears, Ed?
Ed (Mexico): In 1995, when I first discovered the Internet, I used to surf the Web a lot and came across pictures of hairy gay guys called “Bears.” I barely understood what “Bear” meant, but then I discovered the Bearcodes and Bear subclassifications and all that, and I identified with that. Although to many purists I’m not a real Bear because I’m not very hairy, I consider Beardom to be more about attitude than looks.
Ron: The “hairier-than-thou” attitude is quite troubled. Glen, please tell us about your genesis as a Bear.
Glen (South Africa): I have identified myself as Bear ever since I’ve known about them. I only came out four years back when I met my husbear, who was living in a gay commune house — six large hairy men in one house! That was when I first heard of Bears. Husbear and I started IbhayiBears in Port Elizabeth two years back because we love the idea. There are not too many “out” Bears in South Africa, but, as “Bear” is a relatively unknown term here, things are changing slowly.
Ron: Terrific — we’ll more deeply examine the Bear scene in each location shortly. Justin?
Justin (United Kingdom): About four years ago, I became aware of Bears when I typed “hairy men” into a search engine. At the time, I lived in Manchester, England, which has a large gay community and a thriving Bear movement, as does London. My peers confirmed my Bear status, although I’m not the hairiest man on the planet.
Ron: Like who is? No hands raised here, I think.
Justin (U.K.): I live in Wales now, which has a lot of small isolated communities, so our task here is to get people together in this part of the country. The U.K. Bear scene as a whole, however, is very different to the Bear scene in Wales.
Ron: Very good. Go ahead, Mali.
Mali (Turkey): My story is the same as Eduardo and Justin’s. I first encountered Bears while looking for hairy gay pictures on the Internet in 1997. At first, the word “Bear” seemed a joke to me. Then I reached the Resources for Bears Website. I was kinda shocked that day. I spent many hours on those pages. Day by day, I learned more about Bears, I understood that this was what I’d always wanted and had always been. I identified myself as a Bear and decided to become part of the Bear movement. In 1998, we started a little group here with five friends.
Ron: Marcelo, was your initial contact with Bears also from the Internet?
Marcelo (Argentina): I have identified with the Bear phenomenon ever since 1995, when I first got Internet access. My initial contact with the Bear movement was from the Internet also. Before that, I knew of certain gay masculine stereotypes, but the word “Bear” was unknown to me.
Ron: Can you be more specific about which masculine types you mean?
Marcelo (Arg.): Well, I consider myself a Bear, both in physical appearance and in attitude. I had a very focused attraction to Bearish guys since I was very little, of course without being aware of any classification whatsoever. Anyway, as far as my teenage sexual desires were concerned, they always were focused on people with beards or moustaches, and hairy and stocky men. My first sexual contact was at the age of twelve, with a bald, very hairy guy. Everything was consensual, though there was no penetration. It was great for me! You get an idea from where I have a sexual attraction for hairy men! I started dating guys at twenty-one, but I didn’t really come out of the closet to my parents until I was thirty-one.
Ron: An interesting bit of personal history! Seumas, how did you come to Beardom?
Seumas (Australia): My coming out as a Bear was a little different to most. When I was about eighteen, and getting into the gay subculture, I never did seem to fit in the mainstream gay culture. I ended up spending those young adult years hanging out with a group of lesbians. They noticed my fur and the fact I started growing a beard, and they referred to me as “their little Bear.”
Ron: How long ago was that?
Seumas (Aus.): My self-identification as a Bear happened about 1994, when I discovered the Bear community out there. Not knowing how to get involved, I went and started up a club, Harbour City Bears, in 1995 with a couple of guys here in Sydney — although I was living in Canberra, the national capital, about 350km away.
Ron: Woody, how do you relate to Bearness and being a Bear?
Woody (Japan): I’m a Bear in my own way, I guess. I feel that most Bears relate better to hairy men, larger men. I’m not small but not hairy and I think that most Bears shy away from that. I’ve known about the Bear thing for many years now and have always had an attraction to them even years before that.
Ron: I want to take an extra moment here to ask about your experience as an American in Japan. Do you feel accepted by Japanese Bears?
Woody (Jap.): I have been in almost every situation in Japan. Where I’m not accepted, it’s because of a language barrier. Japanese men are very shy and want to please people. If they cannot communicate with someone, then they cannot please them. So, since we cannot talk, they are quiet and standoffish to me. With the ones who do speak English, and with my limited Japanese, we do very nicely.
Ron: As bars in Japan are very specialized, there are specific Bear-bars, correct?
Woody (Jap.): Yes. There’s Snuggle Bear, Bear Tracks, and other Bear-bars without the name influence.
Ron: Thank you, Woody. Last but not least, Xavi.
Xavi (Spain): When I came out, I joined the gay association of Barcelona. In 1996, in the library of Casal Lambda, where I worked, I found a copy of Bear magazine, and was shocked. I’d always liked that kind of guy and I easily fit that description myself. I joined the Internet in 1997 at college, just before the big Spanish gay explosion of 1998–99. The second word I searched for was “Bears” and from then on, I have been a lot on the Net. We founded a Bearclub in the city in January by placing an ad, and twenty people responded.
Ron: It’s fascinating to note how significant the Internet has been in the formation of many of our panelists’ initial Bear identifications, as well as the formation of their local communities.
End of Part 1
Go to: Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Contributor biographies
Excerpted from the complete interview, with additional material previously unpublished, in Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions, by Ron Jackson Suresha. Copyright © 2002 Ron Jackson Suresha. All rights reserved.
