“International Bear Brotherhood”
Part 4
Excerpted from Bears on Bears: Interviews & Discussions by Ron Jackson Suresha, including additional original material unpublished in the book.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 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Contributor biographies
Ron: I’d like to ask the group about your local Bear-lingo, meaning, how have Bear-related idioms, such as “husbear” and “cub,” been adopted into your native languages? Woody, what word do the Japanese use for “Bear”?
Woody: “Bear” — same as in the States.
Ron: Are there other Japanese terms they use to refer to the subculture?
Woody: Not that I know of — but it’s all so new to Japanese culture that Bears are only discussed among other Bears. Other gay people who are not Bears just don’t feel any need to associate with them.
Ed: “Husbear” is common here.
Glen: Same here.
Xavi: In Spanish, we’re lucky: almost forty percent of the adjectives end in –oso (oso means “bear”)!
Ed: Yeah, so you can twist a lot of words.
Xavi: “Machas” is how effeminate men call masculine men. It’s local slang, not real Spanish.
Xavi: Here our word for “husbear” is “espOso,” but the common word, though, is marido.
Mali: We have many idioms like that, but it’s very common to use original English idioms here. “KocaAyi” is “husbear” here.
Ed: Xavi, let’s be honest: you guys don’t like American words mixed up with Spanish, but we do.
Xavi: That’s true, Eduardo: in Spain, we reject foreign idioms.
Ron: Hopefully, the Spaniards aren’t as linguistically snobbish as the French! What are some of the other unique “Bearisms” in Turkish and Spanish that you use commonly?
Xavi: Oso, osazo (big Bear), osote (friendly Bear), osa (effeminate Bear).
Ed: “Woof” is universal — although Xavi goes “Arf! Arf!”
Ron: Personally, I like “grrrr.” Turkbears go “vuf”! Do you distinguish among grizzly Bears, koalas, cubs, otters, wolves, and such?
Ed: Down here some people do, I do, but don’t enforce it. I’m a big bad Bear cub with an attitude, but when you say “cub,” people think of submissive bottom, which is not entirely true.
Ron: Yes, people use “cub” often to mean submissive or bottom.
Mali: Words such as Bear, Chub/chubby, otter, and daddy are very common words here too. People prefer to use English words instead of Turkish ayi, tombul, baba, and so on.
Xavi: We tend to translate the terms into Spanish: oso, osezno (cub), nutria (otter); or in Catalan (we’re bilingual), ûs, osset, lledriga. Daddy Bear is papi-oso, o pare-ûs.
Ed: We use oso (Bear), cachorro (cub), y nutria (otter).
Xavi: ¡Menos mal! [Just as well!] Something you say in real Spanish.
Ron: How about “bearfriend” for “Bear + boyfriend”?
Xavi: Just friend: amigo.
Mali: We use many words, but none matches “bearfriend.” We prefer to add “-ayi” for everything, as original words cannot completely be translated. Bear = ayi, Bears = ayilar, daddy Bear = baba ayi, otter = zayif ayi, cub = yavru ayi.
Ed: We use pareja (partner); we don’t use novio (boyfriend).
Ron: But you don’t combine “bear” + every possible word to make so many cutesy combos, do you? Such as: anybear (anybody), somebear (somebody), hibearnation, celeb-bear-ty, cybearspace, bearotica.
Xavi: Not here, Ron. You see, Anglo culture takes things more seriously than Latin ones.
Ron: I’m not sure if it’s about seriousness, though. It can actually represent a certain playfulness with language, don’t you think?
Xavi: Sure, Ron. Our parties are called “Cave Tours” — Ruta de cuevas or Ruta de caus.
Mali: We do. For example, we named our August event “AYIstos,” which sounds very similar to agustos, Turkish for August.
Ed: We use “PrimaBEARotica” which stands for our spring Bear party, and “Ursine Fall” for our event in October.
Mali: It is very common to greet your IRC/ICQ friends as “naBEAR” here. “NaBEAR” and original Turkish greeting “n’aber” (“how ya doin’?”) sounds the same.
Ron: When I visited Istanbul a few years ago, I went to a couple of gay bars and nobody said even one word to me.
Mali: Sounds like you were in the wrong places, buddy. Sorry that I could not guide you there.
Ed: Well, you didn’t use the “na’bear” greeting! At least now you can go back and say it, and then switch right back to English!
Ron: Oh, was that the problem? Now to our final question: Do you believe in a universal Bear brotherhood? If so, what is its creed, or motto, or primary belief? Ed, what do you think?
Ed (Mex.): Sure, it can exist! “Be natural.”
Ron: Yes, it can exist — but does it?
Ed (Mex.): More or less. I know that if I want to go somewhere and I write a post in the BML, somebody would answer me. I’ve always seen that, and that’s what we do when somebody comes here. I hope it goes for a long time.
Ron: That’s a good point. So guys can always connect with other Bears, wherever they go, and find comradeship. And sometimes sex!
Marcelo (Arg.): I really believe there are many things in common, like the brotherhood thing — friendship, fellowship, and sex! Those three words are its motto.
Glen (S.A.): I believe that a universal Bear brotherhood could very well exist. As for a creed, I haven’t really thought about it, but it kind of makes sense to have something universal for Bears.
Seumas (Aus.): Bears worldwide are dramatically different depending on where you are — there are even differences between the Bear communities in each of the different cities here in Australia. Even within communities, there are all types of Bears and Bear admirers.
I think the most unifying thing is that in having Bear as an identity, you know that you can now travel the world and wherever you happen to be, there will be a bunch of guys that share a common bond with you (the identity as a “Bear”). That in itself is a remarkably empowering thing for me. Yes, we’re part of an international community, most of whom we’ll never get to meet, but we get a sense of pride just knowing that they’re there.
To me, the notion of “Bear” is incredibly empowering. To others, they see the “Bear icons” and see it as an impossible “standard,” from which the next step is that they’re not big enough, not hairy enough, and so on — at which point it becomes limiting.
Mali (Turk.): I do believe in a universal Bear brotherhood. Bears have always been much friendlier, warm, and caring than other gay people I know. I don’t know if it is in the nature of Bears or is it really a result of the brotherhood but I believe that we all are brothers and I try my best for my brother and expect the same from him.
Justin (U.K.): I think the International Bear Brotherhood is like the “X-Men”: in the outset, little was known of them, but as knowledge and acceptance grew, they became more prominent in society. Now we just need to make sure that we remember our humble beginnings, and not fall into the trap of prejudice.
Woody (Jap.): In all honesty, I think that Japanese Bears would more readily embrace [Western-Hemisphere] Bears than the U.S. Bears would embrace Japanese Bears. Yet it’s hard for me to be “admitted” to the group in the U.S. — let alone to the Japanese.
Ron: Of course, the cultural and linguistic gulf between Japan and the West in general is much wider than between virtually any two points in the West.
I’d like to share a story with you. While in the Bear Store in San Francisco during International Bear Rendezvous (IBR) 2000, I encountered a deaf Japanese man. He was a short, slight man trying on a pair of double-thick rainbow suspenders with the word “BEAR” emblazoned on them. The image was striking – the suspenders were so not in scale to his body. I thought it was so amazing that a deaf Japanese Bear would travel all the way to SF just for four days during IBR.
I sign fluently, and the Japanese man knew some ASL (American Sign Language), so we were able to communicate decently. After I interpreted for him with the salesclerk, I helped him figure out the schedule and location of the weekend’s events and answered his questions about SF. Throughout the weekend, whenever I saw him, I asked how and his other Japanese friends were enjoying himself. It was a great experience for me, to be able to reach across cultural and language boundaries like that.
Gentlebears, thank you all very much for joining in this conversation.
End of the interview
Go to: Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • 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.
