WARbear: bear community in crisis

In his penetrating new interview on emerging homomasculinities in Männer magazine, Warbear critiques bear culture.

WARBEAR on the Bear Cult
WABEAR über den Bärenkult

Courtesy of  Männer & Bruno Gmünder Editor

Männer: Do you think the “bear” as fetish and role model gained more popularity with the gay scene recently, and if so why?

Warbear
Warbear

WB: I think the bear community, defined as gay male subculture, had been part of the L.g.b.t. community development in the last 20 years, expanding it in a questioning process of identity proliferation toward the calcification of its own languages. This means that nowadays we can  witness the end of its cycle if we think about  the l.g.b.t. community as an expression of  a normalised, gentrified, pacified, western-world universalised identities where power dynamics are not discussed anymore. …

Warbear then proceeds to rip a large segment of biobears hyperidentified with gay/bi bear culture a new one for their dumb masculinist gynophobia.

There is even a worse dynamic in which bear identity as gay male expression is based on a dialectical process by the refusal of femininity. We can see a proliferation of expressions
of inner misogyny, homophobia and transphobia between the bear community as a need for a counter-identification. To me this just an expression of weakness and homofascism  that has nothing to share with the experience of being a bear, especially because masculinity can be often performed in a much stronger way by biological women and transmen better than by a gay [man] with a flannel shirt.

And concluding with a thoughtful tip of the paw:

Researchers like Ron Suresha or writers like Jeff Mann are doing a strong critical work to open new spaces of thought and narrative. And I am personally working on all of these frontiers especially focusing on masculine representation inside netporn with a strong accent on Transbears and the evolution of the f-to-m culture.

Thank you, Warbear!