After getting a note from Carl Swanson, who writes about fashon and culture for New York magazine, I sent this response. Carl and I spoke by phone the following day (Wednesday) for about an hour and 20 minutes. It went really well – Carl asked great questions and we had enough time for me to formulate some very thoughtful responses. It went so well that afterward I wished I had recorded the interview. But the email below gives you wonderful LJ bearzes some idea of my thinking about ursine subculture these days.
The article should come out in a couple weeks.
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Dear Carl,
Truthfully, I'd never considered a kind of “bear consciousness,” though my studies in bear masculinity clearly indicate some sort of group community experience and spiritual awareness. I've spent much time documenting the culture and evolving self-defining lingo (cub, wolf, polar, husbear, ursophilia, everybear etc) and fashion, both of which are really distinctive aspects to its veltanshaaung.
I've come to think of “bear culture” or “bear community” as distinct from “bear identity” as expressed by most of the thousands of gay and bi Bears (and even the dozens of lesbruins and transguys) I know personally. It's pretty rare that you get guys like me, whose experience of “bearness” or “beardom” encompasses the larger psychosocial issues that bears represent. Most bears aren't self-conscious that way, but I think that's starting to change, largely because more bear-identified men and bear-lovers are coming out. I meet lots of men who are coming out into their 50s and 60s, grandpas with big hairy guts and large extended families.
Bear consciousness represents, at least in part, a complex maturing of the coming-out process, which as we all know is about finding self-acceptance in a society where we receive a lot of negative messages about ourselves, but especially if we're not privileged, heterosexual, white, and exceptionally attractive.
Like John Waters pointed out in depicting the hilarious and dead-on three Bear men in “A Shame,” Bear couture is basically about middle-class homo male fetishes: flannel and leather, which serve to sexualize the fur and fat. Bear fashion, as it were (it's challenging to write about this subculture without excessive quotemarks around every ursologism), is certainly about commodification of that gay/bi/queer segment that drew beards on their sisters' Ken dolls, but Bear consciousness might be more about seeming unself-consciousness in style or some subconscious urge to act more blue-collar or primitive because you get more sex that way.
That said, hanging out with bears in places like Dugout and Bear Cafe (bearcafe.org) at the LBGT Center in Manhattan is a fun and very comfortable experience, as I urge you to go experience for yourself, for just about anyone, but especially if you're gay or bisexual and maybe not so young and pretty. Here are some New York bear life links to help you grab a local angle. For a certain middle-aged gay/bi male segment, it's a kind of community buffet: eat, network for work or housing, drink beer, cruise, dish, talk politics.
“Like Elks clubs for homosexuals,” as friend and author David Bergman described in my book, Bears on Bears, and his description holds well, as the evolution of the subculture continues among rising political awareness and activism in some of these bear organizations like MetroBears. It's a great place if you're single and looking for sex with Wall Street brokers and B&N stock clerks who get off on looking like lumberjacks and construction foremen.
Loving bearish guys is really not so weird: according to recent studies, most women like men’s bodies to be at least a little hairy and a little chubby, if not somewhat scruffy. Why shouldn't gay and bi guys feel the same?
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On Mon, October 3, 2005 5:47 pm, Swanson, Carl said:
> Hi Ron,
> I'm writing a story for New York magazine about the new bear consciousness, I guess you'd say. Alot of straight folks aren't even aware at this point that lots of gays aren't personally, and aren't sexually interested in, the media image of this plucked feminized model-man. This seems to be more and more accepted and public. But I'm not sure that it's the easiest thing to be in New York City. Wondering if you might be willing to talk to me for a minute about this.
> Best–
> Carl
>
> carl swanson
> senior editor
> new york magazine
> 444 madison avenue
> new york city 10022
