Apparently I’d be an otter-cub. A more accurate description would include a hairless mole rat or maybe even Mr Bigglesworth from the Austin Powers series. Like some men, growing facial hair is a struggle. You definitely won’t find any black and curlies on this chest; I’m the guy who starts growing his Movember moustache in September (it still didn’t grow). If anything, I would have imagined myself as a care bear.
While care bear doesn’t make the official list, there are so many different bear identities: polar bears; panda bears; pocket bears and wolves.
So for the Bear West festival this month, the team from OUTinPerth sent this wide-eyed fool into the depths of the bear’s den. While I felt like a charlatan with my prepubescent fuzz for a beard, there was something oddly intriguing about the bears. They offered up an alternative masculinity for gay men. It didn’t mean you had to start chopping wood in flannel or take up cigars. Instead, they relish all follicles and sizes and welcome people of difference.
And that is the beauty of the bears: there is no dress code per say. You won’t be turned on your heel if you cannot fashion a marvellous mo. Most bear groups have an open door policy where men with hair; their admirers and their friends are welcome. Even women can attend and are aptly referred to as ‘goldilocks’.
The myth of ‘to be a bear, you must have hair’ is exactly that: a myth. For our furry friends, the hair-factor acts more as a marker than a membership card. Facial and body hair became the defining features for the gay sub-culture back in the ’80s. The rise of the bears began out of necessity in the world’s gay Mecca, San Francisco. According to Les Wright, the founder of the Bear History Project, the group was formed of men who didn’t conform to the Adonis image. Wright also found body size initially had nothing to do with bears until the early ’90s when the ‘Girth and Mirth’ community of larger men merged with the bears. For men who weren’t clean-shaven or chiselled, they could find similar souls among the bear community.
Their gruff appearance was adopted from gay bikers like the Rainbow Motorcycle Club; the hyper masculine image helped establish the sub-culture. The genesis of the bear community is pretty vague but certain milestones cemented the sub-culture as more than a passing fad. The first noted Bears-focused publication Bear Magazine was published in 1987, strangely the same year I was born. Their tag-line ‘Masculinity Without the Trappings’ is perhaps the one of the best mandates to describe the philosophy of bear-dom. Then in 1989, the Lone Star Saloon opened and quickly became known as the ‘Bear Bar USA’.
By the mid ’90s, the bear culture had exploded across the US; there was a Bear Expo in San Francisco, Bear Bust in Orlando and Chicago celebrated Bear Pride.
About this time, the phenomenon had spread across the Atlantic Ocean to Australian shores. Gay men across Australia were already disillusioned with the stereotypes and sought their own groups, following the North American example. Oz Bears was initially established nationally around 1992 and shortly followed by state-based groups. Sydney’s Harbour City Bears (HBC) replaced the Oz Bears in NSW after it dissolved around 1996.
HCB president John Bastion felt that bears had to come out of the closet twice: firstly as a gay man and then as a bear.
At first, it is hard to believe this sort of stigma still exists. But the more you look into the bear paraphernalia like literature and films such as Bear city; you start to see a trend. While you may not see a real daddy bear grace the next cover of DNA, their presence has been growing rapidly.
The bears have become incredibly influential within the LGBT community. With 750 members, Bastion believes the HC bears are the second largest gay organisation in Australia and are generous supporters of community services. Bastion likened the organisation to a ‘furry church’.
Here on the west coast, Loton Park Tennis Club is the home to Bears Perth. The group began in 1993, originally called West Oz Marsupial Bears and their Supporters or WOMBATS. Bears Perth boasts 186 members, which is impressive when you compare overall populations with Sydney.
After weeks of research and brushing up on the lingo like ‘woof’ (which means hello or something you say when you like someone), I slapped on my manliest get-up, freshened up the facial hair and ventured towards the den night. On arrival I was surprised to find a bunch of blokes of all ages just hanging out on the verandah and grass. There were bearded adult men nibbling on cucumber sandwiches and chatting about their ‘husbears’ and all sorts. One younger bloke or a ‘cub’ spoke of his appreciation for the bears. He was truly grateful for a place where people accepted him for him.
For me, there was a lesson to can take away from the Bears. While we, as a community, are loosely connected by the same battles of discrimination and still endure residual stigmas, we can also be the first to judge on difference. Whether it is religion, ethnicity, sex, gender or appearance, there are still areas of our community which are undervalued. If our attitudes were more aligned with the open nature of the bears, imagine what sort of community we could be. As for me, the beard stays. While I won’t become a fully-fledged member of the bears just yet, I will definitely be heading down to one of the bears’ events on this month.
A GUIDE TO THE BEAR
Bear: A hairy man with a stocky or heavy-set build
and facial hair. Can be clean shaven and of any age.
Cub: A younger version of a Bear; typically but not
always with a smaller frame.
Red bear: a red-haired bear. Also known as a
Ginger Bear.
Pocket bear: A short Bear. Also known as an Ewok.
Woof: A greeting sometimes used when a Bear sees
another Bear in public and wants to express physical
attraction.
Goldilocks: A female, often heterosexual, who is
often in the company of bears (a bear’s fag hag).
Muscle bear: a muscular version of a Bear. A
muscle cub is a younger or smaller, yet muscular,
version.
Panda bear: a bear of Asian descent.
Otter: a man who is hairy, but is not large or
stocky—typically thinner, swimmer’s build, or with
lean muscle or no muscle.
Black Bear: a Bear of African-American descent or
of darker toned skin.
Polar bear: a silver- or white-haired Bear
Benn Dorrington
