the bear movement

[gfxtwin]

Do you think this movement of gay men embracing masculinity is harmful to the gay community overall? Does it harm the cause of more effeminate gay men who likely have to deal with more prejudice in their lives?

Is this subculture of a subculture sending the wrong messages to the straight majority by saying "gay guys should be like straight guys"?

I don't know if these are the best questions to ask, but basically just use this thread to debate if the bear culture is harmful to the progress of the gay community or if it is just as valid a part of that community as any other sub culture within it.

[Nick9]

no, I don't.

We are not supposed to send any message to the straight people :biggrin:

Do metro guys harm the straight community? Women who dislike to wear women's dress? The more diverse the world will be, the better. Hopefully people start to accept that there is no majority, there are just people with the views that sometimes match and sometimes don't.

[TommyinKY]

Each person has to live their own life in the way they feel most comfortable irregardless of how others feel about it. If they feel feminine then they should be that way, if they feel masculine they should pursue that.

I feel it's more harmful to try to expect others to conform to an artificial set of behaviors.

I have very few feminine traits and the ones I do have are usually masked by either my inherent nerdiness, my silliness, or the fact that I enjoy some masculine pursuits that aren't stereotypical of gay men. I will admit I tend to blend in.

Having said that I wouldn't want someone to tell me I can't be gay because I didn't measure up to that persons expectations of what a gay man should be. And anyone from outside the community who would judge all gay men by the behaviors of a few of us doesn't seem like they would really be much of a friend to us anyway.

Of course I still tend to identify as Bi because I still have some attraction to woman, in that comes a different set of expectations of what I should be like and how much my opinions factor into the LGBT debate.

But I still think I'm awesome just the way I am. :biggrin:

[OrphanPip]

Bear culture is complicated, after all it was originally a movement built out of working class, rural American gay men who felt excluded from the urban gay scene.

To affirm masculinity as an aesthetic is not to discount the contribution or existence of femininity in the gay community. Nor does a hypermasucline aesthetic imply wanting to be like straight men.

I think of the pornographic art of Tom of Findland, who was partly responsible for popularizing certain of the cliche images of bear/leather/SM gay culture. The point there wasn't to represent gay men as like straight men, but as hypermasculine, extra manly, precisely because of their masculinity. This took on other political meaning during the late 80s and early 90s when the AIDS epidemic created an image of the gay community as diseased and sickly.

At the same time certain sections of the bear community have also forwarded the inclusion of different body types, namely the hairy and the fat, who are excluded by other sections of the gay community.

I see nothing wrong with bear subculture, and I doubt it project any sort of image to the straight community that is almost entirely oblivious to its existence. Of course, some do discriminate against effeminate gay men, but then some in other parts of the community discriminate against big hairy men too.

That being said, I see plenty wrong with the increasing commercialism of all elements of gay culture. We could all do with a little more inclusion and true community building these days.

[Pix]

I see no harm in the subculture done to anyone in the gay community. I don't doubt there are bears who are jerks to others who are not bears but every group has their bad apples and any damage such individuals do can't really be blamed on the subculture as a whole. And so far the only people I've heard bears giving a hard time to is other bears that don't live up to certain standards (which I generally think of as ridiculous as it's not their place to speak for the bear community as a whole).

I'm a fan of one bear on YT and he doesn't seem to shy away from his feminine side as well (though one bear posted a very negative comment to him claiming he was a disgrace to the bear community).

And lesbian femmes are ok in my book, too.

[East]

I don't think there is any problem with the Bear Subculture...any more than there is with any subculture. In terms of how straight people view gay people...we are all individuals regardless of any subculture we may belong to and I am gonna go out on a limb here:biggrin:and give the straight community at large credit enough to understand we are all individuals.

Homophobes and bigots of course might not think of us as individuals and are going to see things the way they are going to see things but that has everything to do with who they are and nothing to do with bears or anyone else in the gay community.

As for bears and more effeminate guys...society at large suffers from a severe case of gender/role bias though that is slowly changing.

[Sylph]

Okay.

Well personally, I feel like everyone should be able to express themselves any way they want, as long as it's not hurting anyone.

As a proud Fem[Although I prefer the term Human :biggrin: ], I couldn't care less if people excluded me from their little groups. That's happened to me my whole life, so whatevers .

But, I do have an issue with people, especially of the same community, discriminating against one another.

Not just Masculine gays on Feminine gays, but with ethnicities/cultures too.

Everyone has their opinions and can stick to them till the cows come home, but I don't think the world will go anywhere fast, with people, especially of the same community, discriminating against and ostrasizing people because they don't fit in.

People, especially the "manly man" gays, forget that the one's who have a harder time socially, are the ones who do not or cannot fit in; The "girly guys".

And to have a community, within the very same community, discriminate and make it even harder for those who already have it hard, is something that really makes no sense to me.

All gay guys have sex with guys... so what's the big deal? So a guy may be queeny sometimes, so what? He's still anatomically a guy... "Manly men" act like somehow, if you're feminine, you spontaneously grow a vagina and breasts...

It just doesn't make logical sense.

In the end, they can have their little boys club, and even say; "We only accept xyz" , but the minute they start saying "Fem guys are not real men, so they're not allowed" or something similar, then that's where I draw a line.

It's like saying to a white guy, he can't come to a dancehall session, because of the stereotype that all white people have no rythym...

It's logistically flawed on every systemic level :biggrin: .

[pellaz]

the gay Bear Culture represents more the average Joe.

gay or straight; lots of guys lie to them selves they are more masculine than things really are. An internal homophobic fear that drives them is my recent thinking. It does them little good in the dating department if the prospective partner is looking for an emotional connection.
so
its accepted that a lady can lie to herself that she is more feminine. Thus for gay men this is a better way to go?

[Pix]

Just to be clear I don't see bears as being exclusive or hating (or even shunning) people who aren't bears. I know some can be (what group doesn't have its snobs?), and some can be jerks about it, but I don't automatically assume that all bears are that way.

There was a time I was called a "boi" but I didn't restrict myself to other bois and actually hung around the femmes more often than not (but I did mix with bois as well as we sometimes had a lot of common interests) though I didn't turn a masculine stud away either.

[Dylannihilation]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]That's kinda like saying "effeminate guys are stalling the progress of gay rights because they 'stand out'".

It doesn't matter if someone considers themselves "bear" or a "twink". How can we expect everyone to accept us for who we are if we can't accept each other? There seems to be a lot of prejudice between all of us and that, in my opinion, hinders us the most![/COLOR]