Some gay men define themselves as bears. What does that mean? Many know the term and have an idea of what it means, but usually they can’t put their finger on it. That’s probably because, as Les Wright, author of The bear Book and The bear Book II, explains, there is a lot of disagreement over the meaning of “bear.” Wright thinks it’s because people with different backgrounds and histories define themselves as “bears” for different reasons. Despite this, Wright defines a bear as “a gay man who is as comfortable being a man as he is being gay, and who has a good heart.” Author of Faeries, bears, and Leathermen, Peter Hennen defines bears as gay men who express their masculinity in a way that seeks to resist the stereotype that homosexuals are effeminate. If it’s hard for scholars to define bears and bear identity, history might provide us with some answers.

The time when gay men began defining themselves as bears is obscure. Les Wright traces possible origins back to 1966 in the minutes of a Los Angeles motorcycle club called the Satyrs. These club’s minutes report that a bear club in San Francisco would be holding its first open meeting in the coming months. That bear club very well may have referred to a club called the Koalas, suggests Les Wright, that created a newsletter called The Bear Facts. He also cites eyewitness accounts of the use of the term “bears” in Dallas and Miami in the 1970s. By 1980, individual gay men in San Francisco, New York, Miami, and Toronto began placing small teddy bears in a shirt or hip pocket when patronizing leather bars to emphasize the preference for cuddling. Many of these men sought to refute the “body fascism” of the colored-hanky code. The colored-hanky code, a code that many men use in leather bars, is a system of signaling to others of one’s sexual interests and preferences by placing different colored handkerchiefs in their back jean pockets. Each side and color relay different meanings.

We do know that as a social phenomenon, the rise of self-identifying bears largely parallels the gay liberation movement that, at least somewhat consciously, modeled itself after the civil rights, women’s, black and anti-war movements of the 1970s. During this time, the idea of bears began circulating in the gay communities across the country. It drew upon the representational aspects of what is a bear, as well as the tactic of “coming out” which required self-identification. Coming out as a bear was most likely followed by public expression of identity and the voluntary association with a group of like-minded individuals (i.e. a community, circle of friends, or a club).

According to Wright, the actual birth of the bear movement is set in 1986. This was a defining moment when “bear talk” began taking concrete form and became prevalent in modes of communication. The creation of computer bulletin boards, small private play parties and the release of BEAR, a local underground magazine in San Francisco, all occurred within a year. It was now clear that bears were going public.

Hennen also attributes the rise of the bear movement to two additional factors: the AIDS pandemic and the ability of the bear movement to draw members from the girth and mirth (chub) community. In terms of the AIDS pandemic, bears started defining themselves in relation to AIDS-related wasting syndrome. The syndrome turned men into thin diseased bodies. The opposite of AIDS-related wasting syndrome was larger, healthier bodies. These bodies indicated signs of vigor, strength and virility. Bears embraced that meaning.

Despite conscious efforts to model the bear movement after the civil rights and its other predecessors, scholars have suggested that bear identity is primarily white and middle class. Hennen informs us that with respect to social class, bears, most of whom are middle class, present themselves as working class. He states that middle-class bears, in seeking to construct a normalized gay masculinity, find working-class images appealing for several reasons. Traditionally, working-class men have often been understood as more authentically masculine than their middle-class counterparts. The hard labor in factories and mines uses up and destroys the workers’ bodies. That destruction serves as proof of the toughness of the work and the worker, which can be a method of demonstrating masculinity. Working-class masculinity is validated through same-sex social networks such as in the working-class bachelor subculture of 1900s New York. Solidarity was symbolized by a ritual of festive saloon camaraderie that expressed mutual regard and reciprocity. In this setting, a man’s ‘manliness’ was signaled partly by his participation in the ritual, but also by evidence of his relative virility compared to men. In this world, ‘manliness’ was confirmed by other men and in relation to other men, not women.

Bear culture advertises itself as racially inclusive (fliers, websites etc.) but remains overwhelmingly white. Hennen reports that of the bears he observed during his study, approximately 96 percent were white. He attributes this to the foundational image of the community, the bear itself, and how this image is perceived across racial lines. He traces the image of the bear back to the 1980s, when the bear movement sought to humanize the impersonality of the leather community by wearing teddy bears in their pockets – they were unwittingly drawing on a cultural history of white American masculinity. As historian Gail Bederman explains, the inspiration of the teddy bear, which came from President Teddy Roosevelt, embodied two contradictory ideas of manhood: civilized manliness and primitive masculinity. She explains that civilized manliness was characterized by the “worthy, moral attributes which the Victorian middle-class admired in a man.” Civilized manliness linked masculinity with whiteness. Primitive masculinity, however, referred to any characteristics that all men had – both good and bad. This primal masculinity was viewed as being threatened by the feminizing effects of civilization. Bears may unintentionally be reproducing the raced appeal of the bear image that equates the return to nature with whiteness. This is exacerbated by the racialized history of identification of people of color with animals. Men of color, not surprisingly, may be much less eager to embrace an identification with a bear or any other animal.

Besides issues of social class, race and a slowly developing history of the bear movement, we really don’t know much about bear identity and community. This makes the field ripe for more research to be conducted.

And this is where you come in. I will be conducting a study on bears in the San Diego and Palm Springs areas this coming summer and fall. I plan to conduct my fieldwork in a variety of locations including, gay bars, gay clubs, and events with gay clientele. I have two phases of my field work, one where anyone can participate and the second that will rely on the participation of self-identifying bears. If you are interested in participating, please e-mail me at flores34@rohan.sdsu.edu.