So, as many of you probably know, within the gay male community exists the bear community. What typically defines a bear in this context is a hairy gay man who is larger, either because he is pudgy, muscular, or some combination of the two. With this label, men in this community often promote gay masculinity and body positivity by flaunting their “atypical” bodies, displaying messages of encouragement towards others with similar figures, and either aggressively pursuing desired sexual partners or refusing to mince words when rejecting undesired partners. As somewhat of a co-culture, the bear community appears to counter atypical ideologies and assumptions about gay men — that they are all skinny and feminine, that they are only attracted to men who are “conventionally” attractive, and that all gay men are equally fat-shaming of other people and themselves — and in some cases flip the script by preferring the company of other men who look like them instead of men with leaner or tighter figures. Therefore, the prominence of this bear acceptance has translated into the wider gay male culture with more non-bears finding members of the bear community attractive. However, even though a lot of these non-bears who find bears attractive, or “bear chasers,” seem to have body-positive attitudes, there appears to be an underlying fatphobia beneath the surface as expressed in Tumblr comments on bear-themed pages.
Even though this phenomenon probably happens everywhere, chasers calling out bears for exclusively liking bears has become especially apparent on Tumblr. Various bear chasers on Tumblr never hesitate to publicly address how they felt excluded from the bear community, either from being sexually or romantically rejected by bears or being turned down from modeling for bear bondage porn. These kinds of public confrontations with the bear community, that don’t seem to happen with twinks or jocks, appear to be attempts to guilt bears into relaxing their standards while it’s understood and accepted that leaner men are likely to stick to their guns. The fact that these comments are usually public, even though most users comment on bear Tumblr pages anonymously, shows how disgruntled bear chasers aim to put bears on the spot for things that they or other bears have done, which is a form of public shaming. Since this animosity is primarily directed at bears, and reflects the animosity that incels or “involuntary celebants” direct towards women, the primary explanation for these actions appears to be rooted in fatphobia.
Something that brings this implicit fatphobia to light is a sense of entitlement that some bear chasers have for men with bearish bodies, which is shown not only by their pursuit of bearish partners, but by their expressed resentment towards the bear community after facing rejection from one or a few bears. Furthermore, as minorities in the community of sexual desirability, attraction towards bears often seems to be rooted in a fetishisation of bearish qualities, which results in bear objectification and the dehumanization of people in the bear community, as well as contributes to some chaser’s entitlement for bears. The mere resentment towards an entire community based off of what one or a few people in that community do, as well as a fetishisation of their non-normative qualities, are different forms of prejudice. Similar to how the entire black community is judged based off of the skewed ways that they are depicted in media or talked about by non-black people, the entire bear community seems to be getting judged harshly for what a small percentage of bears do: only pursuing other bears and rejecting bear chasers. Thus, holding the whole bear community accountable for what some bears do minimizes all bears to one pattern of behavior, which is then arbitrarily related to their physical appearance. Not to mention, whenever bears on Tumblr are approached by disgruntled chasers, they often criticize the bear community as whole or ask for advice about how to successfully attract a bearish partner. With these interactions, there seems to be an implicit assumption that there must be some kind of “bear agenda” or “bear code to be cracked” that is preventing chasers from successfully dating or hooking up with bearish men, which also reflects prejudices towards non-English speakers who trigger ethnocentric anxieties about “speaking code” when they speak a language that isn’t English.
Moreover, bears also seem to be getting penalized for doing something that most gay men do: exclusively pursuing other men who look just like themselves and rejecting those who don’t. Traditionally, unlike the lesbian community, the gay male community is fairly homogeneous in the sense that muscle men date other muscle men, skinny effeminate guys date other skinny effeminate guys, and so on, which illustrates the unfair pressure that appears to be placed onto bears who do the same while gay men from any other communities seem to get away with it. For example, it is almost a given that you have to be physically fit, in either an athletic or slim way, to attract a gay man who is athletic or slim. So, when non-athletic or non-slim men are rejected by these kinds of men, the rejected people typically don’t make a big deal about it. However, when chasers are rejected by bears, they jump to conclusions about all bears and have no trouble with calling out people in the bear community about the rejection, whether or not the person being addressed is the one who rejected them in the first place.
The only explanation for why bears get the short end of this stick has to be related to fatphobia because unlike thinness or musculature, fatness is still ranked lower in terms of aesthetic preferences even if chasers consider it attractive. Since fatness is at the lower end of the scale, it seems as though bears are expected to have typical standards for attractiveness, meaning that they also prefer thinness or musculature over fatness, which would then result in a low opinion of their own bodies and a preference or acceptance for any other kind of body. Thus, this kind of assumption seems likely to set the expectation that all bears either have or should have low self-esteems, which should involve a gracious and appreciative attitude about any non-fat person who expresses an attraction towards them. This kind of assumption seems to be where the sense of entitlement for bearish bodies comes from because unlike the higher standards that more conventionally attractive men are expected to have, bears are expected to have standards that compliment whomever pursues them since it’s probably assumed that they aren’t pursued by non-bears as often.
On a more empathetic note, exclusion and rejection aren’t fun things to experience. As someone who is not only queer, but gender nonconforming with a sexuality that is entirely wrapped around a fetish, I have experienced quite a bit of rejection and exclusion in my life. Since I am on the slimmer side with a little bit of a belly that recently emerged and have an attraction for men who are taller, heavier, and hairier than me, I technically identify as a bear chaser. However, unlike the kind of chaser that I have discussed here, about 70% of the men I’ve dated and hooked up with are either bears or have bear-like qualities, which illustrates how not every bear is entirely exclusive to bears, and I’ve never dreamt of publicly attacking the entire bear community whenever I was rejected by one. Even though I can get into several different types of men, bears are primarily what I gravitate towards, which has fortunately worked out for me. Since some guys aren’t as fortunate in this regard, I suggest that if their game seems to work with non-bears, then they should see themselves as the common denominators and look into how they interact with bears compared to how they interact with other people. Chances are that nerves and/or over-aggressiveness might be working against them whenever they pursue potential sexual or romantic partners, but the problem could also be the luck of the draw, which means that they have to keep trying.
I hope that by developing more of an understanding of different groups, these prejudices can begin to fade and body positivity can evolve into something greater than a fetish for different bodies. This topic hits close to home for me because the unfair treatment of bears has become rather apparent, and I hate seeing one community getting flack for something that others do and get away with. Also, in the age of the incel movement that consists of angry, misogynist virgins who attack and shame women for turning them down, I felt that the revolt against bears is fairly relevant since it also involves sexual entitlement with deeply rooted prejudices. Since there are polite ways to reject people, those who are rejected have every right to be angry about somebody’s rudeness, but nobody has the right to be angry about being turned down for sex or romance just because they asked for it.
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