Courtesy of Giancarlo DiTrapano for Vice.
Over the past decade or so bear admiration has become somewhat of a faddish gay subculture. Obviously, bears and bear-chasers have always been around, but as a visible phenomenon, the bear hasn’t been very prevalent or (somewhat) accepted until the age of the Internet.
Gay men can be the absolute cruelest, and the first to forget that you are supposed to treat others with kindness. This rule doesn’t apply to all of them, but the next time you see a pretty gay man bitching about his rights or being discriminated against, please think twice before wasting any sympathy on him. Chances are that guy is just as discriminatory toward any gay male who doesn’t look like him or weighs ten pounds more than him. And chances are even more that he has been as asshole to many of them (awww, poow wittle beaws, don’t be mean to the wittle beaws). The blatant and hypocritical discrimination within the community of Chelsea gym-fairy types toward those who are unthin, untanned, and unshaven is saddening. But who really cares about those dicks anyway? Their music is horrible.
To be honest, when I really think about it, I liked it better when the whole bear thing was more underground. I mean, how would you feel if your very own lusty primordial urges were thrust into the hip, mainstream light? So much so that there are bear bars and t-shirts to go with it? It sucks, but oh well. The point, as far as I can tell, is to throw everything up into everyone else’s face until they accept it, right? Transparency leads to justice (though this could be bullshit). As with all fads and trends, there comes with it a website or blog. These are the websites where you will find that which you seek.
Bigger City: This is the main hub. A site for bears and chasers to meet each other, jack off to pictures and videos of each other, read horribly written forum posts, and just feel a sense of community. Go there. It’s fun and people are nice. Though there are always exceptions, bears have way less attitude than your common Chelsea twinks and gym-fairies. Bears don’t really care about trendy shit like clothes and gym memberships (though many do listen to the horrible music), and as a result of caring for only that which really matters, they end up being way more laid back.
Hefty Net: This one here is brand new, but has potential. This site doesn’t directly mention bears in their pitch. They claim to be for men of all sizes. I have a small dilemma with this. I think a true bear is a large man. Just being hairy doesn’t make you a bear. Being hairy and in shape just makes you a gym-fairy who doesn’t want to shave or get waxed. I mean, if you want to break it down etymologically, human bears are named after the animal. Have you ever seen a picture of a skinny bear in the wild? That’s because bears are big. They eat a bunch of salmon and then sleep for eight months and their girth shows that. I don’t know, but when I see a bunch of guys who are not bears trying to say they are, it’s kind of like find your own gig, you know? I would campaign to the LGBT about getting some justice in the nomenclature, but I am far too lazy to even fuck with it.
Silver Daddies: This site boasts a lot of older men. Though it may sound like this could be a place to find someone to pay your rent, it is not. Because with age comes a belly and body hair, most men eventually turn into bears. So where there are older men, there are bears. You will also find some very thin men in here to video chat with or whatever, so if that’s your thing, then cool.
There are millions of other sites that you can link to within each of these three, but you should be able to find what you’re looking for without straying too far from the ones mentioned above. Most links go to shitty blogs, but go ahead and look around, you might find something fun.
