As their forebears hibernate, a new generation of cubs frolic
This just in from the annals of "Trends That Gay Guys Set and Straight Guys Follow": a recent issue of Vanity Fair christened the burly and unequivocally hetero 25-year-old actor and screenwriter Seth Rogen (Superbad, Knocked Up) this year's It Bear.
Go figure he's from Vancouver, where bears are a natural part of the environment, frequently spotted on suburban streets when they come over the mountains to see what they can see.
In fact, a sighting was reported near the Fraser Valley town of Chilliwack a few weeks ago —a big one. Sixty bears converged on the TransCanada Waterslide Park, most of them cubs. No, they hadn't taken a wrong turn on their way to the salmon spawning grounds. They were there to play.
Bears like to have fun. I'm not talking about BC's two indigenous woodland varieties: American Black Bears and Grizzlies.
I'm talking about a vibrant and still-going-strong subculture of gay men that rose like a furry phoenix from the ashes of AIDS in the late 1980s, partly in response to a growing cult of body fascism which, by the 1990s, had all but hijacked our newfound yet quickly dimming celebration of individuality, visibility and, most important of all, acceptance.
The bears that made a big splash in Chilliwack are members of the social group VanCubz, a bunch of down-to-earth guys who are hefty and/or hirsute, and their admirers.
For the first time in recorded Western history, there are gay generations. This includes a new litter of bears that are hell-bent on getting back to what the bear movement was all about in the beginning. Which is, quite simply, having a good time being who you are meant to be without feeling constrained by narrow definitions of beauty and behaviour prescribed by an increasingly homogenized homo culture.
When did we forget that it's called "coming out," not "fitting in"?
Gay men have always been preoccupied with idealized youth and beauty because, after all, what's not to like. But as most bears will tell you, things today are out of hand.
LifeLube Note - like your men furry, butch, unplucked? Visit the blog every hump day for Woof Wednesday.
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