Bears have spawned serious debate about their impact on gender issues, cultural issue, queer politics, and a lot of other areas.

There is also debate within our own community about the meaning of Bear, who should be included, the marketing of the community etc.

This is the place to post your writings and links to the writings of others on these subjects.

• What does it mean to be Bear?

• Is it all about sex or is it a broader identity?

• Is it celebrating traditional masculinity, or redefining it?

Maybe we can all learn a little more about ourselves and our community.

BearHistory (Culture & Cultural History)

Preserving the past, present and future of the Bear Culture. . .

We're Everywhere Now

by Les Wright © 2006

In a mere twenty years, bears have evolved from small clusters of buddies, playmates, and guys recognizing a tacit bond of kindred spirit to the largest, and fastest-spreading, new expression of gay (queer, bi, lesbian, trans, and even straight) identity. Bears today come in all shapes and sizes, across the socioeconomic spectrum, and across the range of sexual self-expression.

We’ve Come a Long Way, Cubsters

by Les Wright © 2006

Back in the 1980s when the idea of gay “bears” emerged, it was a rather vague, undifferentiated, and not quite defined notion. “Bear” was more a loose umbrella under which many different kinds of gay men began to forge a new way of connecting. “Gay,” which had become a radical identity in the late 1960s was out, and “queer” was the new radical “in.”

The Wired Network: Bears in the 1990s

by Les Wright © 2007

As a collective gay identity, bears emerged in the 1980s in many places, but most evidently in San Francisco. If the 1980s were the halcyon pioneering days for bears, and San Francisco once again the gold rush capital of this ursine Wild West, then the 1990s were the era of settlers, homesteading the new community, pushing the cyber frontiers, consolidating loose social groups into more formal ones, bringing order and stability to the new community. In a repeat of familiar history, the subsequent decade of the 2000s would see the meteoric rise of the bear community catapult to center stage, closing the bear frontier forever.

Want to share words of inspiration? Need to vent? Got something you want to get off your furry little chest? here's the place . . .

A Three Legged Dog

by SF Brawny Bear

My Views on the Current State of Beardom

by Freddy Freeman

Really Big Underwear

by SF Brawny Bear

The 97-Pound Weakling

by SF Brawny Bear

The things we do for Love

by SF Brawny Bear

There’s an elephant in the room

by SF Brawny Bear