The Bear Book

Autorentext
Les Wright

Klappentext
The Bear Book is a composite portrait of gay bears--usually big, hairy men who favor full-face beards and prefer to wear jeans and flannel shirts. This emergent social phenomenon and new sexual iconography is burgeoning across America, Western Europe, and other parts of the gay global village. The first-ever book on the gay bear phenomenon, this book offers readers a collection of first-person observations and historical and critical investigations by participant observers within and outside the bear community. This exciting book is organized in an ideologically revealing manner, including sections on history, identity, social spaces, iconography, and the bear phenomenon abroad. Because of the dialectical position of this work, it inevitably both describes and, to a lesser extent, may prescribe various parameters of this subculture-in-the-making.


Zusammenfassung
The Bear Book brings together an impressive range of bear--usually big, hairy men who favor full-face beards and prefer to wear jeans and flannel shirts--viewpoints to explore this unique social and cultural phenomenon that stretches from America to western Europe to Australia! On the personal level, you learn what beardom means to different people in their daily lives, and on a broader level, its cultural implications for not only the gay community, but also society as a whole. As this book moves across the wide spectrum of bear identities, you learn about the defining forces of identity, the significance of differences among masculinities, and the shapings of the bear movement from different viewpoints.The Bear Book is the first compilation of sociological and cultural analytical investigations of the contemporary gay bear phenomenon. To this end, Editor Les Wright brings together both objective and subjective viewpoints to create a forum where bears can speak for themselves. Through their voices, you'll learn about: bears and sexual identity gay male iconography socializing on the Internet sexual politics (gender, class, looks-ism, and body image) gay mass media, the single most powerful force in the current construction of bears bears, power, and glamor bear-as-image vs. bear-as-attitudeGays, lesbians, lesbigay scholars, bears, and social scientists are sure to find The Bear Book thought-provoking and insightful as it broaches questions such as: Are bears caught up in a utopian-romantic impulse to reinvent themselves? What was radical lesbianism's impact on the bear movement? To what extent are bears only another group of exploited consumers in a fragmented market system? And, is it possible to establish social liberation through enslavement to your sexual passions? For both your pleasure and your education, The Bear Book examines nearly every corner of beardom, including bear history, identity, social spaces, iconography, and its constituency abroad.

Inhalt
Contents
Foreword Introduction: Theoretical Bears Section I: History Chapter 1. A Concise History of Self-Identifying Bears Chapter 2. Bear Roots Chapter 3. The Bear Clan: North American Totemic Mythology, Belief, and Legend Chapter 4. Aroused from Hibernation Chapter 5. Bearphernalia: An Exercise in Social Definition Chapter 6. Academics as Bears: Thoughts on Middle-Class Eroticization of Workingmen's Bodies Section II Chapter 7. Male Images in the Gay Mass Media and Bear-Oriented Magazines: Analysis and Contrast Chapter 8. Beardom Chapter 9. The Natural Bears Classification System: A Classification System for Bears, and Bearlike Men Version 1.10 Chapter 10. John Rand, Photographer: An Interview with Les Wright Section III: Bear Spaces Chapter 11. The Original Bears Mailing List: An Interview with Steve Dyer Chapter 12. Front Range Bears: A History Chapter 13. The Bear Essentials of Country Music Section IV: Bear Spaces: San Francisco Chapter 14. The Bear Hug Group: An Interview with Sam Ganczaruk Chapter 15. BEAR(in ital) Magazine Chapter 16. Bear Mecca: The Lone Star Saloon Revisited Section V: Bears Abroad Chapter 17. Bears in the Land Down Under Chapter 18. Kiwi Bears Chapter 19. Atlantic Crossing: The Development of the Eurobear Chapter 20. A French Bear Asks: Are Bears an American Thing? Index Reference Notes Included

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