IBR peer pressure

[drscott]

OK, I've decided (after minimal application of peer pressure) to go to IBR this year. I've never been, and in the past I've usually been ignored at bear events. Nothing like reverse prejudice. If I hang out long enough and drink, I'll probably fit in.

I started reading the BML around 1988 and read it for years (until it became unmanageable.) I was all for the idea (and I generally like the "bear type," and certainly bear attitudes) but as it has become more conformist it's lost a lot of its charm. It's particularly worrisome when "no pressure to be slender young hairless things" became "get bigger and fit in."

Maybe if I expound more on this topic I'l get some comments! [heh]

Comments

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I've never experienced the “get bigger and fit in” attitude among bears in general. I realize that may be because I'm already bigger and it's not like I don't suspect at times that people say to themselves “sweetie, get smaller and fit in.”

Due to my suburban isolation, I encountered bears as a group only recently so I don't have a long history with them. What I notice is that bear men tend to just be regular guys who enjoy other regular guys. Everything else seems to be a one-off that makes individuals seem less conformist than in many other groups. For example, I know bears who are involved with the imperial court system, leather bears, food & wine bears, and so on, but their “bearness” seems identifiable and more consistent to other bears than any other characteristic.

I'm losing everyone, aren't I?

Ok, the point is that in bear groups, there appears to be enough room for guys who aren't hairy and who are slim or muscular or not large or fat. Am I wrong? I certainly know people who claim to be dismissed at bear gatherings because they don't look a certain way. But in general, is that true?

[bluedevilsf.livejournal.com]

I've encountered many people in my time who looked to the bears in hopes of finding a place of acceptance only to wind up feeling disillusioned or rejected because they aren't husky enough, hairy enough, or whatever enough to get the attention of the guys they find attractive: bears.

I can even relay an experience that sticks out in my mind. I was at Bear Pride in 1999, and a bunch of us decided to do our own thing and put together a group to see Star Wars: Episode I. I don't recall offhand how many came along, but we had enough to fill several vehicles, and there was one guy in my ride who didn't know any of us. He seemed a nice enough sort. He tried to make conversation with the other 4-5 guys in the van, including me. I was the only person who bothered to respond to his attempts at communication, and we had a nice chat on our way to dinner and the movie. And guess what? He was rather slim and, at least as far as I could tell, smooth. Perhaps I'm drawing the wrong conclusion, but I can't help but believe he was largely ignored because he was so different from the rest of us physically. I mean, where were we? At a freakin' bear gathering! :)

Lest I make myself seem like a holier-than-thou saint, I want to say that I have myself indeed rebuffed the attentions of guys who didn't fit my perception of a "bear." I realize now it was to my detriment. I also bought into the notion that I had to look or be a certain way to fit in among the bears. I got over that, and I'm so glad I did. Now I couldn't give a rat's ass.

Everyone has their own ideas of what makes a bear, and therein lies another problem. It's turned into a "lifestyle" and a marketable demographic, and with those factors comes a perceived ideal to live up to.

The all-inclusiveness idea was a nice idea in theory, but like I said, it cannot realistically exist. Overall I think the bears are more generally accepting of most folks -- but only up to a certain point. Once that non-bear trying to talk to you is blocking your cruising view of the hot bear across the bar, all bets are off.

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I know people who have had the exact same experiences of being disregarded. Maybe I'm the odd one (no comments, please, from the peanut gallery). Or perhaps it's a function of maturing, but I find all kinds of men attractive. I like muscular men, hairy men, not-so-muscular men, smooth men, Asian men, European men, etc. I have a friend who watches the men I watch and he tells me I'm the only one he knows whose “type” he can't figure out, although he bitchily guessed it was anyone with at least one Y chromosome and a recent brain wave. He got slapped for that.

These days, the discriminator for me is a developed sense of humor, bear or not.