Bear Tracks: Bear Culture
In the broadest sense, culture encompasses social behavior, institutions, and cultural norms (what is considered acceptable behavior). Cultural universals are…
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Bear Tracks
Bear Tracks: Tim Barela
In this installment of Bear Tracks Les K Wright tells us about Tim Barela, the beloved cartoon artist and creator…
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Bear Tracks: Coming Out in the Soc.Motss Era: Satori Agape
Launched in 1979, in the earliest days of the internet, Usenet was the first nongovernmental platform-agnostic computer communication network. Several…
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Bear Tracks: Bears and Class
When Eric Rofes submitted his essay “Academics as Bears: Thoughts on Middle-Class Eroticization of Workingmen’s Bodies” to The Bear Book…
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Bear Tracks: Community
In this edition of Bear Tracks Les K Wright analyzes the many different definitions of what a community is and…
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Bear Tracks: Provincetown Bear Week
On summer break in August 1976 my partner Dennis and I went to visit friends of his in Boston. I…
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Bear Tracks: The Rise and Spread of German Bear Culture
In 2004 Querverlag, a gay book publishing company in Berlin, published Der Bärenkult: Das Tier im Mann (The Bear Cult:…
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Bear Tracks: Bears of Color and Identity Politics in the 21st Century
For the better part of my life in the Bear and Leather community I have experienced highs and lows, My…
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Bear Tracks: Leather Bears
“By its very nature,” Mark Thompson wrote in his 1991 landmark anthology, Leatherfolk,“S/M is a topic infused with ambiguity and…
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Bear Tracks: XXL Club London
If you’ve even been to London you have no doubt heard of the legendary XXL. It was the largest bear…
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Bear Tracks: Jacques Zonne and the Organization of the First Dutch Bears
For this installment of “Bear Tracks” Les K Wright invites guest columnist Jacques Zonne to give us his firsthand account…
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Bear Tracks: Taking Inventory
As I write today I am basking in the limelight of being the cover bear du jour. I thank Bear…
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Bear Tracks: Bear Masculinity
From the start gay bears have embraced and manifested a paradoxical masculinity. We have both embraced and celebrated a “natural”…
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Bear Tracks: The Eclectic Origins of Bear Spirituality
This column is intended to serve as an introduction to the emergence of bear spirituality, and not a promotion of…
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Bear Tracks: Hairy Bears
In Western cultures beards and body hair have long been regarded as a mark of masculine virility. In Japanese culture,…
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Bear Tracks: Transbears
Trans pioneer Lou Sullivan was arguably the first transman to publicly identify as gay. He and I worked together long-distance…
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Bear Tracks: Fat Bears & the History of Girth and Mirth
Historically, gay men have stigmatized other gay men for being ugly, being old, having a small cock, or being fat….
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Bear Tracks: Theoretical Bears
Gay liberation and, later, queer nationalism, took as its radical starting point our agency as gay men and lesbians to…
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Bear Tracks: The Rise of Bear Images in the Mass Media
There is an interesting strategy for inclusion in American mass media today, summed up in the catch phrase, “If you…
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The Bear Flag: Craig Byrnes and the International Bear Brotherhood Flag
Les K Wright delves into the history and development of the bear flag. Of himself, Craig has said, “I’m not…
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