The Bear Book : Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture [Paperback]

Les K. Wright (Author), Les Wright (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1560238909 | ISBN-13: 978-1560238904 | Publication Date: June 14, 1997

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-attitude
  
  Gays, 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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From Michelangelo's David to Calvin Klein's hunks in briefs, the cult of the beautiful male body has been at the heart of much of gay culture. But there is more to gay life than buffed pecs and rippled abs. Les Wright's The Bear Book is a surprising collection of sociological and literary essays about gay bears: hefty, bearded men who look for the same attributes in their partners. The gay bear phenomenon started more than a decade ago--in response to AIDS, some commentators note here--and has become a defining identity for many gay men. The Bear Book examines the range of bear culture--bear magazines, bear clubs, bear Web sites--and in doing so explores how gay male culture evolves in response to the needs of its members and to the broader culture.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (June 14, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560238909
• ISBN-13: 978-1560238904
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,115,819 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Les K Wright was awarded a four-year National Merit Scholarship and a New York State Regents Scholarship to attend the State University of New York at Albany, where he majored in Comparative Literature, with concentrations in German and Russian. He attended the Universities of Würzburg (1 year) and Tübingen (4 years), and completed his MA and PhD at the University of California at Berkeley. Co-founder of the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Northern California, and founder of the Bear History Project, Les K. Wright taught Humanities, English, and Film Studies at Mount Ida College, where he received tenure in 1999. He has also taught German and Russian (Hamilton College), and Human Sexuality (Worcester State).

He is the editor and co-author or two books, The Bear Book and The Beak Book II, and has contributed to several other anthologies, including Hometowns: Gay Men Write about Where They Belong and Bears on Bears, among others. He reviews film for CultureVulture.net. At present he lives with his husband in Humboldt County, California. He is featured in Dan Hunt's documentary video Bear Run. Also see: Les K. Wright Papers, Human Sexuality Collection, Cornell University.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Heavy Reading for a Heavy Counter Culture, June 25, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bear Book : Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture (Paperback)

A book of essays with a nice blend of philosophical wondering, sociological research, and amusing anectdotes. A good description of the anti-stereotypical gay male. I enjoyed most of the book except the essays that went into deep psychological jargon. They seemed out of place in a book dealing with down to earth men.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pretty awful stuff, April 13, 2004

By 

"cub4bear" (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bear Book : Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture (Paperback)

While it's commendable that someone would try to write a book that attempts to examine the history of the bear "movement" and try to figure out what it's all about, this book is simply terrible. The "research" is not even of high school quality; for example, the article that attempts to show that bears sprung up in the United States first by tracking the dates that the Resources for Bears page was first accessed in each country -- totally laughable and unacceptable to any serious social scientist.

The portions on the history of bears are mostly San Francisco scene name-dropping, and there's no serious attempt to examine the origin of the bear "movement" by taking a look at its roots in the leather community or in Girth and Mirth. Instead, we're told that bears came about because HIV-positive San Francisco men looked at extra weight as a sign of health in the mid-to-late eighties. No proof, just assertions.

Do yourself a favour and skip this book. You can spend your money better elsewhere.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Today's lecture..., March 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Bear Book : Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture (Paperback)

For those interested in gay history and subculture, this is an invaluable book. This book provides a thorough reading of the anti-stereotypical gay male, but sometimes borders on over-analyzation..