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A subculture of hefty, hirsute gay men is attracting the attention of academics

by lorenz on Feb 8, 2007 in gender

Richard A. Kaye, associate professor of English at Hunter College in New York, writes about a new and rather unknown research area - Bear studies.

- Oh, by the way, in addition to 19th century American literature, I work on bear studies, a candidate for an academic position once said.

- Bear studies? Do you mean bears in literature — say, William Faulkner's story 'The Bear', the interlocutors asked.

NO! By "bear studies," he meant an area of academic research that explored "the subculture of hirsute, usually heavy-set gay men" — burly guys who identify with a masculine style and who shun the popular image of homosexual guys as smooth, hairless, Calvin-Klein-ish blond young men.

"What fascinates these scholars is that self-identified bears have created a kind of counterculture, with its own language, values and rituals", he writes.

>> read the whole story in the Los Angeles Times

This entry was posted by admin and filed under gender.
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