GROWLR: The Gay Bear Social Network

Contents:

• THE LORFUL CULTURE OF THE ISRAELI GAY BEAR MUNY
• ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL
• GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT
• LAKERS AMONG TEAMS LKED TO RUDY GAY
• CHARL BARKLEY FENDS LGBTQIA+ MUNY, BUD LIGHT EXPLETIVE-FILLED RANT: ‘IF YOU’RE GAY, GOD BLS YOU’
• BEARWWW, LA WEB Y APP PARA LA UNIDAD GAY
• A LERATURE REVIEW OF HEALTH RISKS THE BEAR COMMUNY, A GAY SUBCULTURE

THE LORFUL CULTURE OF THE ISRAELI GAY BEAR MUNY

One of the many long-standg gay subcultur, a bear an LGBTQIA+ ntext is a large, hairy queer man who self-intifi wh the 'bear' label.

Tired of gay men beg portrayed as effemate and th, burly, hairy gays tablish the 'gay bear' muny and have all sorts of bondg activi, cludg their own 'Mr.

ACTIVISTS NMN VLENCE AGAST LGBTQ MUNY ST. VCENT, WHERE GAY SEX IS ILLEGAL

Gay Bear' petn and y, some tensely-sexual parti"I don't have the size of a bear, but I nsir myself part of the bear muny, " says 59-year-old reflexologist Od Doar who stars the new season of Israeli TV show "Come Eat Wh Me" word bear is LGBT slang for a bulky and hairy man. 3 View gallery Burly and proud, Od Doar (Photo: Avi Kochavi)Many believe was a unterweight to the gay stereotype of an effemate, slenr man, as well as a mechanism of self-acceptance and posive body image.

"3 View gallery It's not jt th, toned guys that get to have all the fun (Photo: Chillz)What's like havg gay fay the periphery? Vcent and the Grenad, where gay sex is still homelsns to ongog physil and verbal abe, the gay muny the small natn of some 100, 000 people says is unr nstant threat. Vcent, anal sex is punishable by up to 10 years prison, while “gross cency” wh another person of the same sex is punishable by up to five years, acrdg to lonial-era laws that are mon the socially nservative Caribbean rarely voked, the rights group and a lol activist said the laws help legimize hostily and abe agast gay people.

GAY WATER, A NEW NNED CKTAIL, WANTS TO BE THE ANTI-BUD LIGHT

Human Rights Watch terviewed more than 20 members of the island’s LGBTQ muny who shared their stori but were not intified to protect them, notg that lol police are often openly discrimatory toward gay people who seek help. Several reported that their fai are homophobic and physilly and verbally abed them, g them to bee homels and promptg some to nsir also stggle to fd jobs amid a high unemployment rate and said they face discrimatn, cludg a 19-year-old gay man who said he has rorted to beggg: “Sometim I am so hungry.

”González wh Human Rights Watch noted that 2019, the ernment held a workshop for public employe on the importance of rpectg gay rights, a rare move for a nservative Caribbean natn. In other words, where Bud Light has buckled unr prsure as bigotry grows agast the LGBTQ+ muny, Gay Water’s creator Spencer Hodson wants his new boozy brand to be the anthis of that. “The key issue that Bud Light tapped to was the fact that they didn’t unrstand their re dience and know enough about them, ” Hodson, a gay man, told CNN about the ntroversy that began when the Anhser-Bch beer brand sent fluencer Dylan Mulvaney a n of beer.

LAKERS AMONG TEAMS LKED TO RUDY GAY

“Puttg a product wh the word gay the tle is reprentatn self, ” which he hop reclaims the word om the negativy ’s sometim associated wh. The two chatted about the limed amount of gay people wh , and wh Hodson burnt out om his tradnal day job tech, started the nned cktail. Hodson built up a strong social media followg on TikTok and Instagram durg Covid-19 and is g some of the money om that (as well as om iends and fay) to help fund Gay Water.

“Gay is an umbrella term and the ia behd the brand is to be as clive as possible, which means we want alli, we want straight people to be part of this muny we’re buildg.

For now, Gay Water is sold largely onle (wh a few retailers) and four sugar-ee flavors — watermelon, lime, peach and grapeu — at lnch. Gay Water might not have the ep pockets pared to s petors, like Whe Claw, but “even at small sle, pani of many siz are havg succs makg spir-based seltzers and premixed cktails, ” Bryan Roth, an analyst for Feel Goods Company and edor of the alhol beverage newsletter, Sightl+, told CNN. “There’s lots of space the spir-based seltzer tegory which Gay Water n play, pecially if the brand n offer a cultural or emotnal nnectn that will feel more excg than the prospect of another peapple-flavored vodka seltzer om natnal or ternatnal rporatns, ” Roth said.

CHARL BARKLEY FENDS LGBTQIA+ MUNY, BUD LIGHT EXPLETIVE-FILLED RANT: ‘IF YOU’RE GAY, GOD BLS YOU’

Of urse, other drks e the word “gay, ” too, cludg Gay Beer and So Gay Rosé, Hodson noted, which are also tryg to reach the queer muny and offer them an alternative the straight-domated space. Veteran forward Rudy Gay is expected to draw tert om several playoff-liber teams, cludg the Goln State Warrrs, Los Angel Lakers, Dallas Mavericks, Chigo Bulls, and New Orleans Pelins, league sourc told HoopsHype.

While his on-urt productn certaly isn't where ed to be at this stage of his reer, Gay still do posss the reque size and strength to pete. Standg at 6’8” and sportg a 7’3” wgspan, Gay has the exact type of proportns the Lakers lacked their seri agast the Denver Nuggets particular.

Dpe the limatns and drop-offs that e wh age, there is potentially a role for Gay somewhere the league as he has proved to still be a steady ntributor when given the chance. While remas to be see if that role is found Los Angel for Gay, probably behoov the Lakers to look elsewhere to fill what is an obv need or at least swg for upsi wh a younger player. Bear subculture exists wh a larger gay muny, which has been regnized by public health experts as disproportnately burned wh stigma and related health adversi.

BEARWWW, LA WEB Y APP PARA LA UNIDAD GAY

Our rults suggt that although Bear-intified men are characterized by their siari to other gay men, subcultural inti create unique social ntexts that are important for health and health terventns this populatn. Multiple studi associated exposure to stigma wh health dispari var populatns, cludg the gay and bisexual, and other men who have sex wh men (MSM), disproportnately affected by both physil and mental health problems pared to the general populatn [2, 3]. Only recently have the rearchers started to explore the associatns between gay men’s health and their subcultural affiliatns [7].

The growg body of rearch has not only monstrated that var subcultural inti functn wh this populatn, but has also dited that some of them may have particular relevance to health [8, 9] such subcultural groupg among gay, bisexual and other sexual mory men is the Bear muny. The Bear SubcultureMen who intify as Bears are often characterized as beg posned outsi of the mastream gay muny, and as opposg to the stereotyp of gay men as effemate [10].

A LERATURE REVIEW OF HEALTH RISKS THE BEAR COMMUNY, A GAY SUBCULTURE

As a group, Bears celebrate and eroticize larger bodi, and exhib ristance to anti-oby culture, perpetuated by mastream gay valu [11]. Although the dividual meang of Bear inty may, and most certaly do, differ among members of this subculture, is very mon for Bears to affirm tradnal notns of masculy, which signify valu of matury and self-acceptance, and which they reterpret and refe to allow for emotnal and sexual timacy wh other men [12] is worth notg that the Bear muny is far om homogeno, and further classifitn of Bears based on such characteristics as age, physil characteristics or sexual terts has been veloped wh this subculture [7].

The qualative analys of Bear experience mostly explored the topic of stigma exposure and management, wh a particular foc on weightism (bias or discrimatn agast people who are overweight), and the strategi adopted by members of this muny to challenge body ials embedd wh broar society and mastream gay culture (e. We cid to clu only gay-intified and cisgenr men the analysis, as tersectns between var sexual inti (bisexual or gay) and subcultural inti were beyond the spe of this study. The number of participants who labeled their inty as other than gay was also too low to n addnal the 60 cisgenr and gay-intified men aged 25 to 53 years who participated the study, 31 persons (52%) scribed their subcultural inty as Bear, 6 men (10%) intified themselv as Chasers or Admirers, 12 men intified themselv as Cubs, Wolv or Otters, and an addnal 11 men did not clu Bear-affiliatn their inti.

G., genr inty, age, tn, e and place of rince) and such qutnnair as The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Sle [30], selected factors of The Daily Heterosexist Experienc Qutnnaire [31], a modified versn of The Experienc of Discrimatn (EOD) Inx [32], and the Rilience Measurement Sle [33] participants started wh answerg multiple choice qutns about their genr inty (man, woman, transman, transwoman, woman wh transgenr past, man wh transgenr past, transgenr, transsexual, non-bary, queer, tersex, other) and sexual inty (gay, bisexual, heterosexual, asexual, queer, non-fed, other), which was followed by the qutn of whether they intify wh such tegori distguished wh the Bear muny as Bear, Cub, Otter or Chaser/ ed The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Sle (RSES) to asss the self-teem of the participants. Havg nsulted gay men, we add one more em to pture their weight stigma experienc: “on the Inter, while g social media and workg apps, chats, or datg web s”. DiscsnIn this study we quantatively explored the predictors of self-teem a group of Polish gay-intified men who intify wh Bear subculture.

Our analysis was ground both mory strs [4] and tersectnaly ameworks [29], and highlighted the extent to which Bear-intified gay men are characterized by shared and unique predictors of self-teem, as pared to other members of the Bear muny.