Timothy Treadwell: I've always wished I was gay, would have been a lot easier. You know, 's jt Bg! Bg! Bg! - gay guys, no problem. They go to rtrooms and tck stops and perform sex, 's like so easy for them and stuff.

Contents:

• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS
• GAY BEARS

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

Published fal eded form as:PMCID: PMC5442596NIHMSID: NIHMS860386AbstractThe Bear muny exists as a subculture reactn to the larger gay muny. It rejects the normative ialized male bety revered by mastream gay men. While qualative data document such self-intifiers as mascule-actg gay men who weigh more and have more body hair, there has to date been no quantative analysis of this group’s characteristics.

In rponse, we nducted two large-sle studi of gay men intifyg as Bears (n = 469) to survey their self-reported physil, behavral, and psychologil tras.

Our studi dited that Bears were more likely to be hairier, heavier, and shorter than mastream gay men. Bears were more likely than mastream gay men to enact diverse sexual behavrs (e. Keywords: Bears, Gay Culture, Gay and Bisexual Men, Self-teem, Masculy, ObyINTRODUCTIONThe gay muny is ultimately a heterogeneo one wh many subgroups and subcultur—one of the monali among them beg the sire to have same-sex enunters.

GAY BEARS

One such subculture is prised of gay and bisexual men who intify as Bears. They nsir “real” masculy to clu havg fort wh other men’s bodi and chew the more normative gay male body-mol (i.

Bee there is a arth of general rearch regardg this muny, and no studi to date that e quantative methods, we cid to explore this muny quantatively—g an Inter-nvenience sample, followed by a purposive suggted, the Bear culture exhibs and valu a greater sense of domant (but not necsarily domeerg) “thentic masculy” parison to other subcultur wh the gay muny (e.