and
Mantamar Beach Club Bar & Sushi in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 2024 The first written use of the term
bear in relation to gay people occurred as early as 1966 in meeting minutes of a
Los Angeles dance hall which described a "bear club". which characterized gay men as seven types of animals, including
bears:Bears are usually hunky, chunky types reminiscent of railroad engineers and former football greats. They have larger chests and bellies than average, and notably muscular legs. Some Italian-American Bears are leaner and smaller; it's attitude that makes a Bear.In the mid-1980s,
gay men in the
San Francisco Bay Area who called themselves "bears" met informally at Bear Hug (sex) parties and via the newly emerging Internet. The term "bear" was popularized by Richard Bulger, who, along with his then-partner
Chris Nelson, founded
Bear Magazine in 1987. At the onset of the bear movement, some bears separated from the
gay community at large, BeefDip in
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; Southern HiBearNation in
Melbourne; Bear Pride and Bear Essentials in
Sydney; Bearstock in
Adelaide;
Orlando Bear Bash;
Southern Decadence in New Orleans; San Francisco Bear Weekend; CBL's Bear Hunt; Bear Pride in
Chicago; Atlanta Bear Pride; Bear Week in
Provincetown, Massachusetts (since 2001); and Texas Bear Round Up in
Dallas. "Sociology of the Urban Gay Bear", written by Les K. Wright, was the first article to appear in print, in
Drummer magazine, edited by
Jack Fritscher. Fritscher was the founding editor of San Francisco's
California Action Guide (1982). With
California Action Guide, Fritscher became the first editor to publish the word "bear" with the gay culture meaning on a magazine cover (November 1982). As well, with producer Mark Hemry in 1984, Fritscher co-founded the pioneering
Palm Drive Video featuring homomasculine entertainment. Palm Drive Video expanded in 1996 to Palm Drive Publishing, San Francisco. For Palm Drive, Fritscher wrote, cast, and directed more than 150 video features. His work includes documentary footage of the first bear contest (Pilsner Inn, February 1987). A bear contest is a feature at many bear events, a sort of masculine beauty pageant awarding titles and sashes (often made of
leather) to winners. This footage is no longer for sale as Fritscher declined to shift to
DVD format and he closed the video company. One example of a bear contest was International Mr. Bear, formerly held each February at the International Bear Rendezvous in San Francisco. It attracted contestants, often with local titles, from all over the world. The first International Mr. Bear was held in 1992, and the last was held in 2011. The contest included Bear,
Daddy, Cub, and Grizzly titles with the contestant who received the highest score winning the bear title, regardless of what type he was. Example: "Mr. Washington, D.C. Bear, 2006". Gay "
leather-bears" have competed in
leather contests, and "muscle-bears" are another subculture noted by their muscular body mass. The Bear History Project, founded by Les L. Wright in 1995, documented the emergence and early evolution of bear identity and bear community. It became the source material for much of
The Bear Book (1999) and
The Bear Book II (2001). Publication of
The Bear Book led to the
Library of Congress adding "bear" as a category. The Bear History Project is archived in the Human Sexuality Collection at Cornell University. It continues to be added to. The bear community has spread all over the world, with bear clubs in many countries. Bear clubs often serve as social and sexual networks for their members, who can contribute to their local gay communities through fund-raising and other functions. Bear events have become very common, to include smaller-sized cities and many rural areas. Most gay-oriented campgrounds now include some type of bear-related event during their operating season. As more gay men have identified themselves as bears, more bars, especially leather or western bars, have become bear-friendly. Some bars cater specifically to bear patrons. == Characteristics ==