On Being a Bear

I'm a bear, and proud of it. If you don't know what a bear is, essentially they are gay men that have and/or appreciate facial and body hair. Rather than go into details on what a bear is and what they're not, I've linked a few sites that I think adequately explain bears in the sidebar.

I used to have a lots of details here about my years and credentials for the bear community, but I culled it. A quick resume of my involvement with the bear community includes:

• Co-founder, past treasurer and President of of Harbour City Bears, Sydney (1995-2001)
• Organised and named BEAR ESSENTIALS, Sydney's "bear run", which now attracts over 800 people each year.
• Author of an Article for The Bear Book II (edited by Les Wright) on Bears in Australia since 1995
• Co-organised Australia's first "UnderBear Party", which was a massive hit, and is now Australia's biggest single event (720 bears in 2006!)
• Contributed to the chapter on International Bears in Ron Suresha's Bears on Bears, and contributed in a minor way advising Ray Kampf on Australian bears for his book The Bear Handbook.
• Maintains BearDoc: Photos, a gallery featuring bears from around Australian bear events.
• Life Member of Harbour City Bears, Sydney, awarded in September 1998.
• New South Wales representative panel judge for the Mr Australasian Bear Competition in Melbourne (hosted by VicBears) in 1998, 2004 and 2006.
• Had photos of mine (not of me personally) published in A Bear's Life magazine.
• Guest on the now defunct Internet Radio Station GayBC's Bear in Mind program (I still have the audio somewhere!)
• Spearheading a community political campaign to increase the visibility of the bear community within Mardi Gras in 1999.
  

I really enjoy the bear community, and I love what it represents. It's been a fantastic home for me over the years, and has allowed me to meet so many fantastic people all over the world. Many of them are now part of my social circle even over ten years on. That I think is the real value of the bear community - developing a connection with people from all over

What's happening in the Bear Community

The Big Move Online

I think there's been a couple of increasing social trends in the bear community of late. One has been the changing focus of bear clubs as the primary place for meeting people to bear websites online as the main forum for bears. It's not that clubs are dying, but Bear411 and BearWWW are the main hubs of bears interacting these days. To a lesser extent, sites like BigMuscleBears and hubs like LiveJournal and now MySpace are where the bear community "hangs out" now.

The Big Fitness Kick

Although I probably notice this as I've been doing it myself, there are a large number of bears around the world that seem to have been focussing increasingly on losing weight, and improving their fitness. While I'm sure some of this has been spurred on by the "musclebear" phenomenon and people wanting to look like that, there has also been an increased interest in health and avoiding some of the complications of obesity, including diabetes, obstructive sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, etc. Many many bears at the moment seem to be focusing on getting fit and are doing a good job of it too.

The question is, is this a permanent thing, or is it just a fad? I'm hoping it's the former.

LATE NEWS
(updated regularly)

My Journal has all the latest news about my life, and is updated regularly.

What's new on the site?
Photos from Southern HiBearnation 2007 will be up soon

Current Term: Chronic Pain. This is an interesting term and a future career interest - it's good to be back at a big hospital again too - I'm loving it!

CURRENT WEIGHT

88.5kg (previously 121kg)
20% body fat (was 36%)

more information on the Health and Fitness page.

LINKS OF INTEREST
(External Links will open
in a new window)

Resources for Bears

Resources for Bears: The Natural Bear Classification System

Harbour City Bears, Sydney

VicBears, Melbourne

Brisbears, Brisbane

BearsCanberra, ACT

BearsPerth, Western Australia (formerly WOMBATS)