I’m such a lucky girl. I can’t even describe to you the awesomeness that is my daily life during Bear Week in provincetown. For one week a year, and select weekends in october and march(?), the streets are over run with the most hilarious, joyful, loving visitors, pretty much single handedly trumping all of the other theme weeks that exist. (If you are confused, the New York Times describes them as, “a subculture of gay men known as bears, who embrace natural body hair.” And I’d limit the googling to that if pictures of guys having sex with one another makes you in a any way uncomfortable, though as always, i would encourage you to be open minded.)
And I do, I just love bears. I love their massive stature. I love how furry they are. I love their leather-daddy outfits. But MOST OF ALL, I love the fact that no matter how fat, or hairy, or awkward, or previously cast-aside, or under-appreciated by dominant culture, there is a perfect place for them to love and have sex and feel good. So many of these things are so taboo these days — even for men — though often less so, that it almost makes me a little weepy when I see bears smooching on the street. As a person who has spent the majority of her life feeling to fat or awkward or looked-down-upon or cast aside, or just not quite as good as her friends, the notion of having a subculture to thrive in seems like heaven on earth to me.
It used to be like that for lesbians. When I wrote a study about queer female identity and its relationship with body image in the Netherlands, this was something that I came up against time and time again. Lesbianism, which once was a haven for women who didn’t fit dominant-culture appearance ideals, accepted women of all shapes and sizes and types into its loving arms and everyone could find a place to thrive and be nourished and loved and have sex there, however, slowly but surely, ideals of thinness and cosmetic beauty trickled down into the subculture and (as it does with most) mutated and rearranged itself to fit perfectly the desires of the community. BUT, just because there is an ideal “butch” lesbian look within the lesbian community, one which does not reflect the dominant cultural ideals of feminine beauty, the concept is the same. Cultural ideals of attractiveness tells us what is sexy and what is not. And God forbid you do not make the cut.
That is why this week, Medicinal Marzipan is marveling with wonder at the absolute amazingness of the bear community, which is decidedly and beautifully body-positive. And, while I may be predisposed to have this opinion since I have since day one loved chubby, hairy men, I happen to think that being a part of this type of community really bolsters their self-image and esteem, because when they walk down the street, they are totally sexy.
Imagine if we were all made to feel perfectly comfortable in our own skins by the communities we socialize with? How much different would our lives be?
