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Gender & Society, Vol. 19, No. 1, 25-43 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0891243204269408

Bear Bodies, Bear Masculinity

Recuperation, Resistance, or Retreat?

Peter Hennen

The Ohio State University at Newark

Bears comprise a subculture of gay men who valorize the larger, hirsute body. This research interrogates Bear culture as a gendered strategy for repudiating effeminacy that simultaneously challenges and reproduces norms of hegemonic masculinity. In this research, the author situates his ethnographic study of a major metropolitan Bear community in its social and historical context to illuminate this paradox, with special emphasis on the embodiment of Bear masculinity and its effect on sexual practice. The author concludes that through a process of embodied agency, Bear culture yields a number of sexually innovative practices that disperse pleasure across the body and disrupt genitally centered, phallusandreceptacle interpretations of sex. However, the subversive potential of these practices is significantly undermined by an attendant set of practices that reflect heteronormative and hegemonically masculine interpretations of sex.

Key Words: masculinity • homosexuality • gay • embodiment • social change


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