So I want to get this off my chest, I have never felt part of the Bear "Community" ever, and today I am making it clear that I don't wish to be part of the Bears because honestly I have never felt welcome by their "inclusive" community. I have been told that I am not big enough, not hairy enough, not butch enough...Hell I even got called a Twink once and not sure if you've looked at me but I ain't a fucking Twink. I haven't been for a very long time now.
I always thought the Bear Community was suppose to be a place for those shunned by the other communities--those being the Muscle and Twink Communities, which seem to be the face of being gay, and if you don't fit in those two, gay men treat you like you are leper from a leper colony. I understand everyone has their attraction, but we need to stop acting like average men are ugly. We need to stop pushing the narrative that we all need to go to the gym to be desirable. The Bear Community was suppose to be a place for those who were shunned by the other communities. I was told it was a mindset and so I didn't see it as a look. Now its become a look, you basically have to be a certain weight, have a certain amount of body hair and have a beard. You also need to be butch which I should just point out that I see a lot of guys who fit the look but ain't butch at all so they can't even follow their own rules. I am just tired of being made to feel like I am a freak of nature or invisible for just being myself and being happy with myself. I ain't gonna change myself just to fix someone else narrow desires and I shouldn't have to.
At this point I am just a bearded non-binary person who has no affiliation to any group whether that be Bear or Goth or whatever. I am very tired of trying to fit in with people that clearly don't want me there so I will go where people enjoy my presence even if that group be small.
What does this mean for things like Bears on the Coast? Well clearly I will either want to change the name of the show. I ain't gonna promote to a community that doesn't want me in it. Now I want to be clear, I have had some good people who were Bears who treated me well, however the vast majority either ignored me or acted like I was a disease when I was there and I don't want to be around that kind of energy. Some of you will say "well that never happened to me", well I am not you and I'm happy you never had to experience the shit that I have but your experiences don't negate mine and I don't want to be somewhere I am not wanted.
Even here in Gainesville, the last time I went to a dinner gathering with them, one of them approached me afterward being all friendly to me and then said "well it was nice seeing you, see you in another 5-10 years". Like what the fuck, now I stopped going to the Bear Dinners because I didn't feel welcome, also I have been deal with my sobriety which takes priority over everything else in my life so yes I stopped going because I was deep in my addiction for a few years. But again that has to deal with the fact that I DIDN'T FEEL WELCOME THERE! And with comments like that it justifies why I feel the way that I do. I need to do what feels best for me and considering how fractured the LGBTQIA+ community is becoming lately with all the infighting I just want to be accepted for being myself regardless of how butch I am or how I look.
No comments:
Post a Comment