The reading about manscaping got me thinking about the role that bodies play in the gay community, specifically fat and hairy bodies. They completely determine where you are and who you associate with. This especially apparent in gay dating apps, which, for better or for worse, have become a very important part of gay culture.

To generalize things, there are two major groups of gays: twinks, which are skinny and hairless men, and bears, heavy set and hairy men. These two groups of gay men represent polar opposites of each other. Twinks tend to be very feminine, and are, for the most part, the face of popular gay culture. Bears tend to be very masculine, and while stereotypes do exist for them, bear culture tends to be pushed to the side and ignored.

It should be noted that no matter the body category in the gay community, the ‘ideal’ body is always white. In other words, black male bodies are not valued in the same way white male bodies are. But, that discussion deserves a post of its own.

Anyway, I found it interesting that something as simple as body hair can be so divisive. Bears, as a group, have often felt slighted and ignored by  the popular gay community. I believe that fat bodies and hairy bodies are considered to be unattractive, and so the bear community has been cast aside. However, this doesn’t make them the helpless victim. They willingly exclude people who are not hairy and fat, possibly because they don’t find those bodies attractive, or because they have some hatred toward skinny/hairless people. Both sides of this community exclude the other and so the cycle goes on.