The Bear Facts

By Tony Adams

The cast and crew of the web series Where The Bears Are. Rick Copp is on the left.
 Photography by Tony Adams 

 I was looking forward to attending “Bear Week” in Provincetown, Massachusetts (July 13 -20), for a number of reasons. First, I wouldn't have to shave the stubble produced during the previous week spent guiding a group of gay men on a white-water rafting expedition in the Grand Canyon. Second, among the happily corpulent bears, I would be considered Doris-Duke-thin, which never happens in NYC where I am in the “Hmmm, could lose five pounds” category. Third, bears know how to celebrate without anxiety and with mucho gusto.

In the course of the week, I thought about the now well-established and well-populated gay sub-culture called “Bears.” For the uninformed, bears are hairy gay men who can carry extra weight without being relegated to the dustbin of the non-sexual. Bears give themselves permission to enjoy food and drink and sex while discarding the largely unattainable and media-generated male aesthetic seen in most gay porn and in traditional Calvin Klein or Abercrombie & Fitch ads. 

Bears want their cake and they eat it, getting the crumbs in both their whiskers and their untrimmed pubic hair.

In Provincetown, Bear Week has become increasingly popular as circuit boys age out of the July 4th week, discarding their razors and allowing their six-packs to morph into coolers.

Doug Langway,, writer/director of the Bear City movie series.
photo by Tony Adams

 In New York City before going to Bear Week, I caught up with Doug Langway, the writer/director of the wildly popular movies Bear City and Bear City II. Langway says that when he finished film school, he knew he wanted to make the “bear community” his priority project. He says, “The community was passionate about having its story told. In the first movie, I was opening up a world for people who had never even heard of it, and I had the opportunity to tell interesting and challenging stories about the characters. In Bear City II, I moved them to a fairy tale place called Provincetown. These two films have been very much the beginning of a wild ride. In Bear City III, I will explore concepts of money, adoption, commitment, and love in the characters’ lives. I’m a Star Wars geek, so a trilogy makes sense to me.”

In Provincetown at the Bear Expo, Langway’s Bear City booth was directly across from the booth of the cast and creators of the popular web series Where The Bears Are. I spoke with Rick Copp, who wrote most of the first season and plays the part of Reggie. He described his motivation for the series. “We were basically a group of actors without work who figured we ought to use our time to write about what we knew best, the bear community. We wanted to do something no one could say not to -- as actors and writers, we are used to being told ‘no’ -- and we weren't after the money. We couldn’t be more amazed and happy with the popularity of the series.”

At the age of 24, Rick had become successful when a script he submitted for a fledgling series called The Golden Girls was accepted. He continued to write for that series for several years. In Provincetown, the Where The Bears Are cast could not take two steps without being accosted by adoring fans. I asked Copp if he was having more sex because of the popularity of the series. He replied, “Well, I don’t want to be one of those guys who comes up to you at a bar and says ‘Know who I am?’ but maybe.” Copp feels that there is much more to do with the characters in the series, and he promises many more episodes.

Adult film star and Bear activist/entrepreneur Scott Cardinal;
photo by Tony Adams 

Also in Provincetown for Bear Week was adult film star and San Francisco activist/entrepreneur Scott Cardinal, who stopped by for a chat. He is the owner of Bearwash.com, selling two products online and in select stores in gayborhoods: a mostly botanical shampoo and a high-emollient beard conditioner. He says the latter makes women stop him in supermarkets just to touch his beard. In 2007-08, he was president of the charity fund-raising 501(c)(3) Bears of San Francisco. He is currently the director of volunteers for the popular “Lazy Bear Weekend,” July 31-Aug 6, which is held annually in Guerneville, California, and has grown into a full week of events. The adult films he acts in for the studio Pantheon feature hairy, beefy, and muscular men with facial hair. Scott tells me about how he became part of the bear community. “I discovered my sexuality when I was 14. We went on a family trip to Scotland, and I saw men with hairy legs and kilts, and I remember wishing I was 7-10 years older so I could cruise them! Remember the old Brawny paper towel man before they gave him a make-over? That was my type. I have seen that there is a wider range of what gay men find attractive than there was 10 years ago. There are a lot more younger bears just getting their feet wet. I have helped mentor some young 20-somethings with the formation of sexual identity and body issues.” In Provincetown, that increased range of acceptable body type and age was well in evidence, and if the hearty laughter that rang through the town for the entirety of Bear Week is any evidence, it is safe to assume that the bears are having no sexual identity problems they can’t resolve over a burger and brew. And fries.