A Personal Journey
Story by: Charlie E
Photography by: Saul Morgan
January 1, 2022
IT WAS THE MID ‘00S. I WAS IN MY EARLY 30S, HAD discovered the ever-growing London gay scene and was sampling its many experiences. My mate managed to get me on the guest list of a night entitled ‘Megawoof’. This turned out to be my first experience of the Bear scene. Before setting foot in the night club, I was totally oblivious to what Bears were. Once inside, there was a mass of hairy, bearded, burly men who had apparently lost their tops somewhere between the door and the dancefloor. The music vibrated through my body. Navigating the vast club through a bustling ebb and flow of lubricated beef, I was finally able to catch my breath in the top bar perched over the main dancefloor. My mate gave me a wry smile as he looked at my perplexed face. This was an entirely different gay scene than the one I had experienced in Newcastle upon Tyne where I first come out. Instead of drag queens and trashy pop, this was raw masculinity and thumping beats.
I didn’t feel that I entirely fit in. I was trim with no beard and a fairly hairless body at that time. My mate said, “You’ll be fine. You’ll be dancing down there before you know it”, as he pointed at the mass that was the main dancefloor. It was a bit of a sensory overload for this Northern lad. After a few more drinks and shouting into each other’s ears, we ventured down to the smaller dancefloor and met up with some more mates.
En-masse we started to dance. Soon the group was topless but I wasn’t quite ready to strip off. The DJ knew how to work the crowd and the dancefloor was packed with beefy men. The music became more thumping and we moved onto the main dancefloor after a quick pit stop at the bar. We found ourselves at one of the platforms and hauled ourselves on. Suddenly this funny muscular ginger Welshman proclaimed, “Right then. This t-shirt is coming off!” With much protest, and a lot of manhandling, I was finally topless and they all cheered in unison. It was a defining moment. I was now fully immersed in the atmosphere of the club and part of the camaraderie of this group of Bears. I didn’t consider myself a bear at that time, but I certainly was attracted to this newfound Bear community.
In the early ‘10s, I moved up to Manchester for work and started to better understand the Bear community and what it meant to be one. In Manchester, the trappings of Bear culture were inescapable. There were regular events such as Beareoke and Big Scrum, as well as the Bear weekends: Great British Bear Bash and Pre-HiBEARnation. There was also a cottage industry of businesses dedicated to Bear merchandise. I became mates with the members of the boy band Cubstars and I also dated a Mr. BearScots.
I began to realize that there was a certain mentality in the Bear community of being open and welcoming with no judgement. I found this refreshing. Bear wasn’t just a look – it was a way of life. I learned that the Bear community consisted of a whole raft of subdivisions. There were cubs, wolves, otters, polar bears, panda bears – a veritable zoo of animals. You could even enter your details into a website to learn what “animal” you were if you were wondering. I would enjoy telling my work colleagues about my research as our offices were situated right in heart of the gay scene just behind Canal Street. They were somewhat bemused to learn that the gay community wasn’t just the gay community but that there were these subgroups. But where did I fit in? Was I even a Bear, and if so, what type of Bear was I?
I returned to London in the mid ‘10s, now rapidly facing middle-age. I was looking forward to sampling the nightlife of London once again. But times have changed and the Bear community sadly is less well-served for dedicated nights; XXL has closed its doors and BRUT is struggling to find a suitable venue. To add to this, there have been alarmist rumours during the Covid-19 crisis that beloved bars such as the King’s Arms and Admiral Duncan might be closing down. The scene seems to be getting squeezed and we are left with reductive apps like Scruff and Grindr. It all leaves one wondering: Do we need, or even want, Bear events in this new digital age? Do we need to define ourselves as Bears anymore? When is a Bear not a Bear?
