The University of Brighton just greenlit a study on gay bear culture in the UK.
The study will be lead by Nick McGlynn, a “proud self-identified bear”, who says he wants to “explore the experiences of big and fat men in Bear bars, pubs, clubs, and events, and to understand how these spaces might help tackle fat stigma for men.”
Related: Students shocked to discover their math teacher is a “hot bear” adult film star
He’s calling the study “Bearspace” and hopes that it will develop a “complete database of every Bear bar, pub, club, event, and social group in the UK” that can then be used as a basis for “one of the world’s largest empirical studies of Bear communities”.
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Sounds ambitious.
Woop woop we're finally up and running! Over the next year the Bearspace project ? will be exploring how guys of different body types experience Bear bars, pubs, clubs & events in the UK. This project is run by @nikku_man
— Bearspace (@bearspacestudy) June 11, 2018
“Bear bars and events are some of the only spaces I feel comfortable as a fat gay man,” McGlynn explains, “and writing by other Bears suggests that many others feel the same.”
“Fat stigma is increasingly felt by men and we all know how heightened this is in gay bars and clubs! So I’m eager to find out if there’s something positive and empowering we can learn from Bear spaces.”
Related: These hunky bearded bakers want to serve you something sweet
The project description on the University of Brighton website adds:
This research attends to an unexplored intersection of geographies of sexualities, and fatness/obesity. In a nation grappling with an ‘obesity epidemic’, fat people in the UK are highly stigmatized as unhealthy and sexually repulsive, with resultant serious mental/physical health impacts. Fat stigma is intensified in gay/bisexual men’s spaces, yet the impacts of fat stigma on men’s health or sexuality have received little attention.
The university has awarded McGlynn £6,726 (about $9,000 U.S.) to conduct his research.
The study will include six case studies held at “UK Bear spaces, each comprising an on-site focus group, individual interviews, and the researcher’s own autoethnographic account as a self-identified Bear.”
Jack Meoff
Since when did being fat qualify you as a bear. I thought the definition was masculine solidly built / muscled men with body hair like the guy in the picture in this article.
GayEGO
I may have been embarassed to have chafe marks on my face etc. after having….ahem….with a hairy guy, but now, I feel quite good about it!
Zambos271
This should be interesting. There was a really good documentary that came out about bear culture. I wonder will he focus on muscle bears or the different races that are part of the community.
Jacob Wall
cool