SpunqDaddy's Beard

This issue (”Falling in Love” #17) of A Bear’s Life magazine noted the revised edition of Bears on Bears!

Bears on Bears

A revised and expanded edition of the “invaluable book” on Bears

Revealing, challenging, often humorous, Bears on Bears is a groundbreaking book that examines the homomasculine subculture called Bears.
In 30 wide-ranging interviews, 62 men reveal their experiences as gay, bi, and trans Bears and Bear-lovers who find their physical image and personal lifestyle at odds with stereotypically ephebic, effeminate, fashion-obsessed gay male culture. Finding intimate affirmation within the increasingly international Bear brotherhood, they discuss coming-out as and homomasculine Bears and trace the early history of Bear community and subculture.

Contributors include comedian Bruce Vilanch, “Survivor” Richard Hatch, model Jack Radcliffe, and authors David Bergman, Michael Bronski, Jack Fritscher, Wayne Hoffman, Arnie Kantrowitz, Richard Labonté, Dr. Lawrence Mass, Eric Rofes, Mark Thompson, and Les K. Wright.

The revised edition, which is the second title from the Bear Bones Books imprint of Lethe Press, features fresh interviews with filmmakers Kevin Bowe (A Bear’s Story) and Dan Hunt (Bear Run), Sirius OutQ radio personality Larry Flick, Bear Like Me author Jonathan Cohen, and Metropolitan Community Church founder Rev. Troy Perry.

Bears on Bears confronts conventional images of male beauty and contemporary concepts of masculinity in a moving and colorful portrait of a men’s community that makes for fascinating reading on many levels.
328 pages, softbound, $25. ISBN-10: 1590212444, ISBN-13: 978-1590212448

Query: Cult of the Wolf

The wolf / Is shaved / So neat and trim / Red Riding Hood / Is chasing him / Burma-Shave

This 1952 Burma-Shave slogan, one of hundreds of roadside advertising signs posted by a shaving cream company, seems to refer to the very popular fairy tale of a young girl by the name of Little Red Riding Hood, and an adult male wolf.

The “Wolf” the advertising refers to is a two-legged man, not a four-legged mammal, lupus. In trying to sell shaving cream to their primary market, the ad sign writers were making a cultural reference to an ostensibly heterosexual erotic male type known as the wolf.

“Wolf” was not just parlance but likely an adult code for men as a sexual type, regardless of sexual orientation. This might have been a primarily heterosexist term that included heteros, bis, and gay men, possibly even a term of self-identification.

G. Legman’s epic book on humor, Rationale of the Dirty Joke (New York: Grove Press, 1968) refers to a “male wolf” type several times heterosexually (boldface added):

Legman identifies similarly hetero-oriented wolves in the companion volume, No Laughing Matter (New York: Grove Press, 1975, p. 35)  discusses a anti-patriarchical reversal in which playboys are told an offensive necrophiliac sex joke by a woman:

Yet Legman names a distinct wolf type, which he typifies here as deeply repressed homosexuals with flat-tops who wear aviator jackets. Also from Rationale, p. 526:

… The hair problem is, in fact, very old: at least as old as the Nazarite sect of Samson and Jesus. It the Levant it particularly centers around the beard, and the respect due it, naturally involving also insults to the beard. (Motif P672.) The breaking of the spirit of the Russian boyars by Peter the Great by forcing them to cut their beards in insulting fashion is a most significant and historic instance. This is sometimes entirely reversed, especially among unconscious or unavowed homosexuals of the aggressive and athletic ‘wolf’ type, who cut their hair as short as possible (‘hairbrush’ or German aviator style) and reject all outward softness of clothing and body-stance, or femininity of manner: the ‘James Bond’ or body-as-phallus type.

I’m querying modern literary, cultural, or folkloric references to wolves as human male sexual type, especially before Legman early 20th Century. This would include folks now in their 50s and older. Did you encounter a male sexual type “Wolf,” when and where, and in what context? Wolf Blitzer and other correspondents are welcome to confidentially send a message here. Permalink here.

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Query: Muscle Men

Canadian Überbear Richard Labonté is circulating another CLS for a Cleis anthology, forwarded by Lawrence Schimel, and which I encourage all my writerly friends to consider.

Call for submissions:
MUSCLE MEN, edited by Richard Labonte for Cleis Press
Were you the kind of scrawny queer kid who ogled Steve Reeves and never missed a TV wrestling match, or the buff young man who fantasized about entering strongman contests and cherished his first weight bench?  I’m looking for original, erotic stories or web-only reprints of up to 7,500 words for an anthology of fiction and memoir based on muscle and desire. Consider: built Daddies, burly bears, body worship, bodybuilding, wrestling from backyard and collegiate to motel and TV pro, mixed martial arts, weightlifting, arm wrestling, colt model porn fantasies, muscle voyeurism, big guys attracted to the twinklike … “muscle” in all its forms, big and beefy or lean and wiry, as a starting point for *authentic*, well-crafted stories by, for or about men and muscle – writing with a solid narrative arc in which characters connect emotionally as much as physically. Deadline is Oct. 1, 2009; publication date is Spring, 2010; payment is $50-$75, depending on length, plus two copies; submissions in .doc or .rtf format to <cleismuscles@gmail.com>.

New edition of Getting Bi shines with diversity

At Boston Pride this year, I acquired one of the first copies available of the new edition of Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals around the World. I knew that the editor, Robyn Ochs, would have copies and asked her to sign mine. Her sweet inscription: "For Ron, my co-conspirator in changing the world with words."

This groundbreaking book, an anthology of short real-life stories of diverse bi persons around the world, was enlightening, poignant, and valuable the first time around.

Still, editor-activists Robyn Ochs and Sara Rowley have outdone themselves in updating the work, making it even more inclusive and expansive, with more fascinating voices of international bi activists.

Readers with limited contact with bisexual persons will encounter many different kinds of actual bi people who tell their own stories, discovering themselves and struggling for acceptance as bisexuals, and considering the many facets of bisexuality as expressed around the world.

For bisexuals and the people who love them, bi-curious and questioning, bi-trans genderqueers, and GLBTIQ activists of all stripes, solids, and variegated patterns, this new edition of Getting Bi is a must-read.

It's not on Amazon yet, but you can order it directly from the Bisexual Resource Center.

This new edition has a sharp new cover and interior design, and 36 new pieces. 10 new countries (including Iceland, Iraq, Kenya, Pakistan, Portugal, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe) are represented, bringing the total to 42.

All proceeds from this book support the work of the BRC, which is planning a listening party with Robyn, myself, and another bi author for September 24th in Boston.

Is Michael Musto for Real?

What is this nonsense about Michael Musto saying he doesn't believe in bisexuals, based on his frustrated attempts at relationships with married men on Manhunt or Craig's List or wherever he meets these closet cases?

I know the Village Voice columnist, Michael Musto, or at least I thought I knew the dude. But how could it possibly be Michael Musto saying those horrible, ignorant, misleading things about bi men?

OK, I've seen Michael Musto on TV and read his column in the Voice, so I think I should know Michael Musto. But it couldn't really be the same Michael Musto I met at the Lammies two years ago. The kinda cute clean-shaven short Jewish guy to whom I introduced myself that evening? I thought I met the real Michael Musto there, but apparently it was someone else who looked and talked a whole lot like him.

Either that, or I made zero impression on the guy. Because the guy I chatted with was wearing a badge saying "Michael Musto," and he asked about my work, and I told him I was the editor of two books named as finalists for the first ever Lambda Literary Award given for Bisexual Literature. I know I was there, for sure — I still have my name badge from the event.

Because how could the smart, charming person I chatted with that memorable evening write such a thoughtless and hurtful diatribe against married bi men under Michael Musto's imprimateur?

I can only surmise that Michael Musto is not real. He's a fake.

This so-called Michael Musto has somehow replaced the real Michael Musto, and whoever is impersonating Michael Musto is doing an amazing job.

Perhaps the real Michael Musto was kidnapped by the Russian mafia, and replaced by an undercover operative who's a ringer, pretending to be a brilliant journalist.

Otherwise, I just can't believe that the real Michael Musto would know absolutely nothing about the existence of actual bisexual men, being a supporter of the Lambda Literary Foundation, which for the third year in a row now is presenting an award for excellence in the area of bisexual literature.

Or maybe more likely, aliens abducted the real Michael Musto, cloned him, and took the original back to their planet for further "research" (and he went willingly, anticipating one if not many of those thrilling anal probes he's heard so much about), leaving the duplicate in the real Michael Musto's place.

Let's set aside the conspiracy theories and the point that he offers no explanation for the existence of bi women and consider this serious matter for a moment.

Because you would think that the real Michael Musto would have the common sense to do some sort of actual research about the topic before he declared the complete nonexistence of bisexuals and bisexuality, based on his assertion to have never personally met a real bisexual man.

Wasn't that Michael Musto I met, who was at the awards ceremony in May 2007 in NYC? Because if the real Michael Musto had actually been there, he surely would have seen Mike Szymanski (who is a real bisexual man) and Nicole Kristal (a real bi woman) accept the Lammy for their delightful book, The Bisexual's Guide to the Universe.

I guess he could have gone out for a smoke or a drink or something and have missed that part of the awards ceremony, but what about the two years since then? Was Michael Musto living in a complete intellectual vacuum that whole time?

I find it impossible to believe that, given his exposure to bisexuality as part of the accepted fabric of queer literature, the genuine Michael Musto would question the existence of bisexuality.

I can't possibly accept that Michael Musto would be so shallow and stupid, and so that inevitably leads me to this conclusion: Michael Musto, or whoever wrote that column and signed it Michael Musto, can't be real.

And if Michael Musto isn't real, he cannot said to exist. Michael Musto must be, therefore, a nonbeing. Not only that, anyone named Michael Musto probably never is or ever has been for "real."

I feel sad for Michael Musto. He seemed like someone whom I could believe.
 

 Or then again, maybe not so much.

The Lambda Literary Foundation has announced the nominees for their 21st annual awards "for excellence in literature" — commonly known as the Lammies.

Kinsey Zero Through Sixty: Bisexual Perspectives on Kinsey, edited by Ron Jackson Suresha, published by Routledge/Taylor & Francis Journals, was nominated in two categories: Bisexual Literature, and GLBTQ Anthologies.

According to the LLF website, "A shortlist of finalists will be chosen for their achievement," most likely by the end of March. The awards will be presented at a ceremony in NYC in May.