Bear Hunting

Dear Homo:

The bear movement is rising! From one homo with a bad gaydar  to another homo with probably an awesome gaydar, NOW how do we spot the homo in a room????  Help a brother out.

Signed,
Bearbacked Mountain

Dear BBM:

First, sincere thanks. Much like a bear in the wintertime, Homo has been hibernating for sometime now -- mostly because nobody has asked him a question in over a year. But as you have reached out to Homo in your time of need, he'll do his best to offer you sincere and wise counsel.

First, I must take issue with your syntax. One doesn't have a gaydar. Gaydar is one of those nouns that cannot be quantified, such as "balance" or "crabs." One simply has these things or doesn't. As for your assumption that my gaydar is "awesome," I confess I am somewhat flattered. In truth I'd give mine a B+ a best. After all, I spent nearly two years in my college fraternity before discovering that the hottest, most muscular brother in the place was a fellow 'mo... and that was only after I haphazardly bumped into him at a gay bar in Saugatuck, Michigan. But this is a story for another time.

Now to the issue at hand: If I'm understanding you correctly, what you're asking is, with so many gay men adopting the "bear" look -- natural body type, facial hair, comfortable clothing, a refusal to pluck, shave, wax or depilate -- how does one differentiate such creatures from straight men, for whom such practices have long been the norm?

Straight or gay? Who can say?

Curiously, I dealt with a similar theme in an entirely different way after a straight, female reader wrote in to bemoan the "fact" that straight men don't take care of their abs the way gay guys do. I gently corrected said reader, informing her that although there were once fairly easy ways for Friends of Dorothy to spot one another, much like Dr. Suess's star-bellied Sneetches, the times, they have a-changed. Not only has the bear movement, as you call it, taken off, along with that of numerous other gay sub-species, but straight men have adopted many traditionally gay lifestyle and grooming habits. Everything about Ryan Secrest, for example, simply screams power-bottom, and yet we know from his hot and heavy, absolutely non-fabricated relationships with such lovely ladies as Teri Hatcher and Julianne Hough that he is 100 percent hetero.

So to paraphrase your question, how, indeed, do we spot the pink elephant in the room?

The sad truth is, we can't. At least not all the time. But there are some clues to watch for, chief among them being eye contact. Yes, eye-contact. Good old-fashioned, low-tech, ageless, universal eye contact.

Simply stated, straight guys tend not to look at one another unless it's absolutely necessary. I know this from extensive experience and experimentation. I once stared at a straight guy for over two hours non-stop in an airport terminal from five feet away... and he did not look up from his Wall Street Journal a single time. Not even to check me out to decide whether or not he was interested.

THAT'S a straight guy.

But gay guys will look... and look... and look again. And it doesn't matter if we're bears or twinks or drag queens or Republican senators. If a guy is checking us out, we'll check right back.

And if you're still not sure, strike up a conversation. If he's bright, polite, articulate and has a good sense of humor, chances are he's gay.

Don't shit in the woods,
Homo

Belly Aching

Dear Homo,

As straight women, my friends and I often lament that while gay men keep their abs in decent shape, not nearly as many hetero guys seem to feel that need. Why is that? And is there anything that can be done about the situation?

Signed,
Craving a Six-Pack


Dear CASP,

I hate to keep referencing "Sex and the City" lest I be regarded as a one-trick homo. But just as Muslims turn to the Koran, Jews turn to the Torah, and Christians turn to country music, Homo turns to SATC for wisdom, guidance and inspiration -- and finds it once again.

Case in point, Season Four's "All That Glitters," in which Carrie and the girls spend a night out a fictional gay club called Trade. Ogling all the hot male flesh around them, Miranda essentially asks the same question as yours: "Why don't straight men have bodies like this?"

To which Carrie replies: "Because gay men have the possibility of sex at the gym. If straight men had that, they'd be working out all the time, too."

Carrie's right, of course, but that's only part of the equation.

First, allow me to set you straight, so to speak, on one point: Not all gay men have great abs. Indeed, gay men come in all different shapes and sizes. In fact there's an entire sub-community of gay men -- the bears -- who like keeping their bellies full and natural looking. And it is, after all, natural for a man's belly to expand over time, just as natural breasts on a woman (and not a few men) will eventually sag.

But I do think we're safe in assuming that the average gay man is more body-conscious than the average straight man. There are myriad sociological, psychological and sexological reasons for this, but I'll save time and break it down to basics:

1) Men -- all men -- are visually oriented and tend to objectify whatever it is that turns us on. Hence the intense historical pressure on women to stay thin and beautiful.

2) Gay men are particularly concerned with aesthetics and like to surround ourselves with beauty and perfection. See Buonarroti, Michelangelo and Mackie, Bob.

3) Gay men are less likely to have spouses and children than straight men and thus have more free time to work out.

But times, CASP, they are a changin'. Historically, our bodies were one way we gay guys could easily spot one another, much as Dr. Seuss's Star-Belly Sneetches could distinguish themselves from their Plain-Belly brethren. Then, nearly 20 years ago, everything shifted.

In 1991, a gay designer named Calvin Klein teamed up with a straight rapper-turned-model named Marky Mark in a pair of white boxer-briefs. Suddenly, the male body, in all its muscular glory, was objectified before a mass market. Straight women worldwide proclaimed, "That's what I want!" Straight men worldwide proclaimed, "I better hit the gym!" Gay men worldwide suddenly developed a taste for rap music. And lesbians worldwide played golf.

Since then, a cultural movement has occurred in which hordes of straight men have become increasingly concerned with their appearance. For a time such men were labeled, rather pejoratively, as "metrosexual." Now they're pretty much mainstream. (Witness, for example, the phenomenon that is "Jersey Shore," with its overly coiffed, frighteningly tanned, juiced-up specimens of manhood. One can practically smell the mixture of hair gel and cologne wafting through one's television set.)

All of which is to say, CASP, that it shouldn't be too hard for you and your female cohorts to find straight guys with killer abs nowadays. Vanity and body obsession, it seems, are not just for women and gays anymore. The question you may have to ask yourselves, though, is whether or not that's a good thing.

Doing Crunches as We Speak,
Homo