March 8, 2006

I'm a 22-year-old gay
male. I'm thin and "traditionally" good-looking enough to have done some
modeling. So what's the problem? I like bears. Big, hairy men with beards. I
live in New York, and this city is full of cute, skinny, boyish guys, but there
are some places to meet bears. The thing is, I don't really fit in, and I've
been told just that. A lot of bears seem to be primarily into other bears. And
I'm not really one of them.

I'm familiar enough
with your writing to know that you're not a huge devotee of the bear scene, but
do you have any suggestions for me?
Wants Into The Den

A lot of fags work hard at
being the type they're into—and why not? It's often a successful
strategy. A guy into muscular guys puts on some muscle and starts pulling
muscle guys; a guy into tattooed punks gets some tattoos and starts pulling
punks; a guy into bears grows himself a gut and a beard and starts pulling
bears.

But not every gay man can
be the type he finds attractive, WITD. No matter how hard they work out, some
guys can't put on muscle, some guys are too angelic to pull off punk, and some
wannabe bears can't keep the weight on or are cursed with naturally hairless
backs. Luckily for these guys, WITD, not all gay men are attracted to their
body doubles. A lot of guys are into their polar opposites: Some muscular guys
are into heavy guys, some punk fags dig corporate types, and some bears live to
maul twinks.

On my recent book tour, I
met one of these guys: Mark, a skinny, tattooed, punk-rocker type. He's been
with William, a clean-cut, corporate-lawyer type, for four years. Opposites
attracted, but at the beginning, Mark's punk friends gave him grief about his
being with a clean-cut guy like William. "What could be more punk," Mark told
his friends, "than a guy like me making a guy like him lick my come up off the
floor?" Only one thing, Mark: sending a guy like me some videotape.

So if some bears are into
skinny guys, WITD, how come you've been made to feel unwelcome at bear venues?
Because bear culture—a phrase I'm using under duress—has shown
itself to be just as susceptible to the body-image fascism that its earliest
adherents claimed to be rebelling against. Bear culture quickly moved from rejecting
the notion that there should be one standard of gay male beauty—hairless,
flat-tummied twinks—to enforcing its own monolithic standard of gay male
beauty—fat-bellied, hair-covered bears. At best, the bears who go out of
their way to make you feel unwelcome are mildly hypocritical; at worst, they're
so insecure that they feel threatened by your skinny, hairless presence.

So what do you do? You go
to bear bars anyway, WITD, and shrug off whatever grief you get. Then you
remind yourself that until bear bars came along, the big, hairy guys you like
got tons of grief from the twink crowd that dominates most gay bars.

I'm sure you'll receive
an avalanche of email supporting ITMFA [Impeach The
Motherfucker Already] lapel pins, T-shirts, and bumper stickers. While
the prospect of seeing ITMFA popping up here and there is indeed heartwarming,
I must pan this project. The popularity of "santorum" may lead you to believe
that ITMFA will succeed, but even if the entire population of the U.S. were
exposed daily to ITMFA merch, it would not lead to the impeachment of the
MFPOTUS—which, as you know, would at the very least require a majority of
Democrats with backbones in both houses of Congress, something not bound to
happen anytime soon. So all the ITMFA signs are bound to ultimately become
depressing reminders of the actual impossibility of the motherfucker getting
impeached already. I, for one, do not relish being reminded daily that Bush is
still in power.
Johnny Boy

The mail has
been overwhelmingly pro-ITMFA, but I have no illusions. It's unlikely that
ITMFA will be as successful as santorum, and I don't expect that it will result
in Bush being impeached. The Republicans who currently control Congress have
demonstrated repeatedly that they put party before country, and I sincerely
doubt that the Democrats have the ability or the guts to take the House or
Senate—but I'm writing 'em checks just the same.

And I'm going
to push ITMFA anyway. With or without ITMFA lapel pins, JB, we are reminded
every day that Bush is still the motherfucking president. His image and his
voice are unavoidable, and the results of political incompetence are on display
everywhere.

You asked
if your readers would wear ITMFA buttons and lapel pins. I would!

I work as a
scientist at a large university, and I see firsthand every day the frustration
of faculty, staff, and students with our current gun-totin' (but apparently not
gun-aimin') administration. ITMFA would give us a unified outlet for the
expression of our frustrations, and maybe, just maybe, it would give some sense
of solidarity—especially necessary considering we have three more
whiskey-soaked years until we finally get another fucking vote.

So, where
can I buy them, and how fast can they be shipped?
Dyke For Trimming Bush

You hit the
nail on the head, DFTB: Spotting an ITMFA button, bumper sticker, or lapel pin
will serve as a morale booster for folks who are despondent at the prospect of
three more years of Bush—and those folks, recent polling shows, amount to
67 percent of the country. Hell, I know for a fact that it will be a morale
booster: I gave a speech last week at the University of Missouri and folks
showed up wearing ITMFA shirts and buttons that they had made themselves, which
boosted my morale.

So where can
you get your ITMFA gear, DFTB? Well, like the kids I met at the University of
Missouri, you can make your
own. Or you can go to impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com. (To the cyber squatter
sitting on itmfa.com: Be a decent sort and let me have that URL, please.) At impeachthemotherfuckeralready.com, you'll find out how you can order ITMFA buttons,
tasteful lapel pins, and other gear (profits go to the American Civil Liberties
Union), and I'll be posting letters about ITMFA there (to prevent the column
from being swamped), along with pictures of people wearing ITMFA merch
(official or DIY).

With the
santorum campaign, I set a goal: forcing Senator Rick Santorum to wrap his tiny
mind around the disgusting new definition of his name. And we succeeded beyond
our wildest dreams—not only has Santorum been forced to discuss santorum,
the term has entered the sexual lexicon. Similarly, I want to set a goal for
ITMFA. It's not a word for the ages, it's just a slogan, like WIN, or "Whip
Inflation Now" (ask your parents), for this political moment. So here's our
goal: I not only want to see ITMFA spread all over the country, I want to see a
sitting member of the U.S. House or Senate wearing one of my tasteful ITMFA
lapel pins on C-SPAN or a Sunday-morning political show.

Guess what? Some folks felt my advice
for The Good
Son, the man whose mother fucked him when he was 15 years old, was, like,
complete and utter crap. Lots of responses are up at avclub.com/savage/goodson.