What's A Bear? A Public Service Announcement

My friend Jordan confessed to me last night that a prominent member of Denver's queer activist community had never heard of gay bears. Disturbing to me as a bear aficionado (fetishist). In the interest of public education and to defend the noble tribe of Ursidae Cockavora, I am offering this up as a service to this town. Bears are men, often fat, almost always hairy, sometimes wearing flannel, denim, leather, or other rougher clothes. Bears, unlike twinks, often smell like actual bodies. Their masculine identity could be considered a hypermasculinity, a gender-queer performance of stereotypical "man" behavior.
That being said, this performance is often accompanied with a sissy nature. Bears can be gay, bisexual, or transgender men. Often, bears like to congregate together. While some interpret this as a sign of gender policing, misogyny, exclusivity, or fat-boy elitism, I prefer to think of bear segregation as a way of creating subcultural spaces for the erotic exploration of particular modes of gender performance--hairy fatboy fucking! Some people, often the same folks offended by the idea of hairy fat men getting together to stroke it, choke it, and blow it, can't seem to understand what's hot about bear culture. Unless they spend an evening sleeping on the sweet fat chest of a hairy bear, they will probably never understand.