No Millennium

Recently a complete stranger called me "Bubba". Not 'buddy' or 'bud' or even 'bub', but 'Bubba'. Maybe it was a slip of the tongue, but it left me feeling -- well -- kind of proud.

Odd, that.

I've been pretty quiet about it -- the bear thing, that is. Partly its my principled aversion to any ready-made subcultural community, to any identity assumed earnestly, unironically, uncritically. (Like Groucho Marx, I wouldn't want to belong to any club which would have me as a member.) Partly, its because I find the whole thing in questionable taste. And, to be honest, partly its a matter of shyness and insecurity. So I've never been to a bear event or dated a bear-identified guy. The word 'woof' has never crossed my lips in any but a canine sense.

Yet the fact remains that I am a large, hairy gay man. And I find others of the same description (but not only them) wildly attractive. Bear blogs, websites, and mailing lists -- and bear porn -- are part of my regular online itinerary. Maybe they're rubbing off on me. Lately I've become larger, hairier, perhaps a little more butch in my self-presentation. So when a stranger addresses (interpellates, for you Althusserians) me as 'Bubba', I figure -- or hope -- that others are starting to notice.

Never mind the hypocrisy or even the unplumbed nasties of class, race, region and gender so casually invoked. 'Bubba' is fine with me.