Old man gay fat

Both a partial insider as a gay man and an
outsider to Girth & Mirth, Whitesel offers an insider’s critique of the gay
movement, questioning whether the social consequences of the failure to be
height-weight proportionate should be so extreme in the gay community.

This book documents performances at club events and examines how
participants use allusion and campy-queer behavior to reconfigure and reclaim
their sullied body images, focusing on the numerous tensions of marginalization
and dignity that big gay men experience and how they negotiate these tensions
via their membership to a size-positive group.

Discouraged by this, they withdrew from the bear community.

Much has changed over the last 25 years. Fat studies has even become a formal academic discipline. (I found my way to the “hirsute” tribe this way.) Heavyset gay men (“chubs”) formed casual social networks this way.

Girth and Mirth organized gatherings and soon collaborated with the national Affiliated Bigmen’s Club to hold the first Convergence in 1986.

Despite affectionate in-group monikers for big gay men–chubs,
bears, cubs–the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture at large
still haunts these individuals who often exist at the margins of gay
communities. There has been a broader societal shift in the United States toward addressing fatphobia. In Fat Gay Men, Jason
Whitesel delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social
club dedicated to big gay men, illuminating the ways in which these men form
identities and community in the face of adversity.

Both a partial insider as a gay man and an
outsider to Girth & Mirth, Whitesel offers an insider’s critique of the gay
movement, questioning whether the social consequences of the failure to be
height-weight proportionate should be so extreme in the gay community.

This book documents performances at club events and examines how
participants use allusion and campy-queer behavior to reconfigure and reclaim
their sullied body images, focusing on the numerous tensions of marginalization
and dignity that big gay men experience and how they negotiate these tensions
via their membership to a size-positive group.

Based on ethnographic interviews
and in-depth field notes from more than 100 events at bar nights, café
klatches, restaurants, potlucks, holiday bashes, pool parties, movie nights,
and weekend retreats, the book explores the woundedness that comes from being
relegated to an inferior position in gay hierarchies, and yet celebrates how
some gay men can reposition the shame of fat stigma through carnival, camp, and
play.

As Jason Whitesell wrote in 2014, “Convergence is foremost a group vacation and continues to rely on the presence of a gay social scene in large and diverse host cities to provide the itinerary for its excursions.” In more recent years another big men’s annual event–Super Weekend—has been held at the Cabana Inn, the largest gay resort in the American Southwest.

Gay chubs and bears remain doubly stigmatized—for their large body size and the homophobic judgment that gay men are “feminine.”  While lesbians have historically politicized fat issues, gay men have sexualized and fetishized it. The medical community continues to criticize the fat acceptance movement for “promoting a lifestyle that can have dire health consequence.” Heterosexual sex could also be regarded as such a lifestyle—it sometimes results in pregnancies that jeopardize the life of the mother.

When the first bear club was formed in New York City a long-time chubby bear friend and fuck buddy of mine and his husband reported they were shunned by this new club. Based on ethnographic interviews
and in-depth field notes from more than 100 events at bar nights, café
klatches, restaurants, potlucks, holiday bashes, pool parties, movie nights,
and weekend retreats, the book explores the woundedness that comes from being
relegated to an inferior position in gay hierarchies, and yet celebrates how
some gay men can reposition the shame of fat stigma through carnival, camp, and
play.

A similar class difference has led bears unable to afford Provincetown Bear Weekend to go to summer bear weekends at Hillside Campgrounds in northern Pennsylvania.

In the 1990s the Girth and Mirth community overlapped and intermingled with the new bear community. In the 1970s this method was common among certain likeminded gay men with specialized sexual tastes.

In existence for over forty
years, the club has long been a refuge and ‘safe space’ for such men. In Fat Gay Men, Jason
Whitesel delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social
club dedicated to big gay men, illuminating the ways in which these men form
identities and community in the face of adversity.

Girth and Mirth and gay bears emerged during this time.

The current third wave has become intersectional, addressing issues of race, class, and sexuality. This became a sex-positive, body-affirming, mutually supportive organized social group. Three snapshots from this time: I saw chubs showing up and being welcomed at Bear Hug sex parties in San Francisco.

As Convergence has grown more elaborate and expensive a socioeconomic rift has surfaced, with less well-heeled men understandably grousing about class discrimination and gong to the less expensive Super Weekend. A clear sign of this has been in the inclusion of “plus-sized” people in advertising, showing them as healthy, fit, and sexually desirable.  As the old adage goes, truly “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”