The more he photographed, the more he came to see that being a bear had little to do with adhering to one body type. Charlesworth also found that there was room for cubs (younger bears), otters (skinny, but still hairy), polar bears (older men) and, “whatever other Yes, bears tend to idealize larger, hairier men, he found. That from the outside can appear to be homogeneous. Once in, he was able to explore the diversity in a culture Charlesworth get his foot in the door of bear communities from Provincetown, Mass., to San Francisco.
2010.ĭocumenting bears with his 4×5 camera eventually helped Mr. Charlesworth wrote in his graduate school thesis.Īlan Charlesworth Dick, Morning Coffee. “I use photography as a social crutch, engaging with each scene or individual before and after the shutter is clicked,” Mr. So he used photography as a way in.įour years ago, as part of an undergraduate project at Rochester Institute of Technology, he began photographing bears in the area around his school. He said, for all their disdain for superficial gay culture, Bears can be obsessively body-focused, Charlesworth said his lack of heft made it hard to immediately identify with a group predominantly made up of large men. For him, identifying as a bear is more about taking pride in hisĪttraction to men with bodies that look as though they were formed by years of chopping trees, and not by years of running on treadmills and drinking protein smoothies.īut Mr. Charlesworth, 30, definitely doesn’t look like that ubiquitous image of the stereotypical gay man, but he’s not large or hairy, either. Society deems as being a normal, stereotypical gay male. Charlesworth, who recently completed a Master’s of Fine Arts at the Rhode Island School of Design. “It’s not perfect body, gym-toned, and no facial hair,” said Mr. He said he felt like he’d finally found a home. Of big, burly men who were attracted to other men. Charlesworth remained confused, first about his sexuality, then about his place within gay culture, until he stumbled upon a Web site dedicated to “bears.” It was the first time he’d seen images He said he had a hard time figuring out who he was, but he knew he wasn’t like the well-manicured, muscular men withĪ penchant for designer clothes and musicals on those television shows. High school, he couldn’t find anything that reflected it, or an outlet to express it. He said that while he questioned his sexuality in Charlesworth had a hard time relating, or being attracted to, those kinds of images. Gay men as either comically effeminate, or supersculpted and image conscious. Charlesworth knew about gay culture came from television shows like “Will and Grace.” Mainstream culture tends to depict But for many gay men, including the photographer Alan Charlesworth, there’s anotherĪs a teenager growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia during the 1990s, all that Mr. Their sexuality, figure out they’re gay, accept that they are and finally, take pride in it. Many assume all gay people will first be confused about There are between four and six stages to coming out as gay, according to people who study these sorts of things.