in terms of gay culture and
gayspeak, a bear is a masculine, often overweight and hairy man. most people will tell you only the one descriptor but it's really all three or any combination of the three. back during the
clone movement in the days following
stonewall,
gay men everywhere tried to be highly visible and highly similar. they were all about being high-profile, looking good and being fabulous. these were the pride necklace sporting-militant gay activists and the hot pants wearing-gym bunnies of yesteryear. they did a lot of good for queer america but they also did some bad as well.
they reduced homosexuality to what they alone projected it to be. granted, that's a vast improvement from what the world had previously viewed homosexuals as but it became limiting and almost one-dimensional at the same time. as if there were some kind of formula to being gay. hence the coinciding bear movement at that time.
these gay men wanted to be viewed as just regular guys. and that's what bears on a fundamental level are. they aren't usually effeminate or political agenda-minded.. they're just guys. regular guys. and being just guys, they didn't care that their bodies weren't shaved clean or waxed or whatever.. and some of them even rejected the typical gay religious observation of body aesthetics and refused to go to the gym (or just didn't) because that's what gay men are wont to do out of some kind of delusion of vanity. they just wanted to be respected as regular joes who just happened to be homosexual.