https://bearworldmag.com/bear-tracks-cybearspace-personal-ads-and-the-bear-code/

Les K. Wright 1. What will you do to celebrate this holiday season? I will be celebrating this Christmas holiday season here in Syracuse, my new home. My plate is already full of social, volunteer, and cultural commitments. I mark the approach of the holiday season with buying Weihnachtsplätzchen (Christmas confections) when they turn up at Aldi’s, … Continue reading CHRISTMAS 2023 REMINISCENCES →

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Read further here Bear Tracks: The Life and Work of Leathersex Pioneer Jack Fritscher 10th October 2023Les K. Wright Jack Fritscher (b. 1939; PhD, 1967) is best known for his pioneering role in the leathersex community. His presence and work on page and screen—in fiction, nonfiction, erotica, photography, and video — has been ubiquitous in … Continue reading Bear Tracks: The Life and Work of Leathersex Pioneer Jack Fritscher →

Dragonfly (Les K. Wright) At the recent (2023) tenth anniversary Bear Your Soul gathering at Easton Mountain, I participated in a workshop led by Wildflower (Tyler Wansley) called “Queer Icons.” Wildflower asked us to think about who had been influential in our experience of being gay. The icon could be living or dead, of any … Continue reading HARRY HAY – QUEER ICON →

https://bearworldmag.com/bear-tracks-crawford-barton-and-the-golden-age-of-gay-awakening/

Les K. Wright When I was a member of the disaffected youth of the 1960s Bob Dylan spoke directly to me through his music.  Fifty years later “Like a Rolling Stone” still speaks to me personally. When I was young the tone of righteous anger resonated for our generation. Wasn’t it misplaced trust in American values, … Continue reading I Wanted to Live Like a White Person: Notes on Being Old, Poor, and Gay →

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Click here to read more. Love and Regret in Gay Bars By Les Wright on July 19, 2023Here's My Story The Coleherne, circa 1979 in Earls Court, London. photographer unknown. Even after the first years following Stonewall, Albany’s gay subculture was still distinctly closeted. Chapters of Gay Liberation Front (GLF), Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), and Gay Maoists had … Continue reading Love and Regret in Gay Bars →

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“Because of the way that myth takes it for granted that miracles are always happening, the waking life of a mythically inspired people—the ancient Greeks, for instance—more closely resembles a dream than it does the waking world of a scientifically disenchanted thinker.” --Friedrich Nietzsche Bear Your Soul is an annual event at Easton Mountain [https://www.eastonmountain.org], … Continue reading Bear Your Soul Celebrates Ten Years →

Click here to read more ... FEATURES BEAR HISTORYBEAR TRACKS Bear Tracks: The Murky Origins of Bear Culture Part 1 29th August 2023Les K. Wright **Editor’s Note** Bear World Magazine is honored and thrilled to be working with Bear historian Les K Wright who has spearheaded the Bear History Project Reboot in order to chronicle and archive current events … Continue reading BEAR TRACKS 01 The Murky Origins of Bear Culture, Part 1 →

Les K. Wright and Jack Fritscher at A Different Light Bookstore on Castro Street.My reading from The Bear Book II, circa 2001.[photo by Mark Hemry.]

Tangled Memories of a Wounded Storyteller: Notes on Bear History and Cultural Memory LES WRIGHT Les Wright is a long-time gay activist I scholar, committed to Iunderstanding and promoting progressive social change. He is a publisher ofthe on-line journal Verisimilitude, and is at present Associate Professor ofHumanities and English at a small New England college. Teaching Trauma very spring term for the past … Continue reading Tangled Memories of a Wounded Storyteller: Notes on Bear History and Cultural Memory →

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Read more here The Politics of Loneliness Loneliness is epidemic among older Americans. August 11, 2023 by Les Wright Leave a Comment A funny thing happened to me halfway through the world pandemic shutdown. I suddenly felt no longer lonely. Several years before unforeseen circumstances forced me to leave my beloved California and move back to rural Central … Continue reading The Politics of Loneliness →

Read more here Shutterstock BEARSCOMMUNITYFRONT COVERHISTORY Les K Wright Announces Official Launch of the Bear History Project Reboot 4th August 2023BWM Staff During a recent reading of his book Resilience: A Polemical Memoir of AIDS, Bears and F*cking at Ptown Bear Week, Les K Wright went public with the official announcement of the Bear History Project Reboot; … Continue reading Les K Wright Announces Official Launch of the Bear History Project Reboot →

Les K. Wright A funny thing happened to me halfway through the world pandemic shutdown. I suddenly felt no longer lonely. Several years before unforeseen circumstances forced me to leave my beloved California and move back to rural Central New York to live with my sister. My only other option at the time was to … Continue reading An Epidemic of Loneliness? →

G.J.’ Gallery and the Central Arms I read Hermann Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf as an undergrad in the early 1970s. I had not heard of the recent riots at the Stonewall Inn. And I wasn’t aware of the existence of gay bars. The most striking and lasting impressions I had of Hesse’s novel were the depiction of free … Continue reading Doors to the Magic Theater →

For me, the saving grace of Bros was this statement made by Bobby Leiber (Billy Eichner’s character). We are different, even if Bros (riffing on When Harry Met Sally) undermines its own message by resolving the story (of two gay men professing their rejection of romance) with the romcom cliché happy ending. Fire Island, another recent queer romcom, also undermines its … Continue reading “Queer Relationships Are Not Like Straight Relationships” →

It is time for an ACT-UP style resistance to this Cult of Gun Worshippers.

by Jack FritscherBook Review by Les K. Wright What becomes a legend most? Having his story told by another legend. And who better to tell Larry Townsend’s story than Jack Fritscher?  Author of The Leatherman’s Handbook, Townsend has long been recognized as a primary shaper and influencer of the gay leather-and-kink world, his book a founding … Continue reading The Life and Times of the Legendary Larry Townsend →

Hi Jack, I was excited to read the news of your latest book, on Larry Townsend. I will let you know when my copy arrives. (I contacted the Leather Journal, and they said they had already reviewed it.)  Over the past two years of the pandemic shutdown I have been coming out of retirement, a … Continue reading Open Letter to Jack Fritscher →

"The absence of a Poor Queer Studies paradigm that might counterbalance current state-of-the-field work is particularly curious in light of the fact that concerns about academic elitism within Queer Studies are an undeniable part of the field's history. Perhaps we used to hear those charges rather more often than we do now. Notably, Jeffrey Escoffier … Continue reading LGBT vs. Queer →

Melissa Korn (Wall Street Journal) Sixteen major U.S. universities, including Yale University, Georgetown University and Northwestern University, are being sued for alleged antitrust violations because of the way they work together to determine financial-aid awards for students. According to a lawsuit filed in Illinois federal court late Sunday by law firms representing five former students … Continue reading I Was a Working-Class Academic →

Here is the film made of long-term AIDS survivors. Instead of being a documentary, it is a compilation of talking head snippets arranged into a message created by the film-maker. I feel misled. I do appear saying "forty years." At the time I thought it odd that I did not fill out any paperwork or … Continue reading Update on LTS AIDS Film →

WORLD AIDS DAY Today I recognize I have been living with HIV/AIDS for 41 years. I am among the small and dwindling generation of long-term (pre-HAART) AIDS survivors. I am one of the interviewees in Steed Taylor's documentary premiering today as part of the VISUAL AIDS "Day without Art 2021." I will post a link … Continue reading 41 YEARS as a Long-Term AIDS Survivor →

Look who's got his own coffee mug? (This came in a fundraiser from the LGBT Historical Society San Francisco): My old friend Lou Sullivan, pioneering trans activist and fellow founding member of the LGBT Historical Society San Francisco. I originally met Lou in the 1970s, where he was an editor on the GPU News in … Continue reading Lou Sullivan Has His Own Coffee Mug →

Thinking about my slight connection with Stephen Sondheim opened a floodgate of memories. Our friend in common was a tall, dark, handsome (aren't they all?) pre-bear era leather bear named John Scobie. I met John at the Coleherne originally. He stayed with Sondheim when in NYC and I stayed with a friend (who I had … Continue reading A Tale of the Coleherne →

Friendship in Old AgeGay and Lesbian Review The term "friendship," for Americans, is a very broad and nebulous concept. Where I currently live, many people (whom I consider casual acquaintances) call me a friend just because we exchange “Hellos.” I lived in West Germany for most of the 1970s, where I learned that Germans’ definition … Continue reading Gay Men’s Friendships →