ABSTRACT
This chapter develops the theorisation of Bear bodies began in Chapter 2. It begins with an overview of academic scholarship on ‘the body’, noting ongoing conceptual difficulties and stressing a lack of attention to actual flesh and matter. Then this chapter highlights the importance of bodies for ‘fitting in’ with Bear as category and as community, suggesting that particular bodies (e.g. bodies racialised as non-White) may experience more difficulty with this than others. To develop this idea, this chapter introduces the concept of ‘bodily topographies’. This concept is then used to explore multiple forms of bodily difference relevant for Bears. The bodily topographies addressed are the positioning of bodily tissues (e.g. bums, bellies); the ‘intra-action’ of bodily tissues (particularly muscle and fat); and the ‘performativity’ of bodies (e.g. through posture, movement and clothing). This chapter concludes by recommending a new approach to Bear/y bodies which focus on their actual material qualities rather than overly simplistic terms like ‘fat’ and ‘thin’.
