A bear is a masculine, rough, outdoorsy guy who is sexually attracted to guys. Some guys (I am one) do not have quite enough body mass to be classed as bears in the strict sense, but in other respects inhabit bearspace. Such guys are sometimes called “otters.” In this FAQ, I will use “bear” broadly, to encompass even otters. Indeed, everything I have to say applies also to the close spiritual relatives of bears, the classic “leathermen” (whether with or without motorcycles). —A further minor note of explanation: in the bear and leather cultures, “woofy” means “sexy.”
Bearness comes from inside and is only partly connected with external appearances. A guy can look like a bear (beard or stache, muscles, maybe belted 501s, maybe a leather jacket, maybe some kind of boots) without being a bear. That happens when the guy is kind of weak, evasive, duplicitous, self-centred, and faggy. Conversely, a guy can be a bear without looking like a bear. That happens when the guy is kind of strong, direct, outgoing, and masculine, even in the unlikely event that he is wearing a Harry Rosen suit and Calvin Klein cologne and carrying a cell phone and holding down some sick Bay Street job.
But for the most part, guys who are bears look like bears. That makes sense, because men are animals with souls, not souls housed inside animals. We’re physical creatures, just as eagles and wolves are. Since we are animals with souls, our outward appearance is generally a pretty useful guide to the state of our soul.
You might find this doctrine (that we are animals with souls) suspiciously sensual, and so in conflict with the teaching of the Church. However, the Church builds its faith on the idea that God, having invented physical matter, is fond of physical matter. When we recite the Creed in Mass, we say, “I believe in the resurrection of the body.” We hold that Jesus a.k.a. the Christ was fully a man (and so fully a physical animal), even though He was also God. (The bit about being God is tough, but then we are not expected to understand all the mysteries of the faith fully in Catholic life. As Catholics, especially as Catholic laity, we admit that some things are true even though we do not grasp them well. It’s like having passed your quantum mechanics course, but only with a C-minus. You know the bad grade is your own fault, and you hope you’ll pick up a better understanding as the years go by.) We hold that Christ literally rose from the dead at the first Easter, and that it was Christ as a physical animal Who came in a gloriously fulfilled way to the disciples. We hold that we ourselves will eventually be resurrected from the dead, as Christ was.