Articles
Bear hunting
Looking for some summer lovin’? Do you like your men on the big, chunky and hairy side? If the answer to these questions is a resounding ‘yes’, and you’ve not yet discovered bearwww, then hurry along to the website now at www.bearwww.comLaunched way back in 2002, the site established itself over the last ten years as one of the world’s leading gay dating sites for the international bear community.
It’s run by a small team based in France, but it has members spread all over the world. At the time of going to press, it had a whopping 213,000 members; the majority based in Europe. As anyone who knows anything about the bear community, most of the guys are of the chunkier, hirsute variety, but the whole spectrum is covered – from slim and muscular chasers through to muscle bears and chubs.
The team behind the site pride themselves on the attention they are able to give their members, helping them to re-size their photos and respond to emails or help enquiries promptly.
When asked what he thinks makes the site special or unique to other sites, webmaster FredW points to the ‘Who’s going’ function, which allow members to indicate what bear events or parties they intend visiting, as well as the ‘Cam pic’ function, which allows you to send instant pics from your webcam to other users, with the webcam pin incorporated into your message. He also thinks that the site is a lot friendlier than some dating sites, and that members are just as likely to make friends by visiting bearwww as potential hook-ups for sex or romance.
“Currently we have more members is Europe,” says Fred. “But we have 40,000 members in North America and it’s growing very fast.” The team has launched a dedicated site for their North American members at bearwww.us – and is optimistic that it’ll be the biggest bear chat site in North America in the next couple of years.
Besides being able to browse page after page of galleries of profiles, a calendar of international events allows you to keep up to date with upcoming parties. You can join the site, and create a profile, for free, whilst paying a monthly subscription (from as little as £3.40 a month if you pay for 12 months in advance) unlocks further benefits and ‘priority access’ – allowing you to view more photos.
Posted: 21 June 2012
