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"Cachorro" (SPOILER ALERT, in case anyone hasn't seen it yet...)

Me and Ron got the DVD of "Bear Cub" in the mail yesterday; I preordered from TLA's website a couple months ago. We watched it again last night, after seeing it at IBR back in February.

I'm reasonably impressed with it as a film; it's not great, but it's pretty damn good.

The opening credits are some of the hottest bearporn I've seen in a long time, even without any close-ups of penetration or cum shots. Why can't actual PORNO give us something as hot as this?

We watched the deleted scenes both before and after watching the complete film, trying to figure out how they would've played in the film. The long sequence of Manuel's arrival, dinner out, arrival at Pedro's apartment and all the slapstick, scream-filled panic that ensues would've seriously undermined the quiet melancholy of the film, and was wisely left out. There's some funny stuff there, but it belongs in a different film; perhaps something by Pedro Almodovar, circa 1989.

The second deleted scene, depicting Pedro and his friends "three years later" was interesting, because I can't imagine how both that scene and the "sauna" scene could've both been in the same film. I think the sauna scene was filmed after the decision was made to drop the "Pedro and friends" scene. Perhaps the director felt a need to indicate Pedro's emotional state, and since Manuel had disappeared from the film after his one brief scene, decided to tell the audience that Pedro still wasn't ready for a relationship.

In the deleted scene, Pedro is seen with Manuel and a group of friends having dinner and "partying" in his apartment. He's holding Manuel's hand and they're acting very husbear-like. It's never explicitly stated, but the undertone is that Pedro has overcome his reservations to living with Manuel, and they're now a couple. The "sauna" scene exists primarily for Pedro's line at it's end; "prefiero quedarme aqui," which I take to mean he's still unable to form a pairbond, and his life continues to be one of anonymous sex in darkened rooms with nameless strangers.

Maybe the director didn't want to have too much of a happy ending, but frankly the film seems unnecessarily bleak because of the "sauna" scene. I'd like to believe that learning to love Bernardo would open Pedro's heart, and allow him to let Manuel (or someone) into his life. Maybe I'm too "hollywoodized" and still believe in sentimental "we've learned something here" happy endings.

But I know very few single bears who would actually turn down an offer of marriage from someone they care for. The single bears I know are rarely single by choice; instead they're single because they haven't yet found someone who cares for them.

I haven't listened to the director's commentary yet; I really should do that tonight. Maybe he explains how I've completely misconstrued his intent.

Bear Porn Rant

I cut this bit out of my post on "Cachorro" because it doesn't really have anything to do with the film.

The opening credits (of "Bear Cub") are some of the hottest bearporn I've seen in a long time, even without any close-ups of penetration or cum shots. Why can't actual PORNO give us something as hot as this? I know a porno doesn't have the budget to approach these production values, but they can surely do better than another scene of a couple guys' frenzied humping in a nondescript hotel room during a Bear Run.

The two bears fucking in Pedro's bed looked like regular, real men you might meet at the bar, unlike the polished muscleclones that have become commonplace in "bearstream" porno. Does porn REALLY sell better when it consists primarily of images of angry, sneering, unattainable men?

When I walked by the Bearfilms booth at IBR, I was startled to realize just how similar their models looked. There were three guys sitting there at one point who looked like they could be brothers! The only difference was the size of the tattoo on their shoulders and upper arms.

I was also struck by how different they looked from the vast majority of the men at IBR. These aren't representatives of us; they represent some other aesthetic being marketed to us as a replacement for the men we actually find attractive. Bearfilms wasn't like this a couple years ago; but those bearish early Bearfilms models have all been replaced by a new generation of slimmer, more muscled types.

The bearporn business is very strange; just what exactly is the role of porn in our lives? How do bears use porn? We tend to be sexually active, to the point of promiscuity. Is porn used as a substitute for physical interaction when sex is unavailable? Is it used to "spice up" sexual encounters, sort of visual foreplay? Or is it used to keep us at a high degree of sexual arousal, because no matter how much we're getting, it's never enough?

How do you convince a group of men who seem to have plenty of real, hot, face 2 face sex to spend their hard-earned money on a video of some other guys getting it on? How do you convince them that what you've got for sale is BETTER than what they can get for free?

I guess that's a rationale for using very polished models; if we accept the proposition that "beautiful people" have better sex than the rest of us schlubs, that might be a reason to fill it with images of unattainable perfection having titanic sex.

But you'll forgive me if I think this attitude betrays the last tattered shreds of meaning associated with the "Bear Movement."

Pretty musclebear clones with big dicks don't have better sex than the rest of us; they are simply more marketable.

And yes, I am fully cognizant of the irony of my saying something like that, given that some consider my image worth paying money for.

I think of myself as a pretty ordinary guy; I still get a huge rush from meeting some handsome, thick, furry, dark-haired, dark-bearded Bear or Cub and chatting him up. There is no feeling in the world like the feeling I get when "the question" is asked, and answered in the affirmative; I want him. He wants me. I get butterflies, a rush of adrenaline, and my dick starts to get hard when I see "yes" in his eyes. I'm addicted to that moment; I can't get enough of that kind of affirmation.

And I've never got that feeling from a pic or a video.