Allow me to let you in on one of the dirty little secrets of human sexuality: Hardly anyone (except for the very stupid and very lazy) has ever accepted the ideals of beauty and/or desirability as set forth by their respective cultures' Fashionable Intelligence. And for every type of attraction, there is a market to be tapped.

In gay culture I am what is known as a "bear": bigger, hairier men who favor some kind of facial hair and tend to embody a jeans-and-shirt version of masculinity. Of course there are also metrosexual bears who groom their eyebrows and wear black tie to the opera. Some of us are stocky but in generally good shape; others are what the American Medical Association considers morbidly obese. There are leather bears, muscle bears and polar bears (men whose beards or body hair are white). I myself have been called a "ginger bear" (a British expression, from their term for redheads) and, when I had shoulder-length hair, a "lion."

Because there are other woodland creatures to be found among the "bear community." (I strongly resist the ideas "of "community" among gays in general and bears specifically, but for the sake of expediency let's just roll with it.) Probably the most interesting sub-category of bear is that of "cub," because it has so many variations. For some, the term cub designates someone younger, who may or may not want to be mentored in the way of the bear; for others, it's more about relative stature or lack thereof, regardless of the guy's age; and for still others, it simply indicates a strong identification with the bear "culture" without such physical trappings as a furry chest.

Tall skinny guys with lots of body hair are "otters"; average-size men who are relatively hairy and, often, exceptionally horny consider themselves "wolves." In the old days, before we got all politically correct about everything, guys who were attracted to bigger men were called "chubby chasers," but no more. Nowadays, men who don't fit into any of the above categories who enjoy ursine company are called, simply, "admirers."

And that's just the Anglos. Many Asian bears like to be called "pandas," regardless of where their ancestors were born, though just as many find the term offensive. Smooth-skinned Latinos with short, compact physiques are often referred to as "toros" (or bulls), which also suggests a testicular prowess. The bear scenes in Spain and Italy are so popular that I'm sure they have their own lists of sub-categories. It's like how the Inuits have a million words for snow.

So, yes: I'm a Las Vegas call bear. But don't be fooled into assuming that all my clients come from the world of the bears. Far from it. The men who hire me run the gamut from 18-year-olds who want their first male-male experience to be with a man who knows what he's doing to men in their 80s who just want to be held by a lumberjack type for an hour. They might be fat, they might be average, or they might have bodies so perfectly sculpted they should be underwear models.

Among my regular clients are Jaime and Luis, 28-year-old Mexican boyfriends who barely speak enough English to make the appointment and spend the whole session crying "Ay! Papi rico!" Two or three times a year I spend a night with Nicholas, a charming Canadian businessman who discovered his homosexuality later in life and wants to get "caught up" on the basics of sex with men before he puts himself out there. And when I go to San Diego I love getting together with Bobby, a black mechanic with a beautifully muscled body and a smile that could put Tom Cruise to shame. He likes me to put on construction boots and stomp on his chest. Lucky for Bobby I earned a first aid merit badge in the Boy Scouts, so I know exactly where not to step to keep from breaking off his sternum and killing him.