North American Bear Just Crowned a New Daddy

Cliff Boyd may look like the quintessential bear, but he's so much more than your ordinary bear. The affable man with the long white beard has, in the past, done naughty Santa photoshoots wearing little more than a Santa hat and a jockstrap (at times, a leather one). Before TikTok, he wrote a column called Dad Vice, offering advice to the younger members of his community. Since the pandemic, he has become a popular content creator on JustFor.Fans and a pageant bear. Recently, he was named North American Bear 2025, a title that is not easily won, nor one without many obligations.

His charm and wit can be seen all over his post-pageant website, Cliffboyd.shop. The merch he's selling for charity includes "funny, irreverent, sex positive, body positive, and unashamedly queer/LGBTQ+ clothing that is fun to wear out and about and to take off wherever you end up," as well as swagger-boasting slogans such as "Sex Work is Work," "Rub My Belly," and, of course, hats for both Dad and Son.

Recently, EDGE had the chance to chat with the Daddy Bear as he begins his yearlong reign as North American Bear

EDGE: Congratulations on your title. Tell me about it.

Cliff Boyd: The title I won is North American Bear 2025. It's a contest that's held annually, open to anyone. There are four categories: Bear, Mama Bear, Cub, and Pet. Bear and Cub have been around for a long time, so they require that you have an existing title from somewhere else. Mama Bear and Pet, being new, they're not currently requiring a title, though pretty soon they will.

A few years back, North American Bear went gender neutral on all its titles. Anyone of any gender can compete, though Mama Bear tends to be a person exhibiting those mama qualities of nurturing and loving and being there for you. Pet used to be called Pup, but it has expanded to be any sort of pet play, so you get cats and unicorns and whatever of all genders. This year they actually took the Mister off of the sash, so my sash is a brand-new sash that says North American Bear. It gets handed down each year to the next winner.

EDGE: Like a pageant crown you don't get to keep? I hope you get to keep something.

Cliff Boyd: They give you things to keep. I have a medallion that I'll keep on a leather necklace and a custom-made vest with a patch on the back. But the sash gets handed down like the crown.

EDGE: How did you become North American Bear?

Cliff Boyd: It started with deciding to run for Illinois Bear, which is a statewide contest. I've heard of titles, but I usually thought of them in the leather scene, like Mr. International Leather or Mr. International Rubber. We have Mr. International Rubber here in Chicago annually. I never thought about a contest just for being a bear. A friend of my husband runs the Illinois Bear contest, and he suggested I run, that it would be good for my platform and my business. I looked into what was required of me because I didn't want to win something if I couldn't uphold the expectations. Nothing more embarrassing than having to hand down the sash before your term ends.

EDGE: It worked out for Vanessa Williams.

Cliff Boyd: [Laughs] I guess she did. So I ran for that contest, and it was a tough competition.

EDGE: What are the requirements of the competition?

Cliff Boyd: There are a few different competition areas. One is working the room for raffle sales either by working the bar or the convention center, talking to everyone, getting them to buy raffle tickets for a prize. The money goes to charity. It's all about seeing how you connect with people. You really should talk to the judges; they're sprinkled throughout the crowd. At the Illinois level the judges are anonymous; at the North American Bear they're well known, but it's an 1,800-person event, so they're not easy to find.

EDGE: Is it an all-day event?

Cliff Boyd: It's a three-day contest, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Your personality is one of the things that identifies you. There's a "Truth or Dare" question. They ask you a question on stage, on the spot. You get to choose "Truth" or "Dare."

EDGE: What was yours?

Cliff Boyd: At Illinois Bear, I was asked, what is something that I've not yet accomplished that I'd like to accomplish, and why? My answer was, "I want to win a porn award so that I can write into my Methodist College alumni newsletter and ask them, 'How many of you bitches are still using your theater degree'?" The one for North American Bear I didn't answer. The question was, "What is one secret people don't know you can do during sex?" I fumbled on my answer and thought of 17 better answers as soon as I got off-stage. My answer should've been, "For $9.99 on JustFor.Fans you can find out." I said, "I'm a sex worker. I don't know that I have any secrets."

EDGE: Is there more to the competition after that?

Cliff Boyd: There's an interview with pretty serious job interview sort of questions, where they want to make sure that you're taking this seriously and will be able to uphold the title. In Illinois, they throw in some silly ones, too, just to keep you a little more relaxed. But at North American Bear, it was pretty serious.

And then there's your theme. This year for North American Bear it was "Bears in the Barnyard," so that's whatever you want to dress up with that you feel is on theme. You're also required to perform your fantasy in four minutes on stage. I did a comedy sketch, which was not something that typically gets done. It's usually some sort of dance or pit play set to music. I did a full-spoken sketch. I was an Amish farmer; it was my son's 18th birthday, and time to teach him how to churn his own butter. There was lots of innuendo: "Grip that pole tight, son, but not too tight." I had sprayed whipped cream on the top of his churn and it ended with me dipping my fingers into the whipped cream, licking, and saying, "That's the sweetest boy butter I've tasted since your brother's first time."

EDGE: Brilliant. You did use your theater degree.

Cliff Boyd: It was good. Then there is a speech about what you hope to accomplish should you win the title.

EDGE: What do you do as North American Bear?

Cliff Boyd: There are a couple things that are expected of us. We have to travel to other places to inform and educate people about the contest, what it is we hope to do, and the charities the contest supports. We hold events and do other things to raise awareness and money for the charities we support. They can be local, state, national – whatever it is we want to support. It's a lot of fun. I get to travel all over the country. You also get asked to judge a lot of other contests.

EDGE: What do you do aside from your pageant duties?

Cliff Boyd: I am currently a full-time sex worker. It's a combination of making porn for Justfor.Fans and escort. I also drive Lyft on the side when things are slow.

EDGE: Why is it that JustFor.Fans is the only platform you use?

Cliff Boyd: I started out with OnlyFans, but they don't like my content because my brand is largely dad/son role play, and that's against their rules. They even took down my stuff where I talked about it. I still have [OnlyFans] in case someone wants to film with me. It's easy for them to tag me, but I don't actively use it. I've been JustFor.Fans exclusively for almost two years. I do some short clips and things on PornHub and xHamster just to drive traffic, too.

EDGE: How much content do you create, and how often do you post?

Cliff Boyd: A minimum of a photo every day goes on JustFor.Fans, and a video every week.

EDGE: Who do you typically film with?

Cliff Boyd: My brand is dad/son role play. The other piece of it is I want to make amateur porn of real guys who are actually into each other. I film with anybody who actually wants to film with me, and I want to film with them. It tends to be mostly bears and cubs, but every once in a while there's a sexy otter in there or something else. It's just other content creators. When I was starting out, I filmed a lot more with people who hadn't started making content yet, but now I've been doing it a while that ends up being a lot of headaches. They don't want their face shown, or they change jobs and want you to take the stuff down. I have signed paperwork that says I don't have to, but that's not my personal value. Of course I'll take it down, but it becomes a pain in the butt, so I only film with people who are actively starting or have a current account.

EDGE: How do you meet each other?

Cliff Boyd: A few different ways. You don't just have sex with someone and a video appears. It's work. I spend a lot of time on Bluesky; used to be Twitter (X), but I've gotten off of there now because of our government. If I'm sitting on the couch, unless I'm actively watching TV with my husband, I'm actively scrolling and looking at photos that are hot, seeing what they do. Then I just message people. That's the biggest way. I'm going to the JustFor.Fans anniversary. I'll meet a bunch of people there.

EDGE: Your husband is okay with your work?

Cliff Boyd: We've always had an open relationship, since our first date. I told him I travel a lot and I can promise to be faithful, but a year, two years from now, I'm going to be on a two-week trip somewhere, and I'm going to fail you. I'd rather just make that clear from the beginning. He and I have opposite sex drives. When he's stressed, his sex drive goes far, far away, and he is not interested whatsoever. When I'm stressed, all I want to do is fuck non-stop so I don't have to think about my problems. When the pandemic hit, the two of us were trapped in our house, unable to see anyone else. He set up a perimeter around himself. Don't touch me. And I'm humping the corners of the wall or the couch like JD Vance. That's when I started putting stuff on Twitter, just as an outlet for some sort of sexual expression. I thought I'd be happy if 100 people followed me, but after a little over a year I realized I had 15,000 people following me.

I was driving Lyft at the time, and figured out if only a half of 1% of these people would subscribe and pay for porn, I wouldn't have to drive Lyft any more and I wouldn't have to put us at risk of catching COVID from driving people around. A couple of people who subscribed to my channel asked if they could pay me to have sex with them. I told them I would have to ask my husband, that's a little different. God love him, he is so practical sometimes. He said, "How is getting paid in cash today different than getting paid in subscriptions at the end of the month? You're still having sex with people for money." That's when I started the escorting journey, too. I looked on RentMen here in Chicago, and there wasn't an actual bear on there who is an older man. There were a couple cubs and a couple of muscle bears, but no real bear. I know I'm not what everyone's looking for, but if I am, they're going to be happy to see me because they're not seeing it anywhere else on this platform.

EDGE: Does your extended family know about your work?

Cliff Boyd: I think it's a "don't ask, don't tell" situation with them. I think they know, because they've hinted at a few things. I do some naughty Santa work in the winter, pictures with Santa in a jock strap and a leather Santa cap. My dad made a point of saying, "You know, your mom doesn't get it, and she's just a little more reserved and conservative. But are you making money?" And I said, I said, "Yeah, I'm making money," and he said, "Well, if you're making money, that's all I give a shit about. Keep making it."

EDGE: What about mom?

Cliff Boyd: I told her Cliff Boyd was my competition name. She has a computer, maybe she's Googled it. She was told a long time ago when she asked to be my Facebook friend, in 2008 or something, "You can be, but you're going to see what you're going to see, and you have to be okay with it. I don't want to hear any complaints about it. I'm not scripting because you're on there."

EDGE: Have you ever been trolled by a fan?

Cliff Boyd: It happens all the time. Someone wanting my attention, and when they find out they're not getting it for free, all of a sudden I'm a "fat, ugly faggot." I think you put your $10 down for the subscription, so I wasn't that ugly. Block me. No one's forcing you to look at it. But the one I get the most is people who, for whatever reason, want to give me a hard time about the dad/son incest role play. I always try to respond to them and acknowledge there are different opinions on kink. It's very clear that I am not sleeping with any minors. Everyone I'm with has a lot of facial hair and probably some gray. It's all a fantasy, but I understand that it's not for everyone. A couple of times people shared about a rape trauma, and I asked if they had someone they could talk to about it or if I can help them find someone to talk to, because that kind of trauma needs dealing with.

EDGE: What's the most positive experience you've had?

Cliff Boyd: There's lots of therapy involved, and I've been able to be helpful to a number of men. From the funny side, my favorite moment early on is that I got two different people telling me they were blind and thanked me for being so verbal in my content because it helps them enjoy it. I thought to myself, "Here I am helping the blind having an orgasm." I nearly fainted.

As an escort, I get a lot of men, whether straight or gay, in unfulfilling relationships or are just lonely. They want the sex, but what they really need is being held and told they're attractive and worthwhile. I love doing that. I love when someone leaves after their time with me feeling better about themselves.

EDGE: What would you say to young bears just starting their journeys?

Cliff Boyd: I think what I wish I had done when I was younger was to put myself out there more and find my community. I was so afraid that I isolated myself. Find that chosen family as young as possible. You can do that through activities, through volunteering, whatever it is you're passionate about. Find that place, find those people. They are going to be there for you and lift you up when others disappear.

Click here to visit Cliff Boyd's JustFor.Fans and Click here to visit Cliffboyd.shop. Click here to visit his Instagram.