Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis)

[Paul029]

I thought I should refer back to Dave Cullen’s original post to sort out what we’re actually being asked, and which I’ll tackle first:

Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis) ~ what I meant by gay was: Is the guy primarily attracted to men, sexually (i.e., much more toward men than women).

I use it synonomously with homosexual, a word rarely used in ordinary conversation these days. I had assumed gay had more or less replaced it. I definitely wasn't referring to how masculine vs. effeminate they were, or how they self-identified. I'm interested in what we think they really were inside, not what they were or were not willing to admit out loud at any point in their lives.

We’re asked not how we think Ennis and Jack self-identified, but what we think they “really were, inside.” This suggests that personal identity differs from psychological identity (sense of self, self-cognition or self-awareness), that self-identification is a construct unrelated to, or masking, one’s actual self (the “I,” if you like).

But self-identification is an important aspect of an individual’s persona, it affirms individual identity, the sense of personal selfhood, not only in a communal social/cultural context but also in the context of individual self-cognition. Removing this from the equation would be well-nigh impossible, I think.

The question also suggests that what they “really were, inside” is unconnected to what they “admit out loud,” whether willingly or not. The word “admit” inherently has the condition of unwillingness in the sense that “to admit something” means that “its truth is unwillingly accepted.” The word also presupposes, in the context of the sexuality of Proulx’s characters, that that truth (whatever it may be) has not previously been willingly accepted. (Talk about a loaded question.  )

It assumes not only that we’re somehow able to define Ennis’s and Jack’s respective psychological selves without any reference to what is willingly said, but also what isn’t willingly said, or even said at all, I suppose—which raises the possibility of them failing to discuss Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, or the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle    —as a guide to what they were really like inside.

Self-identity (and self-belief) is surely crucial to a person’s existence and what onlookers (whether in Proulx’s fictional created world, or in the non-fictional world of forum members) may perceive is a different matter. Jack’s and Ennis’s respective self-identities are accepted not only by themselves, and by each other, but also by other characters in the story. As far as the latter are concerned they’re both heterosexual men. Alma may have a few “misgivings,” but she appears to be the exception; even Aguirre, who saw them in action, would probably put their behaviour down to youthful randiness rather than innately homosexual drives.

Well, that’s about it for the question. I’ll next attempt to “decode” Jack’s sexuality.

[Desecra]

I suppose that brings us back to whether Ennis really was avoiding seeing and feeling Jack, or if that was just the construction that Jack put on his memories of that time, twenty years later when he realises that the promise of their time on the mountain never bore fully the fruit that it should have done.



Congratulations from me on your 7000 too.

Thank you!    I still have a bit to go to catch up with you . 

I don't think it depends on that.   You can keep your interpretation, and still believe what I think those passages that were removed from the film are telling us - that Ennis was in a state of "innocence", and thought that they were friends, not lovers, at the time.    The physical avoidance just makes it easier for Ennis to maintain that belief. 

The only reason to think that it's a construction Jack put on the memories is if for some reason, you choose not to "believe" Jack in the first place.  As I was saying to Paul, we tend to believe what Alma "says", even though she has reason to be bitter.    There's no reason not to believe Jack (particularly as what he "says" is backed up by what happens in the FNIT).   If there was physical avoidance of that type, Jack would have noticed at the time.  If there wasn't physical avoidance (or if it was confined to the FNIT), Jack would have had no reason to imagine it later (after all, there were other things that really did happen if he had been looking for something that was wrong with the time on the mountain, such as Ennis refusing to speak about the relationship, or Ennis saying he was going off to get married at the end.  But I don't think he was looking for something wrong.  He was just reminded that Ennis wouldn't .. , etc. when he thought of the DE). 

[Paul029]

Thank you!    I still have a bit to go to catch up with you . 

I don't think it depends on that.   You can keep your interpretation, and still believe what I think those passages that were removed from the film are telling us - that Ennis was in a state of "innocence", and thought that they were friends, not lovers, at the time.    The physical avoidance just makes it easier for Ennis to maintain that belief. 

The only reason to think that it's a construction Jack put on the memories is if for some reason, you choose not to "believe" Jack in the first place.  As I was saying to Paul, we tend to believe what Alma "says", even though she has reason to be bitter.    There's no reason not to believe Jack (particularly as what he "says" is backed up by what happens in the FNIT).   If there was physical avoidance of that type, Jack would have noticed at the time.  If there wasn't physical avoidance (or if it was confined to the FNIT), Jack would have had no reason to imagine it later (after all, there were other things that really did happen if he had been looking for something that was wrong with the time on the mountain, such as Ennis refusing to speak about the relationship, or Ennis saying he was going off to get married at the end.  But I don't think he was looking for something wrong.  He was just reminded that Ennis wouldn't .. , etc. when he thought of the DE). 

I'm not going to get into this again. 
I just wanted to offer my congratulations on your 7000 posts, Des.

[Paul029]

About Jack.

I decided to write about Jack first, simply because as we’re given less information about him than we are about Ennis, deciding his sexual orientation would be relatively easy. (Famous last words!  )

I’ll look only at what Proulx relates during his life, as what we find out after his death is hearsay (i.e. as Jack isn’t around to confirm or deny anything).
While we don’t know about the shirts until Ennis’s visit to LF, they exist, and how they came to be at LF isn’t conjecture, and Ennis’s recollection at LF of what Jack told him about his poor toileting skills doesn’t relate to Jack’s sexuality.

Some psychiatrists, however, believe that, as with basic gender identity (which is “usually formed by age three”), sexual orientation is similarly established in early childhood [1], and if this is the case with Jack, observing his father’s “extra material” may have been a factor. Which, of course, presupposes that Jack is homosexual. On the other hand, a report by The Royal College of Psychiatrists states that “there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation.” [2] So that’s the child abuse out of the way.

Chronologically, rather than according to the narrated sequence of events, and I’m a little unsure of this, it’s possible that the first indication we have regarding his sexuality is Proulx’s odd metaphor that he “rode more than bulls,” which we’re told about in the motel. Whether he’d been riding bulls prior to meeting Ennis, or did so between 1963 and 1967, is unclear; but if the former it suggests that he’d engaged in sexual activity with other boys prior to meeting Ennis, presumably once he’d reached puberty (not unusual with adolescent males, according to Kinsey and “anecdotal” evidence), and then with men (i.e. bulls, rather than calves), possibly on the rodeo circuit.

But, if the latter, then the first indication of his sexuality is the FNIT part of the story, and it was after that that he rode the bulls. (In other words he was a virgin before FNIT, and Ennis was the first man to "pop his cherry.")

The next is that he’d married, and fathered a child, presumably because he loved a “cute little old Texas girl” enough to marry her and start a family. I keep in mind here that Jack, unlike Ennis, was not (as far as we know) already engaged to be married when he took the sheepherding job during which he met Ennis. The riding bulls metaphor raises its head again here, because he did so whilst married.

While we know how Ennis feels when they part at the end of the job on the mountain there’s no indication that Jack thinks he’ll ever meet Ennis again (hence the secreting away of the shirts). I don’t see Jack marrying in order to conform to “societal expectations” (with its suggestion of compulsion), or even marrying on the rebound. Their “summer,” or idyll, is over and he married Lureen because he loved her.

It’s not until four years later that Jack sends a postcard on the off-chance that his friendship with Ennis would be rekindled, and which leads to the reunion on the landing, then to the motel and to the first of many trips together into the wilderness, during one of which he tells Ennis that “he’d had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress.” Whether this is true or not it does indicate that heterosexual intercourse is considered by Jack (and Ennis) as believable behaviour.

The last is when he confirms that whenever Ennis is unavailable he goes to Mexico for what “he needs” (i.e. presumably sexual relief, rather than tamales, tortillas and tequila ).

We know nothing, as far as sexual orientation goes, about Jack’s childhood, and unless I’ve missed something he was raised as a “normal” boy and while at the time of his death he was still married, his post-puberty predilection was for homosexual activity, as indicated by Proulx’s metaphor, and in which he preferred to be the recipient during anal intercourse (based on the FNIT and the jouncing in the motel, about which both Jack and Ennis express some enthusiasm for the sexual positioning of the coupling which had occurred).

It’s during this scene that we learn about Jack “riding more than bulls” and, if he had ridden them after their time on the mountain, rather than before, it could suggest that his introduction to anal sex by Ennis was so enjoyable that he went out hunting for more, even though he was married—well, it’s possible—in order to duplicate the experience (and to imagine that it was Ennis who was the active partner).

If so, and despite Proulx’s coyness about detailing their sexual activities on Brokeback, it could also be taken as read that they engaged solely in “cornholing” and, apart from some affectionate rough-housing and general boyish play, kissing or other demonstrations of affection, such as holding hands, didn’t occur. [3] I think this is logical, as her decision to have the first kiss in the narrative not only occur on the Riverton landing, but also described in some detail, pinpoints it as a major breakthrough for each of them. The reunion kiss is as pivotal a moment, for both men, as the retrospectively narrated DE embrace was for Jack.

But was he homosexual, or was he bisexual?

Presumably Jack loved Lureen when he married her, and continued to do so until his death, but it was a relationship which suffered in comparison to his long-standing and ongoing infatuation [4] with Ennis.  

It seems to me the question is: what were their real drives?

Jack was emotionally involved with Ennis, and apparently more so than with his wife; and he liked male-male sex (even if not with Ennis). But I don’t really see it as a question with a simplistic Yes/No answer. Whether in fiction or in real life people are more complicated than being pigeonholed, or labelled, suggests, and Jack’s sexuality appears to be fluid. He liked sex with men but he liked it best with Ennis, and not because of the sex itself, but what it represented. Although I haven’t specifically referred to “love,” Cullen’s reference to “attraction,” in the physical sense that he intended [5] could be seen to exclude it.

Nevertheless, it’s possible that what could start as a sexual addiction could develop into love, but it could also be described as a deep affection, with sex being the initiating factor, and eventually not the prime ingredient in a relationship. Proulx makes only one oblique reference to sexual activity during the period of sixteen years between the reunion and Jack’s death, and while it’s disputable it’s possible that each fishing trip involved sex, but I doubt it was the “quick, rough, laughing and snorting” sex of that long ago summer of ’63, despite Proulx’s reference to a “brilliant charge.”

I’d have to say that Jack’s sexuality was a fluid mix: initially heterosexual (or even neuter) until FNIT and the rest of the summer of 1963 (getting his rocks off with another boy); married, with a son, while also seeking sexual satisfaction with ‘bulls;’ maintaining an irregular and infrequent emotional & sexual friendship over sixteen years with Ennis while popping down to Mexico between fishing trips; and then he dies, his last thoughts a recollected memory of once being affectionately embraced, with sex not part of the equation.

Was he “primarily attracted to men?” No, not to men, to one man.
 
“What was his drive?” He desired to be loved by one man, and to live with him in harmony, “suspended above ordinary affairs.”
Jack was a Romantic dreamer, always yearning for the impossible.

“Was he gay?” No. He was just a man who loved another man.
Defining and labelling him on the basis of “sexuality,” while an easy way out, undeservedly belittles him.

Proulx wasn’t writing about a stereotype—Jack didn’t see himself as “queer.”

[1] “Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. In recent decades, biologically based theories have been favored by experts. Although there continues to be controversy and uncertainty as to the genesis of the variety of human sexual orientations, there is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. Current knowledge suggests that sexual orientation is usually established during early childhood.” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2004.)

[2] “Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation. It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment.” (The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2007.)

[3] It’d be unusual, I think, for heterosexual adolescent boys to intentionally kiss, and especially so if exchanging saliva was involved. It’d be an instinctively automatic no-no, especially for unsophisticated rural lads at the time. I wonder whether they wiped the top of the quart of whiskey they shared during that high-time supper by the fire.
 
[4] If “I wish I knew how to quit you” doesn’t indicate infatuation, I’d like to know what does.  

[5] "Is the guy primarily attracted to men, sexually?"

[Cally]

About Jack.

I decided to write about Jack first, simply because as we’re given less information about him than we are about Ennis, deciding his sexual orientation would be relatively easy. (Famous last words!  )

I’ll look only at what Proulx relates during his life, as what we find out after his death is hearsay (i.e. as Jack isn’t around to confirm or deny anything).
While we don’t know about the shirts until Ennis’s visit to LF, they exist, and how they came to be at LF isn’t conjecture, and Ennis’s recollection at LF of what Jack told him about his poor toileting skills doesn’t relate to Jack’s sexuality.

Some psychiatrists, however, believe that, as with basic gender identity (which is “usually formed by age three”), sexual orientation is similarly established in early childhood [1], and if this is the case with Jack, observing his father’s “extra material” may have been a factor. Which, of course, presupposes that Jack is homosexual. On the other hand, a report by The Royal College of Psychiatrists states that “there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation.” [2] So that’s the child abuse out of the way.

Chronologically, rather than according to the narrated sequence of events, and I’m a little unsure of this, it’s possible that the first indication we have regarding his sexuality is Proulx’s odd metaphor that he “rode more than bulls,” which we’re told about in the motel. Whether he’d been riding bulls prior to meeting Ennis, or did so between 1963 and 1967, is unclear; but if the former it suggests that he’d engaged in sexual activity with other boys prior to meeting Ennis, presumably once he’d reached puberty (not unusual with adolescent males, according to Kinsey and “anecdotal” evidence), and then with men (i.e. bulls, rather than calves), possibly on the rodeo circuit.

But, if the latter, then the first indication of his sexuality is the FNIT part of the story, and it was after that that he rode the bulls. (In other words he was a virgin before FNIT, and Ennis was the first man to "pop his cherry.")

The next is that he’d married, and fathered a child, presumably because he loved a “cute little old Texas girl” enough to marry her and start a family. I keep in mind here that Jack, unlike Ennis, was not (as far as we know) already engaged to be married when he took the sheepherding job during which he met Ennis. The riding bulls metaphor raises its head again here, because he did so whilst married.

While we know how Ennis feels when they part at the end of the job on the mountain there’s no indication that Jack thinks he’ll ever meet Ennis again (hence the secreting away of the shirts). I don’t see Jack marrying in order to conform to “societal expectations” (with its suggestion of compulsion), or even marrying on the rebound. Their “summer,” or idyll, is over and he married Lureen because he loved her.It’s not until four years later that Jack sends a postcard on the off-chance that his friendship with Ennis would be rekindled, and which leads to the reunion on the landing, then to the motel and to the first of many trips together into the wilderness, during one of which he tells Ennis that “he’d had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress.” Whether this is true or not it does indicate that heterosexual intercourse is considered by Jack (and Ennis) as believable behaviour.

The last is when he confirms that whenever Ennis is unavailable he goes to Mexico for what “he needs” (i.e. presumably sexual relief, rather than tamales, tortillas and tequila ).

We know nothing, as far as sexual orientation goes, about Jack’s childhood, and unless I’ve missed something he was raised as a “normal” boy and while at the time of his death he was still married, his post-puberty predilection was for homosexual activity, as indicated by Proulx’s metaphor, and in which he preferred to be the recipient during anal intercourse (based on the FNIT and the jouncing in the motel, about which both Jack and Ennis express some enthusiasm for the sexual positioning of the coupling which had occurred).

It’s during this scene that we learn about Jack “riding more than bulls” and, if he had ridden them after their time on the mountain, rather than before, it could suggest that his introduction to anal sex by Ennis was so enjoyable that he went out hunting for more, even though he was married—well, it’s possible—in order to duplicate the experience (and to imagine that it was Ennis who was the active partner).

If so, and despite Proulx’s coyness about detailing their sexual activities on Brokeback, it could also be taken as read that they engaged solely in “cornholing” and, apart from some affectionate rough-housing and general boyish play, kissing or other demonstrations of affection, such as holding hands, didn’t occur. [3] I think this is logical, as her decision to have the first kiss in the narrative not only occur on the Riverton landing, but also described in some detail, pinpoints it as a major breakthrough for each of them. The reunion kiss is as pivotal a moment, for both men, as the retrospectively narrated DE embrace was for Jack.

But was he homosexual, or was he bisexual?

Presumably Jack loved Lureen when he married her, and continued to do so until his death, but it was a relationship which suffered in comparison to his long-standing and ongoing infatuation [4] with Ennis. 
Jack was emotionally involved with Ennis, and apparently more so than with his wife; and he liked male-male sex (even if not with Ennis). But I don’t really see it as a question with a simplistic Yes/No answer. Whether in fiction or in real life people are more complicated than being pigeonholed, or labelled, suggests, and Jack’s sexuality appears to be fluid. He liked sex with men but he liked it best with Ennis, and not because of the sex itself, but what it represented. Although I haven’t specifically referred to “love,” Cullen’s reference to “attraction,” in the physical sense that he intended [5] could be seen to exclude it.

Nevertheless, it’s possible that what could start as a sexual addiction could develop into love, but it could also be described as a deep affection, with sex being the initiating factor, and eventually not the prime ingredient in a relationship. Proulx makes only one oblique reference to sexual activity during the period of sixteen years between the reunion and Jack’s death, and while it’s disputable it’s possible that each fishing trip involved sex, but I doubt it was the “quick, rough, laughing and snorting” sex of that long ago summer of ’63, despite Proulx’s reference to a “brilliant charge.”

I’d have to say that Jack’s sexuality was a fluid mix: initially heterosexual (or even neuter) until FNIT and the rest of the summer of 1963 (getting his rocks off with another boy); married, with a son, while also seeking sexual satisfaction with ‘bulls;’ maintaining an irregular and infrequent emotional & sexual friendship over sixteen years with Ennis while popping down to Mexico between fishing trips; and then he dies, his last thoughts a recollected memory of once being affectionately embraced, with sex not part of the equation.Was he “primarily attracted to men?” No, not to men, to one man.
 
“What was his drive?” He desired to be loved by one man, and to live with him in harmony, “suspended above ordinary affairs.”
Jack was a Romantic dreamer, always yearning for the impossible.

“Was he gay?” No. He was just a man who loved another man.
Defining and labelling him on the basis of “sexuality,” while an easy way out, undeservedly belittles him.
Proulx wasn’t writing about a stereotype—Jack didn’t see himself as “queer.”

[1] “Sexual orientation probably is not determined by any one factor but by a combination of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences. In recent decades, biologically based theories have been favored by experts. Although there continues to be controversy and uncertainty as to the genesis of the variety of human sexual orientations, there is no scientific evidence that abnormal parenting, sexual abuse, or other adverse life events influence sexual orientation. Current knowledge suggests that sexual orientation is usually established during early childhood.” (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2004.)

[2] “Despite almost a century of psychoanalytic and psychological speculation, there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation. It would appear that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by a complex interplay of genetic factors and the early uterine environment.” (The Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2007.)

[3] It’d be unusual, I think, for heterosexual adolescent boys to intentionally kiss, and especially so if exchanging saliva was involved. It’d be an instinctively automatic no-no, especially for unsophisticated rural lads at the time. I wonder whether they wiped the top of the quart of whiskey they shared during that high-time supper by the fire.
 
[4] If “I wish I knew how to quit you” doesn’t indicate infatuation, I’d like to know what does. 

[5] "Is the guy primarily attracted to men, sexually?"

Initial reactions:

You've put a lot of thought and research into this, Paul, but there are several things I want to take issue on.
a. Where's the evidence that Jack loved Lureen, or - if he did love her, and he may well have done - what kind of love this was? Why do you think that he wasn't just doing what was expected of a young man, in the same way that Ennis did? And a rich daddy may have been an added attraction. Several gay men on the forum have said performing sexually with women is not necessarily a problem - he may have enjoyed it, but we don't know either way. (He says later that he never actually wanted children, "but fuck-all has worked the way I wanted".)

b. We certainly don't know that Jack's last thoughts were of the DE. They are just the last thoughts that the reader is privy to.

c. Why would it belittle any man to be described as gay?  Who says he is defined and labelled by it?  Sexuality is just one aspect of a person, but it is central to one's identity.  However we answer the question "Were they gay?", and it seems to me to be a valid question, I don't think any one of us on this forum would be offering the answer as a value judgment. To me, saying - in an appropriate context - that someone is gay, straight or bisexual, is merely stating what one believes is true about that area of their life (complex subject though it is, of course).

[fofol]

For any newbies, the answer to the question, "Were they gay?" meaning were they primarily attracted to men, can only be yes: Ennis lost his wife because he paid more attention to his male lover, Jack; Jack, a married man with a son, said that nothing ever came to his hand the way he wanted, complaining that he did not live full-time with Ennis, on a ranch.  So, once again,yes, Jack was primarily attracted to Ennis, a man, and Ennis was primarily attracted to Jack, another man.  Brokeback mountain is not, unless you want it to be, a study in sexuality.  The author, in fact, stated for many years that the love story was not her interest in writing the story, rather her subject was the destructiveness of the kind of homophobia - irrational hatred of gay men -  she found in ultra-rural Wyoming, where she lived.  She chose to write a story about homphobia that focussed on two men who had a love affair that lasted at least twenty years.  So, yes Virginia, they were gay.

[Paul029]

Initial reactions:

You've put a lot of thought and research into this, Paul, but there are several things I want to take issue on.

That’s fine, Sara. It’ll allow me to provide clarification as needed. 
The original post “grew like Topsy,” unfortunately. 

...[Jack had] married, and fathered a child, presumably because he loved a “cute little old Texas girl” enough to marry her and start a family. ... I don’t see Jack marrying in order to conform to “societal expectations” (with its suggestion of compulsion), or even marrying on the rebound. Their “summer,” or idyll, is over and he married Lureen because he loved her.

a. Where's the evidence that Jack loved Lureen, or - if he did love her, and he may well have done - what kind of love this was? Why do you think that he wasn't just doing what was expected of a young man, in the same way that Ennis did? And a rich daddy may have been an added attraction. Several gay men on the forum have said performing sexually with women is not necessarily a problem - he may have enjoyed it, but we don't know either way. (He says later that he never actually wanted children, "but fuck-all has worked the way I wanted".)

• Why should it be assumed that Jack didn’t love his wife when he married her? Reading the story afresh, and chronologically, Jack gives no indication at the reunion with Ennis that his feelings for Lureen were, and still are, otherwise.

•  What is there in the story to say that Jack was doing what was “expected?” There’s no reference to an engagement, and marriage, at nineteen, as in Ennis’s case. If there was some reluctance on Jack’s part to doing what was expected don’t you think that it would have been mentioned? Why should it be assumed?

• I’m unsure why you ask ‘What kind of love this was?’  What sort did you think I meant? 

• The “rich daddy” was a skinflint who, as Jack says, “don’t let [Lureen] have none of the money,” and who “wouldn’t give me a dime if I dropped [rodeoing], except one way.” He clarifies this later by saying, “Lureen’s old man, you bet he’d give me a bunch to get lost. Already more or less said it—” So, despite the possibility of being paid to leave, Jack remained with Lureen. What do you think that means?

• Regarding what “several gay men on the forum have said,” I made no reference suggesting that Jack had a problem with heterosexual sex.

• Jack prefaces his comment with information about the now-sour state of his marriage—“goddamn Lureen” refuses to admit their son has a problem, possibly dyslexia—but he’s also evaluating his life, and the way it’s turned out (his “vague managerial title” suggests something second rate, “Lureen had the money and called the shots”). But he’s also discontent with the life he hasn’t had with Ennis (“We could a had a good life together, a fucking real good life. You wouldn’t do it, Ennis...”) His “fuck-all has worked the way I wanted" isn’t restricted to his married life, but includes his relationship with Ennis. Things haven’t worked out the way he wanted. It has little, if anything, to with his marriage to Lureen sixteen or so years earlier, nor the birth of his son a year later.

Incidentally, thank you for alerting me to an idealistic overstatement on my part. 

I wrote that “Presumably Jack loved Lureen when he married her, and continued to do so until his death, but it was a relationship which suffered in comparison to his long-standing and ongoing infatuation with Ennis.”
My original intention was to say “Presumably Jack loved Lureen when he married her, but the light in their marriage faded, and suffered in comparison to his long-standing and ongoing infatuation with Ennis.”

[Paul029]

... and then he dies, his last thoughts a recollected memory of once being affectionately embraced, with sex not part of the equation.

b. We certainly don't know that Jack's last thoughts were of the DE. They are just the last thoughts that the reader is privy to.

Excuse me for saying so, Sara, but that’s precisely what they are.

If you’re privy to any further direct thoughts of his I’d like to know where, and what, they are. 

[Paul029]

“Was he gay?” No. He was just a man who loved another man.
Defining and labelling him on the basis of “sexuality,” while an easy way out, undeservedly belittles him.

c. Why would it belittle any man to be described as gay?  Who says he is defined and labelled by it?  Sexuality is just one aspect of a person, but it is central to one's identity.  However we answer the question "Were they gay?", and it seems to me to be a valid question, I don't think any one of us on this forum would be offering the answer as a value judgment. To me, saying - in an appropriate context - that someone is gay, straight or bisexual, is merely stating what one believes is true about that area of their life (complex subject though it is, of course).

Jack Twist isn’t “any man,” Sara, he’s a particular man (even though a fictional construct), and I wasn’t referring to people in general.
And, in the context in which I used the word, being "defined and labelled" solely on his (perceived) sexuality reduces (i.e. belittles) his individuality.
Pigeon-holing him into a blanket category (another is “boat people”) in this way ignores that his sexuality was fluid.

He deserves more than that, and describing him as (solely and absolutely) “gay” diminishes him as a person, in that his psychologically complex nature is flattened to a single “type” of sexuality.
A comparison would be a hand plane riding over and shaving off the high spots on a piece of wood, reducing it to a smooth, uniformly flat surface.
It’s easily done, of course, as I said, but I don’t see Jack in that simplistic way.

The question “were they gay” is a global one, and doesn’t take into account that people change over time.
(My post regarding the actual question refers to this, but perhaps too obliquely.)
I’ve attempted to address the issue of temporal transformation with my comments regarding Jack’s childhood and teenage years.
But (apparently) the general opinion here is that Jack was “gay” from the moment he was born, which is a view I do not hold. 

I also said that ‘Proulx wasn’t writing about a stereotype—Jack didn’t see himself as “queer.”’
Perhaps I should have expanded that to indicate that I agreed with him, but I would have thought that that was clear.
I apologise for not being articulate enough. 

[Desecra]

I enjoyed your post, Paul, and there's bits that made me think, bits I agree with, and bits I disagree with (as usual!).

Some psychiatrists, however, believe that, as with basic gender identity (which is “usually formed by age three”), sexual orientation is similarly established in early childhood [1], and if this is the case with Jack, observing his father’s “extra material” may have been a factor. Which, of course, presupposes that Jack is homosexual. On the other hand, a report by The Royal College of Psychiatrists states that “there is no substantive evidence to support the suggestion that the nature of parenting or early childhood experiences play any role in the formation of a person's fundamental heterosexual or homosexual orientation.” [2] So that’s the child abuse out of the way.

Agreed, but I think you're missing the point (if you don't mind my saying).  What starts to form at three, is not Jack's sexuality but his attitude.    He finds out he is different, and because of that he can't get it right with his father.   Later, I suppose, he has the same attitude to being different in other ways (i.e. being gay).   Ennis thinks of that story when he finds out that Jack was replacing him with the RN - I think that's the point it dawns on Ennis that Jack felt he couldn't get it right with Ennis (because he was different/gay), because Ennis never did accept Jack's sexuality (he was angry about it at the last meeting).  

So, no, the childhood scene didn't form his sexuality, but it did start to form his attitude to his difference.  And that helps to explain why he acted as he did (including why he kept quiet on the mountain and stole the shirts in secret - which is the next bit of information we come across).

While we know how Ennis feels when they part at the end of the job on the mountain there’s no indication that Jack thinks he’ll ever meet Ennis again (hence the secreting away of the shirts). I don’t see Jack marrying in order to conform to “societal expectations” (with its suggestion of compulsion), or even marrying on the rebound. Their “summer,” or idyll, is over and he married Lureen because he loved her.

There are also the hints of danger on the rodeo circuit.   Jack couldn't say to Ennis that he was at risk because of being gay, but he probably was.  He comes out with a whole catalogue of injuries and then says that he's getting out while he can still walk.   There was also the abject poverty that he was living in, and the fact that Lureen came from a family with money.   There are other reasons that Jack could have felt like marrying a girl he liked, perhaps even loved, but wasn't sexually attracted to.   (And I agree, we're not told the details, so he could have been sexually attracted to her.   But we're shown that he seeks out men - Ennis, the rodeo guys, the business trips, Mexico, the ranch neighbour.    I'd need to see something definite about attraction to a woman to convince me that he was anything other than gay).  

It’s not until four years later that Jack sends a postcard on the off-chance that his friendship with Ennis would be rekindled, and which leads to the reunion on the landing, then to the motel and to the first of many trips together into the wilderness, during one of which he tells Ennis that “he’d had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress.” Whether this is true or not it does indicate that heterosexual intercourse is considered by Jack (and Ennis) as believable behaviour.

But then, when the truth comes out about Jack's sexuality, it's "no news".    I don't think Ennis ever does believe that Jack was having an affair with a woman, although he might have tried to believe it at the time.   I'm sure that at LF he thinks it's a man.  

We know nothing, as far as sexual orientation goes, about Jack’s childhood, and unless I’ve missed something he was raised as a “normal” boy and while at the time of his death he was still married, his post-puberty predilection was for homosexual activity, as indicated by Proulx’s metaphor, and in which he preferred to be the recipient during anal intercourse (based on the FNIT and the jouncing in the motel, about which both Jack and Ennis express some enthusiasm for the sexual positioning of the coupling which had occurred).

It’s during this scene that we learn about Jack “riding more than bulls” and, if he had ridden them after their time on the mountain, rather than before, it could suggest that his introduction to anal sex by Ennis was so enjoyable that he went out hunting for more, even though he was married—well, it’s possible—in order to duplicate the experience (and to imagine that it was Ennis who was the active partner).

We don't really know what he preferred.   We only "see" one sex scene between then.  Jack tries to get Ennis to touch him, and Ennis insists on anal sex with Jack as the recipient.   Jack enjoyed it (as many people do!), but there's nothing to say it was a preference of his.    It was something that worked for them.

It's possible that Jack had sex with men to recreate a particular sexual experience with Ennis, but I think it's more likely that he was attracted to men, i.e. gay.  

I’d have to say that Jack’s sexuality was a fluid mix: initially heterosexual (or even neuter) until FNIT and the rest of the summer of 1963 (getting his rocks off with another boy); married, with a son, while also seeking sexual satisfaction with ‘bulls;’ maintaining an irregular and infrequent emotional & sexual friendship over sixteen years with Ennis while popping down to Mexico between fishing trips; and then he dies, his last thoughts a recollected memory of once being affectionately embraced, with sex not part of the equation.

There's no hint of him being heterosexual (or neuter!) before the FNIT.   There is plenty to tell us he's gay.   The only "evidence" for an attraction to women is the fact that he gets married and fathers a child.   But then so does Ennis, and we can see from the scenes with Alma that Ennis isn't attracted to her.  (In the film, the RN is shown to be married too).    As AP has said, gay men did get married and have children.   It didn't change their sexuality.  

What we see is gay guy who doesn't view his sexuality positively.   There may have been some youthful sexual experiences (it wasn't his first summer on Brokeback), he falls in love with a man, he goes on to have sex with other men.  He's in difficult circumstances and sees the change of a married, "normal" life and goes for it.  He has a child but shortly after rekindles the romance with a man, then continues to have sex with men up until his death.  

Proulx wasn’t writing about a stereotype—Jack didn’t see himself as “queer.”

No, he didn't promote himself to Ennis as "queer".   I think it would have been quite different if Ennis had said that he'd had thoughts of doing it with men and did Jack feel the same way?  But Ennis maintains that he's straight and acts straight throughout the story.   He gets in a rage when Jack finally admits that he's done it with other men, so it looks like Jack's assumption that Ennis wouldn't accept his sexuality is right.   Jack knew that he was gay, but knew that meant he couldn't get it right with Ennis.

[Cally]

b. We certainly don't know that Jack's last thoughts were of the DE. They are just the last thoughts that the reader is privy to.
Excuse me for saying so, Sara, but that’s precisely what they are.

If you’re privy to any further direct thoughts of his I’d like to know where, and what, they are. 

I'm not sure what you mean here, Paul.  We have no idea what Jack's last thoughts were.

[Paul029]

I'm not sure whay you mean here, Paul....

Whay?  

We have no idea what Jack's last thoughts were.

I do—the ones Proulx thought that we needed to know.

[Cally]

• Why should it be assumed that Jack didn’t love his wife when he married her? Reading the story afresh, and chronologically, Jack gives no indication at the reunion with Ennis that his feelings for Lureen were, and still are, otherwise.

•  What is there in the story to say that Jack was doing what was “expected?” There’s no reference to an engagement, and marriage, at nineteen, as in Ennis’s case. If there was some reluctance on Jack’s part to doing what was expected don’t you think that it would have been mentioned? Why should it be assumed?

• I’m unsure why you ask ‘What kind of love this was?’  What sort did you think I meant? 

I wasn't assuming anything, Paul - I just wondered why you were? 

As for the 'kind of love': there can be many kinds of love in a marriage and we're not given any clue early on as to what Jack felt for Lureen when he go married her (his later disillusionment is evident). But there is nothing to indicate that he was passionately and sexually in love with her, i.e. no evidence positive, or negative, that he was bisexual.

[Cally]

Whay? 

Thank you

[Paul029]

I wasn't assuming anything, Paul - I just wondered why you were? 

As one does... 

As for the 'kind of love': there can be many kinds of love in a marriage and we're not given any clue early on as to what Jack felt for Lureen when he go married her (his later disillusionment is evident). But there is nothing to indicate that he was passionately and sexually in love with her, i.e. no evidence positive, or negative, that he was bisexual.

Okay, make it complicated. Why not?