Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis)

[janjo]

Quote from Paul

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.

End quote

As you might expect, I do take exception to this point. I am not sure that Annie Proulx was coy about Jack and Ennis' sexual activities on Brokeback. She tells us what we need to know, and does not linger upon what may be assumed or not assumed.
She does however describe a prelapsarian idyll in which Jack and Ennis were above and disconected from real life affairs. This state of idyllic love, neither includes or prohibits any kind of physical activity, so we would be wrong to assume anything.
The first kiss that is described to us is at the reunion, but it is not at all certain that it is the first kiss that they ever indulged in, and we are in no way required to think it is.
In fact the screen writers expressly didn't use it as a physically pivotal moment, with as far as we know, no protests from the author.  

[janjo]

Lastly: he loved a “cute little old Texas girl” enough to marry her and start a family

Once again, I see no evidence for this. We do, of course, know that Jack married Lureen, but the nature of any affection he may have had for her is unknown. Maybe he married her for her money, or for security, or because although he knew full well, (which he seemed to do) that he preferred men, because they were good friends and he thought they could make it work. It would be nice to think that people always marry for love, but I am afraid it is far from the case.
He also has a son, when he says he never wanted children, which may well be an indication that he would have preferred a long term relationship with Ennis, where the begetting of children would not have been an issue.


Thank you Paul, for your postings and your research, which has been most interesting.

[royandronnie]

A short story necessarily leaves out many things even when it only covers a short period of time. Brokeback Mountain covers twenty years, yet is only 35 pages, so we know most of their lives are not recorded, nor even most of their relationship. It follows that whatever the author chose to reveal to us is important to how she'd like us to understand her characters, though it's also clear she's chosen an impressionistic, rather than photorealistic style: that is, while from a distance it's obvious that we're seeing two male cowboys having a love affair, when we get close, we see that the details are little more than blots of color, and not reams of information. So we're left to make our own interpretations.

That said, I think we are given enough color to make accurate conclusions, and one of those conclusions, because of the nature of the story, regards the sexuality of Ennis and Jack. What seems to hang people up in dealing with this question is, not unnaturally, the huge emotional loading most if not all of us must wade through when we use the word "homosexual." Each of us must decide how we feel about this word and how it applies to those to whom it applies.

THAT said, it's not, in this case, a value judgement to describe Ennis and Jack as homosexual. Because there is an utterly consistent through-line from the first words to the last: their energies are reserved for each other. No one else. Neither is shown as having any attraction to women, nor any guilt about cheating on their wives to be with each other, and even Ennis' love for his children is hardly unconditional, because story Ennis is prepared to abandon them when he's outed by Alma. This whole debate exists only because at no point does Annie announce to us in any way directly that they were homosexual. But, unlike the question of Jack quitting, them kissing on BB, or how Jack died, it's not really left nebulous. We are shown their relationships with their wives, directly in Ennis' case, indirectly in Jack's. The Ennis-Alma sex scene is almost gross, it's so clinical and perfunctory. And Jack's only thoughts about his wife are linked with money worries and irritation that she won't take care of Bobby properly--leaving Jack out of it. It would be so easy to have written Ennis as torn by guilt as he pursues a relationship he doesn't really want but needs. He's not. He's torn by worries about being homosexual, and being discovered and murdered. Jack would leave Lureen in a heartbeat, son and all, if Ennis would live with him. The women mean nothing to them. Meanwhile, though there's perhaps some room for debate in that Ennis is never seen to be interested in men besides Jack (I don't have a problem with that myself), it's clear that when Jack wants sexual relief, he doesn't turn to other women. He turns to other men. And, since we don't know what sexual acts he engages in with those other men, we can't say he's simply recreating Ennis-style sex. (Indeed, at no point can we say what they did and didn't do at any point in their relationship. It's purest speculation.) The thing is that they don't have the same need to be with women that they have to be with each other. Even Ennis' final foray into hetero sex is qualified by the woman's "problems." The story spends most of its time examining their relationship with each other. Alma has two scenes, Lureen has one, Jack's parents get one. No child or other partner gets so much as a word. The primary emotional relationship these two men have in their lives is with each other. Everyone else is peripheral. In that much, the story is clear. Ennis and Jack, however they frustrate and hurt each other, are alive only when together. Nobody else matters much to them.

That being the case--and I think it would be hard to make a case for the importance of the marginalized children, much less Linda Higgins and Aguirre--it's pretty hard to make a case that either had any serious interest in women. We'd all like to avoid labels, but we also need words to bring everyone together on the same page. And in this case, the word is pretty clearly "homosexual." Or, if you prefer a less loaded term, "isosexual." And that is what I believe them to be.

[Paul029]

My apologies for backtracking two pages, Des.  

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).

I don’t understand this.
What do you mean by saying that his attitude to difference started to form at “about three or four” years of age?
What has physical difference to do with sexuality difference?

Also, Ennis remembers the story because it supports his perception of the old man's attitude, and his interpretation of what he's being told.

With respect, are you tailoring the scene to fit your already determined opinion that Jack was "gay?"
Or, that because Ennis (with all his problems) thinks it, he must be right?
The old man certainly hit the bulls-eye, and Ennis was a perfect (i.e. susceptible) target.

[Paul029]

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.

Probably was? Isn't it possible that what he said had no hidden meaning at all, that he "wanted out" for the reasons he gave?

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.)

Well, whether these were factors or not, I decided he married her for the usual reason. 

But we're shown that he seeks out men - Ennis, the rodeo guys, the business trips, Mexico, the ranch neighbour.

I don’t hold with the “business trips” being sex-related.
He probably just got drunk on whiskey. “He drank a lot,” as Lureen said.

I'll leave the RN out of it, if I may. 

(I'd need to see something definite about attraction to a woman to convince me that he was anything other than gay).

There you go again. 
Okay, so there's nothing "definite about attraction to a woman."
But why should you draw that conclusion?

Lots of men marry women without being "attracted" to them (and vice versa).
Or is it different in "real life?"

No wonder there's so many divorces in the US.

[Paul029]

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.  

Actually, the truth comes out about his behaviour, not his sexuality. 

I only mentioned the ranch neighbour’s wife issue because it’s implicity sexually-related.
Whether either of them believed it wasn’t the point I was making.

Ennis may not believe it, but he doesn’t indicate that he doesn’t, and what OMT says about a RN, and how Ennis interprets it, is beside the point, as I was talking about Jack, not Ennis. 

[Paul029]

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 think he was attracted solely to Ennis, not “men.”
Do you think he went to Mexico to find someone who’d agree to starting a little C&C operation with him?
(Sorry, Des. Bad question.  )

I thought I should add here that, although I may sound as if I have everything “worked out,” it’s not the case.
My thoughts on the question of “Were they gay?” are evolving.

[Paul029]

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 a 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.

We don’t know that he “continues to have sex with men up until his death,” Des.

[Paul029]

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.

Some interesting points here, Des, which I’ll tackle separately:

• Jack clearly says that he doesn’t do it with other men: “Shit no, you know that. Old Brokeback got us good...” but four years earlier he’d also said their sex on the mountain was “A one-shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.”
Although the Narrator slips in, after his 1967 denial, that Jack had been riding more than bulls, I think what’s happening here is that his friendship with Ennis is still “above ordinary affairs.”
He may ride more than bulls, but in his mind it’s for sexual relief, as he does later in Mexico.
Neither the bulls nor Mexico signify.
Interestingly, Ennis prefaces his question with “I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you.”
I’d suggest that Jack’s riding more than bulls is his version of Ennis’s “wringing it out;” and, as I suggested earlier, what he does in Mexico is similarly Ennis-related.
As Ennis thinks about Jack while masturbating, Jack thinks about Ennis while ... (well, you know).

• Your comment about Ennis acting straight throughout the story is equally applicable to Jack.

• Ennis gets in a rage because of Jack’s admission about his behaviour (which Ennis understands could result in his death), not his sexuality.

• Jack’s “assumption that Ennis wouldn’t accept his sexuality” sounds rather like a circular argument, based on your own assumption that Jack’s sexuality was an issue in the first place.

• But Ennis’s rage, which results in his standing “as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing (etc etc)” and then falling to his knees, is propelled by Jack’s “I wish I knew how to quit you.”
It’s this final statement that brings Ennis to his knees.
Not Jack’s “Hell yes, I been [to Mexico]”, but his subsequent and strong denouncement of their relationship because “You wouldn’t do it, Ennis.” (i.e. have “a fucking real good life together.”)
What Jack had done was to confront Ennis with his hitherto-denied homosexuality. And it was Ennis himself, ironically, who had lit the fuse, and brought about the unplanned backfiring in his face.

(Dammit! I think I’ve just said Ennis was “gay.”     Must ponder on this...)

• Jack knowing “he was gay” is something new to me, Des, and “getting it right with Ennis” had little to do with Jack and everything to do with Ennis.
He couldn’t get it right with Ennis because of who Ennis was.
Poor Jack.
I could take this further, but will wait for feedback first...

[Paul029]

Thank you, Des.
But you are coming at things backwards, so to speak, with your mind already made up, aren't you?  

Yes, in the sense that when I first read the story I thought of them as gay, and haven't seen anything to tell me otherwise.   But I do think that their behaviour has to be seen in the context of the time and place, when the default position for gay men was to hide their sexuality and pretend to be straight.

Well, I saw the film first, then read the story. What came across for me in the film had little to do with homosexuality (although I could see how it could be so) and the story confirmed it.

That's why (to believe Jack was straight/bi) I'd have to see behaviour that showed actual attraction to women, rather than behaviour that showed him hiding his sexuality and pretending to be straight.  

Well, there’s little of that, as we appeared to agree—but then I wasn’t suggesting he was bisexual.

[Paul029]

Paul, how did you answer the survey question at the top of this thread.
The poll that is there?  

No, Lyle, I haven’t voted on the poll.
I’ll wait until I’m ready to cast my vote (if I decide to vote at all, that is).

I thought it’d be better for me to decide, after discussion here, which of the available options would be most suitable, but I distrust “polls,” as they not only provide solely the views of those who are interested in presenting them, they’re also prone to be misleading.
For instance, while the poll tally indicates 650 votes have been cast, the listed votes amount to 696.

Perhaps some members voted twice?

[Cally]

A short story necessarily leaves out many things even when it only covers a short period of time. Brokeback Mountain covers twenty years, yet is only 35 pages, so we know most of their lives are not recorded, nor even most of their relationship. It follows that whatever the author chose to reveal to us is important to how she'd like us to understand her characters, though it's also clear she's chosen an impressionistic, rather than photorealistic style: that is, while from a distance it's obvious that we're seeing two male cowboys having a love affair, when we get close, we see that the details are little more than blots of color, and not reams of information. So we're left to make our own interpretations.

That said, I think we are given enough color to make accurate conclusions, and one of those conclusions, because of the nature of the story, regards the sexuality of Ennis and Jack. What seems to hang people up in dealing with this question is, not unnaturally, the huge emotional loading most if not all of us must wade through when we use the word "homosexual." Each of us must decide how we feel about this word and how it applies to those to whom it applies.

THAT said, it's not, in this case, a value judgement to describe Ennis and Jack as homosexual. Because there is an utterly consistent through-line from the first words to the last: their energies are reserved for each other. No one else. Neither is shown as having any attraction to women, nor any guilt about cheating on their wives to be with each other, and even Ennis' love for his children is hardly unconditional, because story Ennis is prepared to abandon them when he's outed by Alma. This whole debate exists only because at no point does Annie announce to us in any way directly that they were homosexual. But, unlike the question of Jack quitting, them kissing on BB, or how Jack died, it's not really left nebulous. We are shown their relationships with their wives, directly in Ennis' case, indirectly in Jack's. The Ennis-Alma sex scene is almost gross, it's so clinical and perfunctory. And Jack's only thoughts about his wife are linked with money worries and irritation that she won't take care of Bobby properly--leaving Jack out of it. It would be so easy to have written Ennis as torn by guilt as he pursues a relationship he doesn't really want but needs. He's not. He's torn by worries about being homosexual, and being discovered and murdered. Jack would leave Lureen in a heartbeat, son and all, if Ennis would live with him. The women mean nothing to them. Meanwhile, though there's perhaps some room for debate in that Ennis is never seen to be interested in men besides Jack (I don't have a problem with that myself), it's clear that when Jack wants sexual relief, he doesn't turn to other women. He turns to other men. And, since we don't know what sexual acts he engages in with those other men, we can't say he's simply recreating Ennis-style sex. (Indeed, at no point can we say what they did and didn't do at any point in their relationship. It's purest speculation.) The thing is that they don't have the same need to be with women that they have to be with each other. Even Ennis' final foray into hetero sex is qualified by the woman's "problems." The story spends most of its time examining their relationship with each other. Alma has two scenes, Lureen has one, Jack's parents get one. No child or other partner gets so much as a word. The primary emotional relationship these two men have in their lives is with each other. Everyone else is peripheral. In that much, the story is clear. Ennis and Jack, however they frustrate and hurt each other, are alive only when together. Nobody else matters much to them.

That being the case--and I think it would be hard to make a case for the importance of the marginalized children, much less Linda Higgins and Aguirre--it's pretty hard to make a case that either had any serious interest in women. We'd all like to avoid labels, but we also need words to bring everyone together on the same page. And in this case, the word is pretty clearly "homosexual." Or, if you prefer a less loaded term, "isosexual." And that is what I believe them to be.

This very much expresses my views.

[Desecra]

What do you mean by saying that his attitude to difference started to form at “about three or four” years of age?
What has physical difference to do with sexuality difference?

Also, Ennis remembers the story because it supports his perception of the old man's attitude, and his interpretation of what he's being told.

With respect, are you tailoring the scene to fit your already determined opinion that Jack was "gay?"
Or, that because Ennis (with all his problems) thinks it, he must be right?
The old man certainly hit the bulls-eye, and Ennis was a perfect (i.e. susceptible) target.

I think that what started to form was to do with his view of himself in relation to the important men in his life (his father and Ennis).    But I do think the sexuality metaphor is pretty strong.   Jack felt different, in a negative way, because of his circumcision which meant his manhood was missing some material - and it meant he couldn't get it right with his father.   

And at the last argument, the issue of Jack's sexuality comes up and it's clear that Ennis hasn't come round any more than he had at the reunion.  Which is presumably why Jack had given up, and why Ennis thought of that story when found out that Jack had given up (i.e. that he was bringing another guy up).

I can't think of anything else which fits with putting in a story about circumcision and urination at that point.  Obviously, it also fits with my opinion that Jack was gay, but my opinion does come from what's in the story.  I think that Ennis probably is right, simply because what's the point in misleading us by having Ennis think the wrong thing?  We'd be told if he'd got it wrong, I think. 

[Desecra]

Probably was? Isn't it possible that what he said had no hidden meaning at all, that he "wanted out" for the reasons he gave?

He did say there were other reasons. 

I think there's also a possible hint in Jack's father-in-law paying him to get lost - why would he want do that?  What was so wrong with Jack that Mr Newsome would spend money and make his daughter a single parent just to get rid of him?  Like I say, it's just a hint that Jack's sexuality might not have been entirely secret. 

[Desecra]

I think he was attracted solely to Ennis, not “men.”
Do you think he went to Mexico to find someone who’d agree to starting a little C&C operation with him?
(Sorry, Des. Bad question.  )

I thought I should add here that, although I may sound as if I have everything “worked out,” it’s not the case.
My thoughts on the question of “Were they gay?” are evolving.

But why would you think that?  We don't assume that Alma is attracted to Ennis, not men (or that Lureen is attracted to Jack, not men, or that Bill is attracted to Alma, not women, etc.).  If you see (in a story) a guy fall for a guy, have sex with a guy, etc., then you're going to assume he's attracted to guys, unless there's some evidence to the contrary. 

I think Jack didn't use Ennis as the sole outlet for his sexuality (in the way that Ennis used Jack) and that was the reason for "Mexico", riding more than bulls, the RN, etc.  Jack and Ennis both come across as gay men, but with different levels of repression.