Were they gay? (Jack & Ennis)

[aevkc]

I agree with doing away with labels.  Although I've said earlier that I think both men were gay, it makes me a little uncomfortable to even make that statement.  I mean, they were what they were.  I'm a "straight" female, not "bisexual," but I have no doubt that I have the capacity to fall in love with another woman.  I mean, I think if we're honest with ourselves we are probably all a little more fluid in our sexuality that we'd like to believe.  The bottom line is they were two men in love with and having a sexual relationship with one another and that relationship was the most important one both their lives. 

[vertimus]

I'd like to contribute that a young man, even a very young man, can have active, daily sexual fantasies about men, while still having a girlfriend, especially if he's a go-getter and extroverted type. I knew such young men in high school and early college.

In my Catholic high school, there was tremendous amount of homosexual activity of all kinds (especially loud, extroverted, boisterous masterbation and mutual masterbation parties), and many of the boys participating, when they needed to show their public face in social areas or at social events, also had pretty girl friends because it was not only the thing to do, but because it was part of the male competition thing, like having a convertible or being the first guy picked off the bench during Phys Ed.

Some boys were wildly bisexual--and this was in the mid-70s--and engaged in fairly long 'relationships' with one or more boys or older guys at a time. Sometimes there was an emotional compotent for one or both; sometimes one 'partner' was in it simply for the sexual release. Hearts got broken that way.

I was confused and disoriented by all of this, being on the shy and introverted side--but I also had girlfrends, regardless of the fact that I was having regular relations with my male best friend and lusting after other men and boys almost 24/7. To look at me, to observe me, most people would not have guessed this.

In BBM the film, we don't know at all what Ennis fantasized about at 15. I may just as well be projecting that he's a homosexual (already, inherently) as you may be that he's essentially straight at that point.

But I feel very confident that he was definitely a somewhat tormented, fearful, unaccepting, but good-hearted homosexual at all later points (and this didn't materialize out of thin air, but out of his psyche), which to me there is abunduant evidence for, most pointedly the 4-year reunion scene and Ennis' threat to kill Jack if he ever learns that Jack is or has been having sex with other men.

Sexual jealousy simply doesn't occur unless there is sexual passion, desire, and possessiveness involved.

Thanks.

[aevkc]

There's also the thought that Ennis threatened to kill Jack for being with other men because that would mean that Jack was a homosexual, therefore, to Ennis' mind at least, Ennis was a homosexual also.  Up until that point, finding out that Jack had been with other men, Ennis could tell himself that neither one of them was "queer," it was just a "one shot thing" because they loved each other.  Which to my mind, all plays into Ennis' own homophobia and self-loathing that kept him from every being truly happy.

[Lola]

Funny you would mention that, I just read this the other day:

It is generally accepted that the lives of historical figures such as Socrates, Alexander the Great, Hadrian, Julius Caesar, Michelangelo, Donatello, Christopher Marlowe, and Lord Byron included or were centred upon love and sexual relationships with people of their own gender. Terms such as gay or bisexual have been applied to them, but many regard this as risking the anachronistic introduction of a modern social construction of sexuality foreign to their times. Variations from modern standards of beauty, social roles, sexual positions, and age disparities are of such magnitude so as to render meaningless any projection of modern roles onto historical personages.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

[vertimus]

Aevkc---here's why I think you're incorrect.

Ennis says, "I know what they have in Mexico for boys like you, Jack Fuck'in Twist."

Ennis is fully aware that both he and Jack are homosexual or bisexual, and has long known it--however painfully--by that point. What Jack is, he is too. 'Boys like you' - 'Homosexuals like you.'

The 'one time thing' was meaningful only at that early point on the mountain.

Once they had the reunion, Ennis knew he had been wrong, or had to change his wish to '"gett'in together every once in a while."
 

[zachUK]

[snip]

Okay, in answer to that, if Ennis comes to love Jack.. why is it a given that Ennis is therefore attracted to men... why not the theory, that Ennis was attracted to ONLY Jack and never in his lifetime would he ever have been attracted to any other man ever. period. amen.... I put forward the theory that it was always ONLY Jack..  and who knows how many straight men, actually DO fall in love with their best buds... has this been asked, do we really know the answer for this..??

In and of itself, it is theoretically possible that Jack was the only man on the planet that Ennis was capable of loving.  But it seems extremely fanciful to me ... theories of behaviour are usually proven or disproven by some sort of empircal evidence and tend to reason not to the specific but to the general.  So, if your theory holds, we should be able to observe other men experiencing this (straight men falling in love with other men) ... I don't think there is any evidence to support that this occurs in any significant numbers.  Are there throngs of straight men that are secretly in love with their best buddies?  Perhaps, but this seems very unlikely to me.  Finally, as others have pointed out, Ennis exhibits classic responses that he is indeed homosexual -  severely repressed, but nonetheless homosexual.

[Cambridge]

So do we really know what "putting the blocks" to Cassie means?

1. OBSOLAGNIUM

the dwindling of the ol' "urge to merge" with old age; a decrease in one's sexual appetite in old age.

Usage "My great uncle Bucksnort did not display any signs of obsolagnium whatsoever. At age 96, he was putting the blocks to Aunt Mabel like a jackrabbit on steroids."

by weave Sep 21, 2003

As the entry (from "urbandictionary.com") predates the movie if not the short story, I took it to mean, well, "putting the blocks to", in this case, a "good looking woman" in Riverton: Cassie, the aforementioned waitress.

[cyoung]

I am not sure why people keep bringing up Cassie - Ennis said he was putting the blocks to Cassie - he didn't persue a relationship with her because he didn't love her.

So do we really know what "putting the blocks" to Cassie means? I think Annie (on Ennis's behalf) chose this phrase carefully to be ambiguous. Ennis wants Jack to wonder whether Ennis means he is putting his testicles to Cassie, or blocking himself away from her because he really wants to be with Jack. He wants this to be ambiguous because he feels ambivalent about it himself.

Wow, I didn't feel that was ambiguous at all, but crude slang for screwing. The only question for me is whether or not he meant it or was just bluffing.

Cara

[cyoung]

ZachUK, you're right, of course, that in the 'broad homosexual world,' analingus is better known by far as 'rimming.'

I assumed the young lady I was responding to already knew that. 'Tossing the Salad' is the slang jargon used on the streets of NYC largely by the heterosexual Hispanic population. 

Of course, rimming so-called isn't only practiced by homosexuals. For many heterosexual people, especially of southern European extraction, it's a normal part of making love, if not something necessarily practiced on every occasion.

It's not a big heterosexual WASP thing in America as far as I can tell, but there's a lot of reasons for that. And that's no surprise.

I did know of the other term, rimming, but have never heard "tossing the salad" (and can't quite understand the reason behind it, no matter how many mind tangents I've taken, LOL. Might be something I need to have explained to me!).

Can you tell me why you think it's not a "big hetero WASP thing in America"?

Cara
P.S. I love being referred to as a "young lady," teehee (I'm 44. Don't feel so young anymore.)

[mountain boy]

Wow, I didn't feel that was ambiguous at all, but crude slang for screwing. The only question for me is whether or not he meant it or was just bluffing.

Cara

I didn't consider the possibility that it was a little bit ambiguous until a couple of months after I read it. Now I think the phrase was carefully chosen to make Jack feel better than he would have felt if Ennis had said "I'm having sex with her."

[vertimus]

Cara, I meant that 'rimming,' so-called, is not considered 'proper' sex in many high WASP circles and homes. I doubt Ward and June Cleaver practiced it.

Neither is fellatio or cunnilingus, for that matter, at least traditionally speaking.

Many of the WASPs I know here in NYC from 'high WASP' backgrounds find such behavior fairly disgusting. They're strictly into the missionary position. They may desire such acts, but are or would be too afraid to ask their spouses to participate in them.

Others think it's dirty and so would only enter into such actions with someone other than their wife or husband. Unlike homosexual men, it is my understanding that many women do not desire and do not particularly care to perform fellation on men.

How 'rimming' got the designation 'tossing the salad' I'll never know, I don't think. It has a nice ring to it, though. 

I wrote 'young lady' because I wasn't sure who I had to respond to, but I thought it was a woman. Occasionally I get confused about threads and posters.

Peace.

[Caroline]

Cara, you, at 44, are in the prime of your life... that should make you feel young.. all those young chickies ain't got nothing on us... 

(we have life experience to go along with strong drives.. what a powerful combination)

[cyoung]

Cara, I meant that 'rimming,' so-called, is not considered 'proper' sex in many high WASP circles and homes. I doubt Ward and June Cleaver practiced it.

ROTFL. I love the thought of this, I really do.

Others think it's dirty and so would only enter into such actions with someone other than their wife or husband. Unlike homosexual men, it is my understanding that many women do not desire and do not particularly care to perform fellation on men.

Well, most of the straight women I know not only do regularly engage in such acts with their partners but also enjoy it (and talk about enjoying it. Get a bunch of straight women talking together, and you'd be amazed just how explicit we can get...)

I wrote 'young lady' because I wasn't sure who I had to respond to, but I thought it was a woman. Occasionally I get confused about threads and posters.

I liked it. 

Cara

[vertimus]

Folks, I think that Ennis had to be having sex with Cassie, if just for release, and probably fairly listlessly.  Cassie was a very demanding, lead-the-way young lady, and she clearly got her way with Ennis on most occasions, at least in the short term.

[Lola]

. Unlike homosexual men, it is my understanding that many women do not desire and do not particularly care to perform fellation on men.

Who is spreading that rumour around?