Ennis' and Jack's Relationship, II

[seagull]

I think in some way that you answered your own question, Seagull. “Then” doesn't relate to the whole relationship, it rather refers to the time of the DE and what it was about. Not about sex, but the “shared and sexless hunger” that it satisfied.
The DE does not refer to lust, but to love, there is a difference. At the time of the DE, the supreme moment of sexless and pure love, Ennis did not come “face to face” with Jack.
In other words, “then,” when it mattered. Not at a time of lust and or sex, when it didn’t matter, but “then” when it did.
They did get farther than that. Ennis admitted to Jack that he “shouldn’t have let him out of his sights,” that he “wrang it out a hunderd times,” thinking of him.
He consented to getting together as many times a year as they could make it. They did have a stable relationship of sorts for twenty years, (many marriages don't last that long), and all against a background of homophobia and a constant nagging fear of violent attack.
They did get somewhere, they had made progress, but not very much.
This is a source of great sorrow to Jack.
The metaphor therefore refers to the love, and not to the sex. Ennis could cope with the sexual relationship, he enjoyed it immensely, he built his life around the times he could be with Jack. What he couldn't face was the love. That pure sexless love, which was what he really felt for Jack, but which he did not “face up to” until after Jack was dead.
Hence “ Jack I swear” and the shrine of the shirts. The words and the shirts celebrate a love that dare not speak its name while Jack was alive.
In the film this is reflected in Ennis talking about love to his daughter Alma.
It is very much the love he can't face, not the sex or any positions they may have taken whilst engaging in it.

We may not agree on some things but you do get me thinking sometimes, Janjo. Unfortunately, no matter how much I read this exchange I can't see how I answered my own question. I agree entirely with you that the DE was about love and not sex (which is pretty much what Proulx says anyway) and that Ennis distinguished between love and sex, accepting one and not recognising the other.

So you are saying that on the mountain they had sex with no barriers, that Ennis accepted that as a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but neither then nor later did he ever "face up to" the love he felt for Jack. However, he did become a little more forthcoming about his feelings at the reunion, thus giving Jack an opportunity to think they had moved on a little. I think that's a fair representation of what you said.

But if the DE is the supreme moment in Jack's life, how can the reunion be a step further forward? You said:  At the time of the DE, the supreme moment of sexless and pure love, Ennis did not come “face to face” with Jack. In other words, “then,” when it mattered. Not at a time of lust and or sex, when it didn’t matter, but “then” when it did. They did get farther than that. Ennis admitted to Jack that he “shouldn’t have let him out of his sights,” that he “wrang it out a hunderd times,” thinking of him.

I suspect that you will answer that the reunion conversation takes place at a time when sex is involved, but I'm not sure you can have it both ways. Either the reunion is a step further forward in this facing-up process or it is not. To be a step forward there must be some element which is an advance on the DE. Is it the assuaging of the sexless hunger? If it is, we are not shown when this happens during the reunion, and furthermore, Jack's recollection of the DE as a single moment of artless. charmed happiness would seem to argue against that. In fact, the effect of the DE passage, with its opening description of "what Jack... craved..." would seem to indicate that the assuaging of the sexless hunger never happened again, leaving Jack in a perpetually yearning state. So how can anything be "farther than that"?

If Ennis's confessions during the reunion were really demonstrating that he was beginning to come face to face with his situation, surely it would make no difference if they were uttered during sex or in a sexless moment? I know there's an old joke about how the words "I love you" don't count if they are uttered during sex, but if a person continues to demonstrate love to their partner even after the sex is finished, then the partner has good grounds to suppose that the words were uttered sincerely. Thus Ennis's confessions would hold good even when they were sharing the many sexless moments which they must have had between 1967 and 1983. If such moments existed (i.e. sexless moments during which Jack knew that Ennis was facing up to the truth) why would Jack perversely cling to, and be driven by, the memory of the DE? Sure, he could remember it as a wonderful moment, but to crave it above all others? To relive it at the time of his greatest rejection? To go away and somehow change his behaviour, telling his father he had someone new and/or cementing his relationship with the ranch neighbour and/or acting in some way which might have led to his death?

Why do you say it would have mattered only during the DE? What happens during the final argument which causes Jack to revisit the DE? Why did nothing replace the DE, even though, as you say, they did get farther than that?

I'm afraid that once again I have to return to literal v. metaphorical meanings. If Ennis metaphorically faced up to things, which is what you are saying, then Jack's subsequent behaviour, his memory, his yearning, his hinted-at changes after May 1983, are pretty hard to explain. If, however, Ennis literally faced up to Jack at the reunion without metaphorically facing up to the truth, then everything falls into place. There IS a step further forward, an illusion of progress which never goes far at all, and which is shattered in 1983 when Ennis rounds on Jack and threatens him with death when Jack finally admits to his sexuality.

[royandronnie]

I just can't let seagull do ALL the heavy lifting, however well "zie" does it…

Could Annie have had ANY idea what a firestorm she was sparking with that ol debbil "then…"

One of the few things that is crystal clear to me is that the only metaphorical content of the DE scene is the idea that Ennis' avoidance of f2f in a literal sense is a metaphor for his refusal to face up to the true nature of his relationship with Jack; ie, two men in love with each other, rather than friends with benefits. There are numerous places in the story where additional meanings can be inferred; what they are, and how many of them they are, is subject to various levels of debate. But there are no other scenes, including the opening with its apparent heavy leavening of sex and death imagery, which anyone claims to be anything other than literal depictions of the actions of one or more of the characters. So I don't think the DE can work that way either. Granted, the DE scene is full of "magical" language in a way that other scenes are not, but it's pretty easily deduced that this is because this is a magical memory for Jack. Annie uses language in this way repeatedly, like mood music in a movie, to give us a strong idea of the feelings operant in the scene. Sometimes she both describes weather or setting, and uses more conventional direct descriptions, as when the descent from Brokeback is described almost literally as if the world is coming to an end, in addition to Ennis' sense of falling out of control.

As for "then." Sigh. Seagull and Desecra have both tackled this question so thoroughly and so well that I don't think I can add anything to what they've done, repeatedly, except to add my voice of agreement to their arguments--again. Less often suggested, I think, is that Annie is using her well-tuned ear in this sentence, and replacing the strictly contemporary phrase "at that time" or "in those days," etc, with the slightly old-fashioned single word "then," which has the same meaning, because she liked the rhythm it produced. It's not the word "then" that is the linchpin of the K/NK argument, or should be; it's the word "embrace," which Annie first defines as she wishes us to understand it--a non-sexual action/series of actions--and then applies it: "that dozy embrace." It is unarguable that there is more direct support for NK, in that single statement of no f2f--but by narrowing her usage of "embrace," Annie does allow that window in which we may understand that while in non-sexually-aroused moments Ennis refused consistently to face Jack--something Jack noticed, which later bothered the hell out of him as indicating a pattern and a deeper problem--in sexual situations, more was allowed, including kissing. I only say "allowed;" there's no direct evidence. But you can kiss without embracing, just as you can embrace without kissing. And it's not kissing that she's talking about, not primarily--it's about Ennis' refusal to allow the expression of their growing and changing feelings for each other, and the kind of touching which would have naturally strengthened that bond: non-sexual caresses. He allows fun; he does not allow love.

As a mod I must note that I am to some extent indulging myself with discussion of the notorious question, but that really is what we're talking about here, so I'm cutting to the chase. Unfortunately I also have to say that this should not be interpreted as a re-opening of uncensored discussion. I am merely hoping to shed a slightly different light. Please keep that in mind in replying and abide by the rules I have allowed myself to bend. It's probably not fair, but it's in the interest of keeping things civil.

[seagull]

Strictly speaking, Proulx first defines that explosion of passion which Alma views from her doorway as an "embrace".  It seems unlikely that she expects her readers to apply this particular version to all embraces which follow.

[royandronnie]

Yes, that's true--but it's not the Reunion kiss itself which is described this way. Nowhere in that scene is the word used. It's not used until Alma remembers it, her memory distilled, like Jack's: "Her resentment opened out a little every year: the embrace she had glimpsed…" She never actually saw them kissing; in the story all she sees is Ennis' back (and, presumably, Jack's arms around it.) What she saw was not sexual--it was emotional, Ennis entwined with someone else, with a man. Kissing is implicit in that, perhaps--but it is not explicit. It's never said that she even thought they were kissing, though she may have. What she actually witnessed, and resents, is the intensity of Ennis' reaction to Jack. And in the sense that the DE is about the emotions between them, and not the sexual attraction, the word "embrace" is used in the same way both times: to describe someone's memory of emotionally intense but non-sexual physical contact.

[Desecra]

Interesting discussion about the word 'embrace'. 

I don't think it's a mystery (personally).   AP is (presumably deliberately) quite coy and euphemistic about sex, contrary to what you might expect (contortionist grappling and wrestling, rolled down in the dirt, coupling, what she hated, etc.)   The FNIT is an exception (even then she skirts around the edges a little).  I think their other embraces are sexual.  'Embrace' works a lot better than 'have sex', though, because it includes that single non-sexual embrace of the DE. 

In the end, I keep coming back to 'How did Jack know?'.  Or even leaving aside 'know' (although we're told it's knowledge), what made Jack think that Ennis wouldn't do it?  Nothing in the DE itself could tell him that.   It has to be because he wouldn't do it during sex.

R&R, I think you're suggesting that they had other non-sexual embraces, and Jack noticed that Ennis wouldn't do those face to face.    But I don't think that's the case.   There's nothing to show us that Ennis maneouvred Jack in that way.   If we're talking about sexual embraces, then there's the FNIT, where Ennis clearly maneouvres Jack, and ends up avoiding seeing or feeling him in a certain way (as Jack, a man) and avoiding embracing face to face.  There's nothing similar for non-sexual embraces.  In fact there only is one non-sexual embrace - the DE.  There isn't even a manly hug at the end of the summer. 

Also, we know that they did have sexual embraces - they had sex.  If they embraced face to face during those encounters, then Jack would not have thought that Ennis wouldn't embrace face to face, would he?  Even if there were enough non-sexual embraces for Jack to spot a pattern, he'd have known that it wasn't embracing face to face that was the problem, but doing it in non-sexual moments.   But when he thinks back, he doesn't qualify the embraces - it sounds like Ennis wouldn't do any face to face embracing, sexual or otherwise.

I can see that 'embrace' causes problems, because there's a belief that embraces can't be sexual.  (I don't agree, and I don't agree that Alma describing the reunion embrace as an embrace is meant to tell us that she didn't see it as sexual.  Would we, as readers, say 'That's not an embrace, because they kissed?').   But what other word would include the sex and the DE?   'Hug' wouldn't, as it does imply a non-sexual embrace. 

[Desecra]

Despite the fact that I explained my rough image of their time on the mountain you still refer to "a way [of behaviour] that seems so divorced from the way real people behave". Real people, all six billion plus of us, behave in a wide variety of ways, and I do not see anything especially outlandish in behaviour which arises from mixed drives and desires. Virtually all of us limit our behaviour in different ways and for different reasons, even without being aware of it. Is it so strange to imagine that a young man, deeply traumatised as Ennis was, to the point where he is unable to live a full life, might unconsciously set in place a restriction on his actions, in particular actions which he believes might lead to a terrible death? I don't think it is. You do. On this we must agree to disagree, I fear.

I just wanted to pick out a couple of things here that I strongly agree with:

- that people limit their behaviour, often without being aware of it

- that Ennis had particular reason to limit his behaviour.

It's interesting that nobody seems to question the fact that Jack and Ennis didn't have any sexual contact at all until weeks, months of being together in an isolated place, talking, drinking and becoming close.   Was that because they felt no sexual attraction to each other at all, until the night of the FNIT?  Or was it because they were limiting their behaviour, consciously or unconsciously?

I think it has to be the latter.  There are signs before the FNIT that they have feelings for each other.   Their natural instinct was probably to jump each other on day one.  They didn't do that.   Jack didn't make a move because there was a good chance that it would be unnacceptable (he didn't know if Ennis was gay and/or amenable).   Ennis didn't make a move, I believe, because after that traumatic early experience, he had blocked off knowing that he felt attraction to men.   Whatever he felt for Jack, he believed it was elation at finding a friend.

I think that just continues during the FNIT and throughout the rest of the time on the mountain.  Jack does make his move, but restricts his behaviour according to the signs he gets from Ennis.   Ennis continues to avoid knowing he's attracted to men, by avoiding behaviour that would tell him that.    I think that's shown clearly in the FNIT (although the meaning doesn't become clear until later).

Ennis's behaviour 'works', in that he doesn't seem to be aware that he's attracted to Jack until later.  We can speculate about why anal sex didn't push his buttons in the way other sex might have done.   I think it's fairly simple.   Anal sex physically feels much the same to the giver whether it's a man or a woman (and in that position, doesn't involve having to see or feel anything particularly gender specific - Ennis did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack).  No matter how aroused Ennis felt, he avoided anything that would tell him he was aroused because it was Jack, a man (which included touching Jack's cock - he jerked his hand away). 

[janjo]

We may not agree on some things but you do get me thinking sometimes, Janjo. Unfortunately, no matter how much I read this exchange I can't see how I answered my own question. I agree entirely with you that the DE was about love and not sex (which is pretty much what Proulx says anyway) and that Ennis distinguished between love and sex, accepting one and not recognising the other.

So you are saying that on the mountain they had sex with no barriers, that Ennis accepted that as a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but neither then nor later did he ever "face up to" the love he felt for Jack. However, he did become a little more forthcoming about his feelings at the reunion, thus giving Jack an opportunity to think they had moved on a little. I think that's a fair representation of what you said.

But if the DE is the supreme moment in Jack's life, how can the reunion be a step further forward? You said:  At the time of the DE, the supreme moment of sexless and pure love, Ennis did not come “face to face” with Jack. In other words, “then,” when it mattered. Not at a time of lust and or sex, when it didn’t matter, but “then” when it did. They did get farther than that. Ennis admitted to Jack that he “shouldn’t have let him out of his sights,” that he “wrang it out a hunderd times,” thinking of him.

I suspect that you will answer that the reunion conversation takes place at a time when sex is involved, but I'm not sure you can have it both ways. Either the reunion is a step further forward in this facing-up process or it is not. To be a step forward there must be some element which is an advance on the DE. Is it the assuaging of the sexless hunger? If it is, we are not shown when this happens during the reunion, and furthermore, Jack's recollection of the DE as a single moment of artless. charmed happiness would seem to argue against that. In fact, the effect of the DE passage, with its opening description of "what Jack... craved..." would seem to indicate that the assuaging of the sexless hunger never happened again, leaving Jack in a perpetually yearning state. So how can anything be "farther than that"?

If Ennis's confessions during the reunion were really demonstrating that he was beginning to come face to face with his situation, surely it would make no difference if they were uttered during sex or in a sexless moment? I know there's an old joke about how the words "I love you" don't count if they are uttered during sex, but if a person continues to demonstrate love to their partner even after the sex is finished, then the partner has good grounds to suppose that the words were uttered sincerely. Thus Ennis's confessions would hold good even when they were sharing the many sexless moments which they must have had between 1967 and 1983. If such moments existed (i.e. sexless moments during which Jack knew that Ennis was facing up to the truth) why would Jack perversely cling to, and be driven by, the memory of the DE? Sure, he could remember it as a wonderful moment, but to crave it above all others? To relive it at the time of his greatest rejection? To go away and somehow change his behaviour, telling his father he had someone new and/or cementing his relationship with the ranch neighbour and/or acting in some way which might have led to his death?

Why do you say it would have mattered only during the DE? What happens during the final argument which causes Jack to revisit the DE? Why did nothing replace the DE, even though, as you say, they did get farther than that?

I'm afraid that once again I have to return to literal v. metaphorical meanings. If Ennis metaphorically faced up to things, which is what you are saying, then Jack's subsequent behaviour, his memory, his yearning, his hinted-at changes after May 1983, are pretty hard to explain. If, however, Ennis literally faced up to Jack at the reunion without metaphorically facing up to the truth, then everything falls into place. There IS a step further forward, an illusion of progress which never goes far at all, and which is shattered in 1983 when Ennis rounds on Jack and threatens him with death when Jack finally admits to his sexuality.

Seagull,

Thank you for your considered reply, you make me think too. However, I think you have jumped to the wrong conclusion when you suggest that you expect me to reply that as the DE is sexless that is the reason it is different, and that only sexless interactions count.
Rather, I would say that one DE, even if it is the pinnacle of ones life, does not a long term relationship make. It was a flash of inspiration, of what could be, but actually, apart from at that moment, never was.
It is impossible to improve on the DE, for Jack, but it also does not fulfill his dream of himself and Ennis living together openly and in harmony.
The relationship did get further than that one promising embrace. Ennis did change his life so that they could be together, "way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, several times a year," he did tell Jack how he felt about him, but he never agreed to live with Jack, and for the romance to develop in a way that only time and years make possible.

R&R you suggest that not much of the DE as written is metaphorical. I agree with you totally about that. Jack's reflection over the 20 years has metaphorical elements, but the event happened as described.
Of that I am in no doubt.

[seagull]

Yes, that's true--but it's not the Reunion kiss itself which is described this way. Nowhere in that scene is the word used. It's not used until Alma remembers it, her memory distilled, like Jack's: "Her resentment opened out a little every year: the embrace she had glimpsed…" She never actually saw them kissing; in the story all she sees is Ennis' back (and, presumably, Jack's arms around it.) What she saw was not sexual--it was emotional, Ennis entwined with someone else, with a man. Kissing is implicit in that, perhaps--but it is not explicit. It's never said that she even thought they were kissing, though she may have. What she actually witnessed, and resents, is the intensity of Ennis' reaction to Jack. And in the sense that the DE is about the emotions between them, and not the sexual attraction, the word "embrace" is used in the same way both times: to describe someone's memory of emotionally intense but non-sexual physical contact.

The reunion embrace is nonsexual, but only in the sense that they are not having sex at that moment. Regardless of what Alma saw and how she remembered it over the years, the description of the embrace is one of a natural extension from friendship into sex. They begin as old friends reuniting, setting aside the pain of their last hours together - the punch, the stilted goodbye - and then it shifts into something far more in keeping with the action of lovers. Their bodies press together top to toe, and they kiss, not in a friendly fashion but in a way which only lovers would use. Twenty minutes after leaving the apartment they are jouncing a bed. The embrace is part of the sexual arousal.

As regards the slight "mods only" opening of a window you created in an earlier post, I have no intention of stepping through. In fact, I am more inclined to close the window for you. While it's true that two people can embrace without kissing and kiss without embracing, I don't think that anyone here is seriously suggesting that Jack and Ennis kissed without ever embracing face to face while on the mountain.

[royandronnie]

R&R, I think you're suggesting that they had other non-sexual embraces, and Jack noticed that Ennis wouldn't do those face to face.    But I don't think that's the case.   There's nothing to show us that Ennis maneouvred Jack in that way.   If we're talking about sexual embraces, then there's the FNIT, where Ennis clearly maneouvres Jack, and ends up avoiding seeing or feeling him in a certain way (as Jack, a man) and avoiding embracing face to face.  There's nothing similar for non-sexual embraces.  In fact there only is one non-sexual embrace - the DE.  There isn't even a manly hug at the end of the summer. 

I can see that 'embrace' causes problems, because there's a belief that embraces can't be sexual.  (I don't agree, and I don't agree that Alma describing the reunion embrace as an embrace is meant to tell us that she didn't see it as sexual.  Would we, as readers, say 'That's not an embrace, because they kissed?').   But what other word would include the sex and the DE?   'Hug' wouldn't, as it does imply a non-sexual embrace. 

As far as FNIT goes, as in some other instances, while not really disagreeing with you, I have to be a bit of a devil's advocate and say--if they're going to have real sex, they don't have a lot of choices for position. There's either f2f or front to back. Now, I don't really know, but I've always assumed that f2back is the most natural position for two guys. (Please correct me, anyone.) I mean, Ennis can't even see Jack in that tent, not very well. I agree that Ennis chooses the "safest" position, but it's also, I think the natural one.

The phrase I remember that doesn't get much play here is that, in addition to jerking back "like he'd touched fire," there's "Ennis…ran full throttle on all roads." Why settle for a handjob--and remember, it's Jack asking Ennis to pleasure him, which does nothing for Ennis--when you can do the full nasty?

Anyway, I agree that in FNIT his denial is operating, but maybe at a lower level than is usually assumed.

As far as a "belief" that "embrace" is non-sexual, I myself only believe this in this context; that is, Annie goes to great pains to define the word in a particular way, a non-sexual way, and the only other time in the story it's used, it does seem to be more about the emotion Alma witnesses than the sexual aspect--she doesn't remember erections, doesn't seem to see Jack shaking--which I see as a sexual reaction--or Ennis' lip bleeding, or remember that they were kissing. I agree 100% with seagull that the embrace is a direct lead-in to, and beginning of, the night in the motel, but I can't help but notice that the use of "embrace" in recalling the Reunion scene is not inconsistent with its apparent, explicitly non-sexual use in the DE scene.

[seagull]

Seagull,

Thank you for your considered reply, you make me think too. However, I think you have jumped to the wrong conclusion when you suggest that you expect me to reply that as the DE is sexless that is the reason it is different, and that only sexless interactions count.
Rather, I would say that one DE, even if it is the pinnacle of ones life, does not a long term relationship make. It was a flash of inspiration, of what could be, but actually, apart from at that moment, never was.
It is impossible to improve on the DE, for Jack, but it also does not fulfill his dream of himself and Ennis living together openly and in harmony.
The relationship did get further than that one promising embrace. Ennis did change his life so that they could be together, "way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, several times a year," he did tell Jack how he felt about him, but he never agreed to live with Jack, and for the romance to develop in a way that only time and years make possible.

R&R you suggest that not much of the DE as written is metaphorical. I agree with you totally about that. Jack's reflection over the 20 years has metaphorical elements, but the event happened as described.
Of that I am in no doubt.

But did it really get much further? The sex improved, going from the quick roughness of the mountain, where they never spoke about it, into something more resembling a standard sexual relationship where at least the sexual nature is discussed, but the relationship itself didn't move ahead. Certainly Ennis "changed" his life, going from masturbation while thinking about Jack, and having sex with Alma in a fashion which reminded him of Jack, to having sex with the living breathing Jack, but I fear it is overly romantic to view this as anything more than Ennis allowing himself to enjoy something he desired without considering the implications. During the last argument Jack puts it in a nutshell. "I'm not like you. I can't make it on a couple a high altitude fucks once or twice a year." While he says it in relation to his seeking out of other male partners, I think it's safe to say that what he really wants is a full relationship with Ennis. It's a tragedy that even in that moment he can't speak about love, only about sex.

What they had for the sixteen years of repetitive trips around cold mountain ranges was qualitatively the same as they had during their summer on Brokeback - excellent friendship and great sex. Sadly, that relationship was dependent on the idea that they were two straight men, friends with benefits, as I think Desecra described it. Jack consciously maintained the facade, and Ennis maintained it through his state of being in denial.

When Jack reflects on the Dozy Embrace, he has finally been brought up against the truth which was being displayed to him right back from the moment Ennis jerked back his hand from Jack's erect cock and turned Jack away from him in order to have sex. Twenty years has essentially changed nothing except the way they have sex. I feel that you are grasping at straws, just as Jack did for sixteen years. They had indeed "not got much farther"; emotionally they had not got anywhere because underlying all of Ennis's actions was the shame and fear involved in holding a man. As I said earlier, the reunion gave Jack an illusion of progress: if Ennis could literally face up to Jack, surely that meant that the reason for his earlier reluctance had been overcome? But sixteen years on, as Ennis threatens him, Jack understands that it was just illusion, that the progress was just window-dressing.

As regards your reply to R&R - Jack's reflection over the 20 years has metaphorical elements, but the event happened as described. Of that I am in no doubt. - does that mean that you accept entirely that Ennis would not then embrace Jack face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held? If you do, then it leads back to the inevitable question: How did Jack know? How did he know that Ennis chose (however unconsciously) not to hold him face-on?

[royandronnie]

Ennis and Jack pretty much had to be in each other's arms to kiss, certainly had to be f2f. If I go on I'll have to mod myself…so I'll stop.

[kathy]

Ennis and Jack pretty much had to be in each other's arms to kiss, certainly had to be f2f. If I go on I'll have to mod myself…so I'll stop.

   Hi R&R --
May I repeat your line, which I  believe so strongly: "Ennis and Jack pretty much had to be in each other's arms to kiss, certainly had to be for 2NIT". 
Definitely so.  For heaven's sake, the way Ennis comes in the tent so shyly, how tenderly Jack treats him...of course! 
kathy   

[Desecra]

As far as FNIT goes, as in some other instances, while not really disagreeing with you, I have to be a bit of a devil's advocate and say--if they're going to have real sex, they don't have a lot of choices for position. There's either f2f or front to back. Now, I don't really know, but I've always assumed that f2back is the most natural position for two guys. (Please correct me, anyone.) I mean, Ennis can't even see Jack in that tent, not very well. I agree that Ennis chooses the "safest" position, but it's also, I think the natural one.

The phrase I remember that doesn't get much play here is that, in addition to jerking back "like he'd touched fire," there's "Ennis…ran full throttle on all roads." Why settle for a handjob--and remember, it's Jack asking Ennis to pleasure him, which does nothing for Ennis--when you can do the full nasty?

Anyway, I agree that in FNIT his denial is operating, but maybe at a lower level than is usually assumed.

There are a few choices.   For instance, I would find it perfectly natural and believable if they had masturbated each other that first night, face to face.    That's what Jack seemed to be going for.  

Their sex act is described in detail.  We're not only told that they had anal sex, but who did what to whom, blow by blow.   It's very different from the rest of the story (and from the rest of the stories in the collection, if I remember).   Is the point of that really just to show us that Ennis prefers anal sex?  (The anal sex with Alma is much less detailed, but I think most of us agree that the point is not a preference for anal sex, but Ennis's denial).  What would that tell us about Ennis or their relationship?  

He ran full-throttle on all roads, whether fence mending or money spending.   I've mended a few fences, and it's not a full-throttle type of activity.   It's a very odd activity to choose to illustrate Ennis running full throttle.  I think it's deliberate and that it has a similar meaning to cutting fences later on - we're talking about psychological barriers again.    The hand-jerking is part of the fence-mending, I think (touching Jack in that way would tell Ennis that he was attracted to Jack - what straight man would get so aroused from touching a man's cock?).  (The anal sex is presumably the money spending, but I'm not so clear on the metaphor there).  

Of course, the metaphor has to be ambiguous, because at that stage we're not supposed to know not only that Ennis wouldn't embrace face to face, but any of the rest of it - his childhood experience, the fact that he never fully accepts the relationship while Jack's alive, etc. (we've only seen him years after Jack's death when he does accept the relationship).  

I really don't think it can be coincidence that there is the no f2f line and in the only sex act we're shown, Ennis purposely avoids being f2f (rejects a sex act which would involve seeing and feeling that it was Jack, and goes for a sex act which avoids that, and chooses a position for it that is not f2f.   Not that I'm suggesting he thought that through).    The FNIT fits exactly with Jack's DE thoughts.  Why should we reject that?

As far as a "belief" that "embrace" is non-sexual, I myself only believe this in this context; that is, Annie goes to great pains to define the word in a particular way, a non-sexual way, and the only other time in the story it's used, it does seem to be more about the emotion Alma witnesses than the sexual aspect--she doesn't remember erections, doesn't seem to see Jack shaking--which I see as a sexual reaction--or Ennis' lip bleeding, or remember that they were kissing. I agree 100% with seagull that the embrace is a direct lead-in to, and beginning of, the night in the motel, but I can't help but notice that the use of "embrace" in recalling the Reunion scene is not inconsistent with its apparent, explicitly non-sexual use in the DE scene.

No, it's not inconsistent at all, because 'embrace' isn't used to purely mean non-sexual embraces.  I think the fact that AP does go to pains to describe the embrace as sexless, shows that she includes sexual embraces in 'embraces' (I apologise for my terrible writing here.  I hope you can make some sense of it!).    If all embraces are sexless, she wouldn't have to qualify the DE as sexless.   (Whether or not Alma thought there was something sexual between Jack and Ennis in the embrace she witnessed is another matter.   Personally, I suspect that she did recognise it as looking more like an embrace between lovers than friends, no matter how much of it she saw.   But it doesn't affect the fact that embraces include sexual embraces).

For Jack to know that Ennis wouldn't embrace face to face, there have to be embraces other than the DE, they must all be not face to face, and Ennis must have indicated that he wouldn't do it face to face.  I don't see that happening with non-sexual embraces.  With sexual embraces it's easy to imagine, because we're shown an example in the FNIT.  That alone wouldn't convince Jack, but a pattern of it would.   And I think that 'I'm not no queer' during sex suggests that the theory may have been tested. 

[kathy]

RE:  Reply #3072 --
           

Ennis & Jack loved each other very much.  As such, they did what lovers do - anything/everything lovers do. 

kathy 

[Desecra]

In the film, yes, they acted as lovers on Brokeback.  In the book, I don't think they did.   Does that mean they loved each other any less?  I don't think so at all.  One difference between book and film is that we're more or less told that Ennis loved Jack and how much before Brokeback (in the prologue).  We don't need a 'love' scene to tell us that.  I think that one thing the limited sex shows is just how deeply Ennis was affected by homophobia.   Their love was set up against that, which doesn't make the love any less - it makes it stronger, I think.