Ennis' and Jack's Relationship, II

[kathy]

Quote - partial - from fofol today at 12:45 pm: --  (Directly above).

"This is not the case: for both boys/men the relationship is defeated by homophobia".

Hi fofol: I am with you in your post, 2nd paragraph especially; (I say this because I'm not certain what you mean in the 1st one).  This last sentence of your reply certainly sums it up. 

It's so sad for Ennis & Jack with this state of affairs. I've always believed that together from the early days on they had a chance.  They knew how they felt about each other.  But with the great fear Ennis has - fear Jack has too but he's willing to try anyway; he suggests it - for both boys/men the relationship is defeated by the homophobia so prevalent then.  And their 1200 to 1400 miles apart from each other just made it all the more fearful and harder.   

kathy   

[Desecra]

I think Ennis comes across as the most obvious wronged party, because the story is about him.   But they are all wronged: Ennis, Jack, Alma and Lureen. 

[fofol]

I think Ennis comes across as the most obvious wronged party, because the story is about him.   But they are all wronged: Ennis, Jack, Alma and Lureen.  

Absolutely Des: homophobia doesn't care whether you're gay or straight; being a particularly virulent form of ignorance, it does no one any favor.  (I didn't include their wives or children only because this is a 'relationship' thread.)

[fofol]

Quote - partial - from fofol today at 12:45 pm: --  (Directly above).

"This is not the case: for both boys/men the relationship is defeated by homophobia".

Hi fofol: I am with you in your post, 2nd paragraph especially; (I say this because I'm not certain what you mean in the 1st one).  This last sentence of your reply certainly sums it up. 

It's so sad for Ennis & Jack with this state of affairs. I've always believed that together from the early days on they had a chance.  They knew how they felt about each other.  But with the great fear Ennis has - fear Jack has too but he's willing to try anyway; he suggests it - for both boys/men the relationship is defeated by the homophobia so prevalent then.  And their 1200 to 1400 miles apart from each other just made it all the more fearful and harder.   

kathy   

   I agree with most of what you say Kathy: the relationship might have had a chance but for the ignorant emotionalism of homophobia.  One of the most difficult aspects of homophobia is that it is irrational - I mean that it is not an enemy that comes from deep thought, but it is a grossly negative emotional reaction.  If it came only from ideas, it could be dealt with by reasoning.  Emotions just don't respond very well to somebody else's ideas.  (This is why coming out is so important - it isn't an argument, coming out just proves that the fag down the street has the same problems and joys in just getting by that you do, IOW, that we are fairly ordinary human beings who are perhaps slightly different from you, but essentially far more alike than not.)  In that time and in that place, homophobia was the accepted societal norm.  Thanks to intensive efforts by gays and lesbians which began in the late 60s telling gay men that coming out was personally a good thing, things are changing for the better - knowledge always trumps ignorance.

[janjo]

Can I second that, Fofol.
I don't think any of us straight people a few years ago, had any idea just how common homosexuality was, or that despite it being deeply hidden we knew many people who were that way.
Being completely bamboozled by media stereotypes, we had no idea how many gay people we knew, or were related too.
We accepted the "shy batchelor, never married" idea, hook line and sinker, completely unaware of a reality that was being obscured from us.
It would be wonderful if we could be the last generation that this ever happens too.
Jack and Ennis represent a large chunk of humanity that us straight people owe enormous apologies too.

[royandronnie]

This is in reply to AZ's reading of my reply to the "horses" TOTW--I don't think that when Ennis seems to be gathering up his nerve to ask the vital question that he has any thought or understanding about their relationship being over. Despite his motel confession about spending a lot of time wondering about being gay, he doesn't appear to think about things generally, whether it's his relationship with Jack or Alma's choice to divorce him. I'd say he was angry and embarrassed about having left the trip postponement issue until it could only cause strife, so he goes on the attack. He already knows the answer to the question, which is not the same as being prepared to hear it. But I don't think it crosses his mind, or Jack's, that getting this out in the open at last could end their relationship. Perhaps he does not expect Jack to stand up for himself for once, keeping the fight going.

[kathy]

   To R&R --

Your post is so accurate.   I definitely agree.
I feel so bad for both of them in this entire scene, from the moment Ennis finally brings up "November" until the moment he collapses and sobs in Jack's arms.  It is so sad. 
 
kathy 

[fofol]

This is in reply to AZ's reading of my reply to the "horses" TOTW--I don't think that when Ennis seems to be gathering up his nerve to ask the vital question that he has any thought or understanding about their relationship being over. Despite his motel confession about spending a lot of time wondering about being gay, he doesn't appear to think about things generally, whether it's his relationship with Jack or Alma's choice to divorce him. I'd say he was angry and embarrassed about having left the trip postponement issue until it could only cause strife, so he goes on the attack. He already knows the answer to the question, which is not the same as being prepared to hear it. But I don't think it crosses his mind, or Jack's, that getting this out in the open at last could end their relationship. Perhaps he does not expect Jack to stand up for himself for once, keeping the fight going.

    This is the precise result of little boy Ennis being shown Earl's corpse while his father laughs: nothing makes any sense any more.  Here is a Christian, churchgoing father finding humor in torture and absolute disrespect for a neighbor, a traumatic enough mental injury that it convinces by example that thinking is a dysfunctional activity - if what you know as true - love thy neighbor, etc - proves to be unequivocally and absurdly false, your view of external reality makes no sense.  When this happens before you've reached an age where you learn that the human condition insists that all rules depend on circumstances, you give up on your ability to think things through correctly.  Systems failure is such a very heavy load for a nine-year-old that kids withdraw into themselves, trusting not only no one else, but their own ability to see the world right.

[royandronnie]

Oh, I think he would eventually have acted upon it, but it would have been much as R&R described it. Loveless sex with strangers or colleagues, an unhappy almost loveless marriage, and a life of misery and isolation, without understanding or redeeming features.
What he had with Jack may have been difficult but but he did know intense love and was at least spared the yawning chasm of emptiness that was the alternative.

I'm opening up this discussion in here, because it's not really about whether or not they were gay.

I really have to wonder whether Ennis would ever have acted on his homosexuality without Jack. After all, though Annie was at pains to point out that they'd never sworn anything--such as fidelity--to each other, Ennis never had sex with another man. In fact, in the motel, he makes a point of saying that he'd never even thought about it. The point there is not whether or not it's strictly true, whether not even a ghost of desire ever crossed his mind--it's that he decided that he'd never thought about it, much less done it. And this is after having had sex with a man for weeks. Earl, after all, was not killed because he was in love with another man. He was killed because people suspected--did not prove, merely suspected--that he was living with another man, and therefore having sex with him, which seems to have been the real issue. It was what his dick, not his heart, was doing that provoked outrage and hate. So I think Ennis wouldn't have gotten as far as sex, if indeed he'd ever have allowed himself to understand that he had desire for another man. I think he'd have killed his partner, and perhaps himself, if he'd ever been tempted into casual sex.

[Desecra]

I agree with most of what you're saying, but I don't think Ennis would have killed anyone.   When he is tempted into casual sex, he just avoids the implications, doesn't he?     I do think the fact that he was falling in love with Jack made sex a stronger draw than it might have been, but in a way his denial might have been easier if he hadn't felt so much for Jack.   If it had been somebody else on Brokeback, but everything had happened as it did with Jack, then maybe I could see Ennis acting in the same way - the hand-jerking, the anal sex, the snorting and laughing, etc., with not a goddamn word.  What would be missing would be the DE.  And a year later, Ennis would not have to question his sexuality so that he could think about Jack. 

He would have to change a lot to go out and seek male partners, though.  He could easily put down Brokeback to expedient straight-guy sex, but he wouldn't be able to do that if he picked up a guy in a bar.  Also, his rationalisation for being attracted to Jack is that it's only Jack he feels that the way about it.   It would be difficult for him to find a rationalisation that allowed him to be attracted to men in general without being gay (although I'm sure some people manage to do it - they're not gay because they're married with kids, and they're not a receptive partner, etc.  I just think Ennis would have difficulty believing that).   Something would need to change, and we see so little change in him over the 16 years since the reunion, that I think he would tend to subconsciously block any change.   

[janjo]

As I said in the other thread, Ennis would have been subject to his innate drives. There must be many men over the years who have married women, had children, lived lives, and felt all of the time that something was missing. They have wives they are fond of, but never know real passion with, and look with amazement at people in the grip of torrid love affairs wondering what is going on.
I think a person can do this for years, but the real self can only be suppressed for just so long. In the end the internal drive becomes overwhelming, and we end up with the sad scenario of these respectable, married men, being arrested for having sex with strangers in public toilets.
I certainly don't see Ennis killing anyone, but I definitely do see something of the above scenario in some fashion or other happening to Ennis, because it is almost impossible to keep up the living of a lie indefinitely however hard one tries.

[Desecra]

If Jack had approached Ennis in a public toilet, though, I don't think Ennis would have taken him up on it.  The married guy who has sex with men - that's more Jack than Ennis, really, in the story.    Ennis doesn't seek out men during the time apart from Jack (and doesn't seem to believe he's attracted to other men).  Even at the end, in the trailer, I don't get the impression that he's able to pick up men.   I suppose the argument is that he had Jack as an outlet for years, even after Jack's death.   If he hadn't met Jack there would have been no outlet, so he'd have ended up being attracted to other men and approaching them for sex.  I think it would have required a lot of change for him to get to that point, though.  He accepts the attraction to Jack because he has to - he loves Jack and needs to be with him.  Without that burning motivation, how far would he get in accepting an attraction to other men?

[janjo]

Yes, Des, that was much of my point, if Ennis had not had Jack his homosexuality would have found other outlets. Not in that time and in that place, in public toilets, but in barns, in bunkhouses places like that, where such things did go on.

[Desecra]

Yes, I know, but I'm still not sure.  Ennis didn't have Jack as an outlet before Brokeback, but he didn't look for anything else.  And on Brokeback he goes for months without any sort of sexual move towards Jack or even awareness that he's attracted to him.   It seems that he's able to have sex with Jack in the end because of the particular circumstances - it was the kind of thing straight men might do away from women.  He wouldn't have done it if he thought it was an outlet for his gay desires.  Then during the time with Jack he doesn't pick any men up (although he knows Jack does), and I don't think he does after Jack's death either.  It's as if he still sees himself as only attracted to Jack.

Where else would he find these special circumstances?  Would he really have picked men up in barns, or whereever gay men would go?  Mexico?   Maybe eventually, but I don't think he would during the course of time that we see in the story.   He can't admit to his sexuality even when love's at stake.   I can see him getting together with another man on Brokeback, if it hadn't been Jack.  But if he hadn't fallen in love, he wouldn't have needed to question his sexuality at all - he'd have just put it down to needing sexual relief away from women.   Without the later excuse that he's attracted to only one man, how could he justify (to himself) picking men up when he was married?

Or are you saying that Jack sort of suppresses Ennis's sexuality?  That if it hadn't been for Jack, Ennis would have been able to explore it?  I have wondered - maybe the consequences were so huge (falling in love) and Ennis felt such a strong need to keep a lid on things that he couldn't allow himself to explore.   I tend to think that if the potential for change was there though, that Ennis would have changed while with Jack.  If Ennis has got that much farther, they could have sorted something out. 

[janjo]

I think what I am saying is based on my consideration of Ennis as if he were a real person, not just as he is described in the short story. This is a very bad example indeed, but in the way that serial killers never stop killing unless they are dead themselves, I feel that innate drives just can't be denied.
The sexual drive is such a strong one. Ennis did fall in love with Jack. If he could fall in love with Jack he had a need to fall in love with a man.
He could, have just been a complete loner suppressing all aspects of his need for sex and love, but this is quite rare, and is very warping of the personality, and sometimes leads to mental illness so severe that in the end the real self has to be faced up to.
I don't see Ennis frequenting "gay bars" even if there were any, but there would have been other closeted gay men in bunkhouses etc and I think someone would have been able to tempt him into at least some sort of relationship, even if it was nothing like the very special love he found with Jack.