Background Check: Gay Cowboys
Over at Outsports, The Front Runner author Patricia Nell Warren has written an engaging piece on the history of the gay cowboy, which follows the cowboy's evolution from the explosion of the livestock industry following the civil war to today's modern gay rodeo.
She details the quite common practice of cowboys pairing up for economic reasons, a situation that sometimes evolved intimately: "To combat the loneliness of this life, male-male friendships sprang up like the spring grass. Even heterosexual bonding tended to be strong. In frontier times, Western men used the word "partner" for these bonds. Two single males would pair up, living in close association, sharing everything, maybe starting a business together.
There was also an economic reason for partnership: the low pay. In those days, society expected a man to own a house, and prove his ability to support a family, before he got married. But a dirt-poor cowboy could hardly afford to feed a wife and kids on $40 a month...You don’t have to be a Ph.D. in sociology to realize that some of these rawhide partnerships extended into discreet sexual intimacy.
I’ve come to think that gay cowboy love was silently accepted by many livestock owners as an unavoidable result of the circumstances. They let some of the boys have it because it made the loneliness and hardship bearable – as long as two partners were discreet and did their jobs. Ranches who treated men well got their pick of the best men, and that could include two buckaroos who were an item. The policy of not asking questions was conveniently invoked here." More at Outsports...
Posted Mar. 9,2006 at 1:20 PM EST by Andy Towle in Current Affairs | Permalink
An excellent article by Patricia, though why did I tear-up while reading? It's those damned shirts sharing a hanger....
Posted by: Ted B. (Charging Rhino) | Mar 9, 2006 1:57:38 PM
"Jack, I swear...."
Posted by: James | Mar 9, 2006 2:03:03 PM
You know, we have such a powerful secret history...
Posted by: Peter Rivendell | Mar 9, 2006 2:46:25 PM
He he he... imagine Georgette Bush's face when he realises all those 'G'day partner' moments in his favourite John Wayne films were actually secret Hello baby's and I love you's..... priceless... absolutely priceless.....
Posted by: Philip | Mar 9, 2006 2:55:13 PM
Excellent article. I haven't had time to read it all the way through, but clearly well-researched and well-written. My only silly little comment is that she didn't get it right that Jack died at 39 not 43. Stupid little error, but still. All in all still a great article. I'd like to see other bastiens of homophobia begin to crumble like the NFL and other hot beds of homophobia.
Posted by: Tina | Mar 9, 2006 3:07:46 PM
Hell of an article. Yeah, one of the most impactful things I took away from Proulx's story was how grimly unglamorous that life is. It's embarrassing to admit that the Great Cowboy Mythology has been, at least to an extent, within me too.
Posted by: Jacko | Mar 9, 2006 5:11:57 PM
"What's the difference between a real cowboys' bar and a gay bar?"
"Gay bars have more women."
Posted by: Ted B. (Charging Rhino) | Mar 9, 2006 6:00:35 PM
I skimmed over this writing earlier when I didn't have much time -- looks to be quite moving.... Thanks for finding this, Andy!
Now I can spend some time really getting into it.
Speaking of Patricia Nell Warren, I wonder if The Front Runner will finally be made into a movie. I only hope that it is not screwed up, and that it is not some thrown-together rush job to follow on the heels of Brokeback. Annie Proulx said that she was one of the lucky authors where the movie was a perfect adaptation of the writing... I wish the same for PNW and The Front Runner.
Posted by: kyan | Mar 10, 2006 1:40:41 AM
this was an excellent article. I liked it and appreciate the link.
I've thought of writing a screenplay of The Front Runner, it surely is one of our great gay novels. and being a former high school and college long distance runner, that book really hit a chord...
Posted by: michael72 | Mar 10, 2006 3:06:34 AM
History is, after His - story....or the revisionist version of the victors.
Who is George Washington - an American patriot or a British traitor? The world stage provides many similar anecdotes.
Hollywood created John Wayne - and in an analogy, changed his name from an effete Marion. The Hayes Commission made sure that super-heterosexuality would be hard-wired in any producer or director's DNA. If they tired of the message, the Black List cured them. Fifty years later, they still vote for a Truman Capote one-dimensial caricature instead of the first real virile portrayal ever popularly accepted on screen.
Yes, it is the redux of our lives.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 10, 2006 5:32:23 AM
It's all a mythful, hope-filled wandering search on the path for gay validation and societal acceptance. PNWarren plays to the longings of modern gays and does a great disservice to America's traditions of the wild west, cowboys, and self-reliant determinism. Anything that comes out of OutSports should be immediately suspect to anyone seriously interested in gay culture... it's like quoting the Enquirer or Details or People or Entertainment.
Today our fantasies run to gay policemen, gay firefighters, gay soldiers and gay priests... while we try to avoid the crushing reality of our own incomplete lives. Thanks for helping that along, PNWarren.
We're going to be stuck at the gay bar with guys wearing white straw Stetsons in the middle of winter in Massachusetts thanks to BBM and PNW; thanks for the fashion trend.
Posted by: Michigan-Matt | Mar 10, 2006 10:26:57 AM
Michigan-Matt
Cynicism among the young is sadder as when that emotion is exercised in your sixties and seventies and beyond.
I am a Canadian, and so when I read rhetoric like yours on self-determinism with a Stetson, I seem to channel Ronald Reagan and John Wayne. I assume that you feel that those myths need to be enshrined or hard-wired into the American psyche.
LGBT Canadians no longer must fight for our rights. WE HAVE THEM. You have MA if you can keep it.
Frankly, I do not understand your posting. Most gay men and women whom I interact with and have known in your country are accomplished. The US LGBT statistics are quite impressive where educational attainment and professional/skilled trade as opposed to general labour is concerned.
If the inference about gay soldiers is a passive commentary on the DADT policy, or the gay policeman is a equally interesting observation on psychosexual themes, or the gay priest concerning paedophilia as opposed to normal monogamous impulses, then that is what I inferred. Oh...bishop not priest.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 10, 2006 1:04:07 PM
Michigan-Matt needs a blow job. Fucking drama queen.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Mar 11, 2006 12:25:40 AM
I just finished reading Patricia Nell Warren's article. Her writing ability never fails.
Thirty years ago, I made a decision after reading both FRONT RUNNER and FANCY DANCER.
I was living in the Canadian West..Alberta to be exact, and met my cowboy with whom I had the courage to commit to, even if the road was paved with selective outing. No excuses. It was a different time, and there were considerations outside our willingness and necessity to be truthfull.
BBM speaks to a segment of the gay male population. If the Jack and Ennis characters were real folk, they would be 65 years old. In fact, Anne Proulx said that the inspiration was looking at the face of an older man observing two young gay men playing pool in an intimate fashion.
BBM also speaks to the modern closeted gay male who mirrors the "old behaviours" when all psychosexual activity was considered abnormal and criminal.
BBM speaks to all women who think that psychosexuality is a choice, and that the "right woman" can change a desirable man- especially the dominant alphamale gay man who can "pass". The two women characters describe the one who cannot accept a parallel life for her husband, while the other accepts it initially. The result for both is the death of love, apathy and outright hatred - actively or passively expressed.
I personally do not share the lovefest for either Jake or Heath. I found their protestations a bit much even for selectively out guys like us.
It never fails. The film and actors whom I prefer are LATTER DAYS, and that intelligent Ivy-Leaguer Steve Sandvoss and that Juilliard-trained Wes Ramsey.
I truly believe that if LATTER DAYS had had the acclaim and support, that Steve and Wes would have embraced the project and not paraded their heterosexual prowess to the point of impregnating their co-star who played their wife on screen. My loonie....
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 11, 2006 5:02:45 AM
I hope they don`t make a film of The Front Runner - it`s not a positive ending. They should definitely do The Fancy Dancer - the Catholics and the Christian right would really love that, and it`s got a happy ending!
Posted by: Peter Rivendell | Mar 11, 2006 1:53:00 PM
Peter - I don't understand.
The boy, of course, is murdered on the track by a self-loathing gay person. What fictional storyboard was that taken from?
Everybody knows that there is no such thing as self-loathing gays and lesbians. It's not as if the US Senate and House of Representatives include semi-closeted gay members ! It's not as if former Senator Jesse Helm's granddaughter is an elected and closeted and partnered lesbian judge. It's not like Jesse's major political operative is a man who lives with his thirty year partner and three young children in Massachusetts while working against same-sex marriage rights !
It's not like the fact that Beverly and Tim La Haye or Phyllis Schafly have gay sons who work against their own LGBT community every day. It's not like all those gay and lesbian Republican staffers who enable the theocon takeover of the States.
Next thing, you'll tell me that Kitty Kelley lied when she called him Lips Bush and that the daughter of the vice president is a partnered lesbian.
I want a real life story, not science fiction, for pete's sake.
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 11, 2006 2:16:01 PM
Oh - that MA guy actually MARRIED his partner. When asked about the hypocrisy, he said, " Well, the children need the protections afforded by state marriage."
Duh !!
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 11, 2006 2:17:54 PM
That's kinda what I said when I got married. It was such a ruch of emotions, I was crying like a baby, and when we were done with our vows they stuck cameras and microphones in our faces that we hadn't even noticed were in the rotunda. As I'm trying to calm down to leave the steps and compose myself, one of the reporters asked me why I decided to get married. I said, "Because we believe in traditional family values; we don't want our children to be born out of wedlock."
Too bad that today the onslaught of venom & vitriol to my wanting to honor traditions I was raised with comes not just from right-wing homophobes but from other gays as well.
Posted by: Chad Hanging | Mar 11, 2006 5:25:54 PM
Chad - several questions, actually !!
I would like to understand more completely about those San Francisco, CA marriages that were nullified (obviously because they were initially legal) in light of registered domestic partnership rights -international marriage in either Spain or Canada ( the Nederland and Belgium require citizenship from one of the spouses)?????
What is the chance that SSM will happen anywhere in the USA, with the exception of MA?? Will it survive in MA?
Posted by: Raymond | Mar 12, 2006 8:53:28 AM