I am kind of at a loss. I don’t know what I am going to talk about in this post because I am treading in the troubled water. Well, let me get this thing straight (not the straight you are thinking of): it is about man having sex with man.
The queer story “Brokeback Mountain†is a short story written by Annie Proulx and first appeared in the October 13, 1997 issue of The New Yorker. Ang Lee made a romantic movie from it and the movie just won the top Venice motion picture prize.
No, I am not going to talk about the movie. No matter how romantic and touching the movie is, it tends to gloss over the underline problem. For example, most movies leave only gorgeous women and sexy men in our memory. Their substance is largely forgotten.
Now we are back to our business–the novel. The story is short and impressive. Ennis and Jack were buddies. They came from similar background—high school dropouts, poor, and rough but nice. When they were herding sheep together in the Brokeback Mountain at the age of 19, they made out in the wild mountain. Nothing magic, they just did it.
Their love affair resumed four years later. At that time, they had both got married and had kids. Unfortunately, their secret love led to nowhere except for occasional rendezvous. Jack came down from Texas to Wyoming every year under the name of fishing or hunting with Ennis. Jack always wanted to settle down with Ennis back on Brokeback Mountain. But the risk of exposure scared them away. After 20 years of secretly loving, Jack’s sex orientation was exposed and he was tragically murdered in Texas. The only thing left for Ennis was memory, and Jack’s deep love for him.
The story is touching and revealing. People, in particular gay men, accolade it for speaking for themselves. However, as far as I can see, the novel has made more damages than services.
In the story, Jack was depicted as having mild genital disconformities. It implies that because of this, Jack has a tendency to be different and also lacks confidence. This is misleading at least. Male preference for men has nothing to do with genital stuff. Although people don’t know yet why some men like men instead of women, it is possible that homosexuality has the same mechanism as those which some men like fat women while some men like lean women. It is very likely caused by genes.
Another weakness of this novel is about why Ennis changed his sex orientation. He started out as a straight man. After having sex with Jack, he gradually developed an attachment with Jack. This implies that his relationship with Jack causes the change of Ennis —sort of social environmental determined. This is not true in reality. As I have said before, the sex orientation is more likely genetically determined. Does the sex cause a self revelation? I don’t know.
Nevertheless, love is the abstract form of physical interaction. The story successfully transcends the relationship between Ennis and Jack to an eternal love. Sadly, they were cornered by social pressure. A lot more people still feel the pressure today.
The second weakness that you pointed out, regarding why Ennis changed his sex orientation, is debatable.
Like any other gene expression, certain environment may be more suitable to “turn on†the expression of the “gay genes†(if we can call them that way). So with the gay genes imbedded, Ennis can still start as a straight man. The gay genes might be fully switched on after Ennis started the sexual relationship with Jack. In other words, Ennis’ relationship with Jack might catalyzed the expression of the gay genes.
Comment by Latino2 — September 23, 2005 @ 9:19 pm
I agree with this. That many people become gay in their later years suggests that there may be some susceptible genes for gaymanship. It is possible that some environmental factors trigger the expression of these genes. Nevertheless, sex orientation is not an all-or-none phenomenon but a contigent realization. Many people indeed maintain a bisexual life while secretly yearning for the relationship with the same sex.
In the developmental psychology, staging theory states that human beings go through several developmental stages, some people may unfortunately stuck in the homosexual stage. At least, for boys, they tend to hate girls when they are little. They will start likening girls when they enter pubic stage.
Sex orientation is even more complicate in women. For many teenagers, recent study showed that lesbian has been treated as a safer sex with intimate relationship.
The seemingly promiscuity, or more precisely, multipartnership, is also a fretting matter.
I guess it is because there is no family binding mechanisms to tie them together. Lack of legal bond, they tend to form partnership based on romantic love which fades very fast (max. 3 years). After all, there are so many distractions in the world, and most men are deemed to the enticement of any gorgeous women–that’s why LIUXIAHUI is so famous. There is no exception for women, gays and lesbians.
On the other hand, companion type of love only develops within a tight partnership. The recent trend of legalizing same sex marriage may help gays and lesbians develop long term partnership.
Comment by xlsyu — September 23, 2005 @ 10:26 pm
Can you post link to the photos of the two actresses?
Comment by Roboo — September 24, 2005 @ 12:10 am