Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Was Mexico all about revenge or about need?
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Momof2 on August 30, 2006, 05:31:28 pm ---I sometimes ask my husband if he thinks a man is good looking and he will look at me crazy. I asked him had he never thought a man was good looking. He said he guess he never really thought about. I make comments all the time about how beautiful a woman is and he sometimes thinks so other times not. I guess it is what a person's opinion as to what beauty is. So I guess if a straight man never thinks of men as good looking it would seem odd to them that another man would think they are beautiful.
--- End quote ---
I have a male heterosexual friend who has told me that he recognizes beauty in men's faces, but feels no erotic allure in them. This seems analogous to the admiration many gay men have for women's beauty and grace, without feeling a concomitant carnal impulse when confronted with these qualities.
A first cousin of mine once insisted, in our adolescence, that he had no opinion whatsoever in whether a male was good-looking or not, and that this extended even to himself. I accepted his statement at face value at the time, but eventually came to feel it lacked credibility. How could a man groom himself, make sartorial choices, and generally present himself to the world without sharing some idea of male attractiveness imbibed by the larger culture? The late cultural critic Philip Core argued that no one looks more enviously at men than other men, and I suspect this trait extends to men generally, not just those who happen to be gay or bi.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: moremojo on August 30, 2006, 06:20:40 pm ---I have a male heterosexual friend who has told me that he recognizes beauty in men's faces, but feels no erotic allure in them. This seems analogous to the admiration many gay men have for women's beauty and grace, without feeling a concomitant carnal impulse when confronted with these qualities.
A first cousin of mine once insisted, in our adolescence, that he had no opinion whatsoever in whether a male was good-looking or not, and that this extended even to himself. I accepted his statement at face value at the time, but eventually came to feel it lacked credibility. How could a man groom himself, make sartorial choices, and generally present himself to the world without sharing some idea of male attractiveness imbibed by the larger culture? The late cultural critic Philip Core argued that no one looks more enviously at men than other men, and I suspect this trait extends to men generally, not just those who happen to be gay or bi.
--- End quote ---
I'm not familiar with Philip Core, but that makes sense to me!
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 30, 2006, 06:38:49 pm ---I'm not familiar with Philip Core, but that makes sense to me!
--- End quote ---
Philip Core was the author of one of my favorite books, Camp: The Lie That Tells the Truth (Plexus, 1984), an idiosyncratically inflected exploration on that elusive yet immensely rich cultural category, and from which the quote I paraphrased was taken. Core's book is elegant, scholarly yet always entertaining, and itself highly camp.
Bucky:
I agree that Jack probably went to Mexico to get revenge for the way Ennis turned him away after Jack drove to Riverton, Wyoming thinking Ennis wanted to live with him after his divorce came through. It is wierd but the one guy in my life that I really loved once upon a time was the one that I didn't think was sexy at least not for a long time. It was eventually his sweetness that drew me into a relationship. The truth is he was the only male that I have ever had sex with in all of these forty something years of my life.
We now exchange emails on a regular basis but the love is gone that we had once. I now know that it would be as hard for me as it would for him to rekindle anything. I guess there has been too much water that has gone under the bridge. He still likes to get my advice on matters of importance to him but I won't give him any advice. If he makes any mistakes they will be his mistakes not my mine. I suppose that my giving him advice back in college may have done more to damage my relationship with him than anything else including his overbearing father.
People say that absence makes the heart grow fonder but I think absence and time have done more to ruin my relationship than anything else. I have a feeling that I could get my old boyfriend back now if I really wanted to get him back or at least he asked if I would like to rekindle or restart what we had in college. The problem is with me in that I don't want to go back twenty two years and start over again. Also the way our relationship ended back then caused me to lose the element of trust which is necessary for a heterosexual or homosexual relationship.
I feel really sorry for Jack because Jack couldn't see when enough is enough. He had to know that his dreams with Ennis couldn't happen. Ennis loved Jack but love is not enough if Ennis is going to refuse to do anything about it. It was Jack who kept trying to make it work. Ennis' attitude was like "here I am if you want to be with me. Right here in Riverton, Wyoming and I am never going any place else." For Jack to love Ennis so much that he would give Ennis twenty years of his life of a sneaking love on the side that no one could ever know about was indeed very sad. I couldn't do that.
Front-Ranger:
Bucky, it sounds to me like there is something unresolved that is keeping you from moving on to a new relationship. Twenty years is too long an interval between relationships, IMHO. What's keeping you?
As for the original question, I vote for need, rather than revenge.
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