I agree with the above poster. Ennis was miserable too. In, fact I think he was the most uncomfortable of the two with the life they were living. It was a no win situation for both of them.
I think everyone can agree that our boys were miserable, but that is not seminal to the discussion. I think I have stated in the past that in order to have a true view of how life was back then, we cannot recollect those days and times with our modern day sensibilities.
I've avoided saying this, but unless you are gay, you could never know what it was like to grow up gay in that particular period. Ask an African American if they think that back in the 60's and 70's a biracial relationship was ok and could have survived. The likely answer is, "probably not".
Like it or not, we are social animals, and "living on love alone", will take you only so far without the care and support structure of a human community, and up until very recently (and in some cases still not yet), that community consisted of ad hoc groups of gay, lesbian and transgender peoples, that if not for the commonality in their respective sexuality, would probably have never been friends, let alone a "community". There was no community for Jack and Ennis, because they were, like so many others in that time, caught in the middle, with no land of their own. Their situation was made worse by their lack of education and an almost complete ignorance of their own innate worth as human beings. They were not of the ilk to be activists, either by intention or accident. Jack, perhaps could have been a "knight of the cause", given time, but not if pursued Ennis the rest of his life.
My back and the backs of many others still show the scars (and I do mean scars) from bearing the hatred of the world during the 60's, 70's and 80's. It is the men and women, who demanded to be seen back then as human beings, of no less value than anyone else, that have paved the way for the younger generation of today. I used to get angry at the younger gay generation for showing such a lack of respect for their predecessors, but not anymore. It makes me smile now, because they have not known a time when they didn't have the freedoms that we fought and even died for.
Most of us are gone now. So many brilliant and worthy people, and yet there are still young men entering gay bars with machete’s, hacking at people who he fears. How far have we come? A ways, but most certainly not far enough.