Love vs. Lust (split off from Things that make you go 'hunh?')

[LauraGigs]

Ennis has jack in a tight wrap.  There's Ennis's hand brushing Jack's chin. And I think Ennis is kind of scratching the coat under the lapel, so Jack can feel that.

[Kerry]

Man.  That's really crappy!!   

Yep, it sure is crappy. Happens with women too. Many years ago, a dear friend of mine fell on hard times. She had relocated to Sydney from London with her lesbian partner and infant daughter. They opened a small seaside business together, which soon folded because the partner became very homesick and returned to the UK, leaving my friend alone with her daughter and a business she couldn't run alone. For many various reasons, the only way out that my friend could see was for her to go on the game. It was a very bad time for her, but she somehow made it work for her and managed to turn her life around. She entertained gentleman callers in her home (by the hour and half-hour) while her daughter was at school. She was young back then and stylish and discreet with it. Her awfully proper, peaches and cream English persona prevented her neighbours from ever suspecting why so many "friends" called on her during the day. But I digress. Get back to the point, Kerry. We were like sisters back then and she shared a great deal with me. I remember she once told me that she would never kiss her clients. It was a little rule she made for herself. She had somehow worked out that she did sex  for survival, to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.  But kissing involved love, which she saw as having nothing to do with what she was doing to survive. As it was, she ended up breaking her no-kissing rule big time. Not only did she start kissing one of her clients, she married him! He was very rich though.  

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'll forgive you for sharing, if you forgive me for prying. What was going through your mind? Can you be any more specific about what you thought about your own sexuality? What did you call it, if not gay? I'm sorry, I know it's absolutely none of my business, but now that you've brought it up I do find it interesting.

Geez, Katherine, it's not that it's none of your business, but you're asking me about thoughts and feelings from 30 years ago!  As best I can recall, I didn't "call" it anything. But I do need to clarify one very important point: I've always been a man of words rather than of images. When I say that I was jerking off to gay porn, I wasn't looking at pictures of naked men with hard-ons. Mainly I was reading stories from a little, Reader's Digest-sized gay magazine that was published back in them there olden days called First Hand. It was mainly text with a few line-drawing illustrations. So I was jerking off to stories, not to pictures. As best I can remember I just thought they were hot stories and didn't allow myself to think about the implications of what I was doing. I was still young enough then that I just thought I hadn't met the right girl. 

[Jeff Wrangler]

Yes, Jeff, I respect your opinion and the things you've had to say here, but your statement above kind of shocked me.  Is there something going on in your life right now that would cause you say such bitter things?  It's kind of scary.  Did you just break up with someone or something like that?  I think more highly of men, both straight and gay, than the way you're describing them to be.  I hope you're okay?

 

Mandy, I have to thank you for your concern, but beyond that I don't know what to say because you don't say what, specifically, I said that you think is "bitter." No offense, but if you "think more highly of men, both straight and gay, than the way" I described them in my post, then I'm afraid you don't know men very well.

For me "making love" implies something slow and tender. Sure, men both gay and straight are capable of that, but that's not what Annie Proulx describes. Or not how I understand her words, not when you think about the "laughing and snorting," anyway.

I'm also afraid I won't be around for a while to say anything more about this because in less than 12 hours now I'm leaving on a two-week cross-country trip (see "Wrangler's Rambles" in Chez Tremblay).

[Jeff Wrangler]

That doesn't seem bitter to me.  I think I understand where you're coming from here, Jeff.  I appreciate you and Kerry's candor and all.  When I asked "How can you make love with a man all summer..." I didn't necessarily mean all hearts-and-flowers; I basically meant fuck, LOL.

  

And of course Jack, though quite sad, coped with their job's sudden end better than Ennis, because he hadn't been denying the core truth of their relationship to himself.

I think that's why Ennis was so confused as they came down off the mountain--because he was denying the truth about himself and about what existed between himself and Jack.

[serious crayons]

Yep, it sure is crappy. Happens with women too. Many years ago, a dear friend of mine fell on hard times. She had relocated to Sydney from London with her lesbian partner and infant daughter. They opened a small seaside business together, which soon folded because the partner became very homesick and returned to the UK, leaving my friend alone with her daughter and a business she couldn't run alone. For many various reasons, the only way out that my friend could see was for her to go on the game. It was a very bad time for her, but she somehow made it work for her and managed to turn her life around. She entertained gentleman callers in her home (by the hour and half-hour) while her daughter was at school. She was young back then and stylish and discreet with it. Her awfully proper, peaches and cream English persona prevented her neighbours from ever suspecting why so many "friends" called on her during the day. But I digress. Get back to the point, Kerry. We were like sisters back then and she shared a great deal with me. I remember she once told me that she would never kiss her clients. It was a little rule she made for herself. She had somehow worked out that she did sex  for survival, to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads.  But kissing involved love, which she saw as having nothing to do with what she was doing to survive. As it was, she ended up breaking her no-kissing rule big time. Not only did she start kissing one of her clients, she married him! He was very rich though.

I'd never heard that phrase, "go on the game." I figured it out from context, though! 

Sounds like a happy ending to the story -- that is, if your friend is happy with this guy. If she is a lesbian and just married him for his money, it might not be totally happy. Otherwise, I'm picturing "Pretty Woman Down Under." Didn't Julia Roberts even have a "no kissing" rule?

[mariez]

Kerry and Jeff, thanks so much for sharing your personal experiences with such openness and honesty. 

First Hand?      And I'll bet the editors of that little magazine never could've imagined what would be available on the internet someday! 

[Front-Ranger]

That Jeff Wrangler...he went off on his train Odyssey and left us with a cliffhanger!! But I'll bet when he checks in again he'll say he's not bitter about ennithing, and he didn't just break up with ennione, he's just 'splaining for you how things are with men...or perhaps I should say, the male animal. Capable of the deepest love and able to explore a universe of love, lust and sensuality, somtimes for the man (and for the woman too, I dare say) it's just fucking. It's an activity that IMO is necessary for optimum physical, and maybe mental, functioning. And what's wrong with that, between two (or more) consenting adults??

[Mandy21]

Well, Jeff and Lee, I'm offended by both of your remarks about my comment.  I was truly concerned that Jeff's tone had changed suddenly and was worried about him.  I certainly do know men, and I take offense at his comment that I don't.  I was also rather appalled at the language being used, and I'm certainly not a prude; I just didn't find it appropriate on this particular forum.  Whatever, maybe I shouldn't be here at all if this is the way people are going to talk about each other these days.  Last time I checked, there was a rule about saying cruel things about people.  Guess that's changed.

Was a good topic, Laura.  Sorry it went astray.

[LauraGigs]

Jeff's point — that men sometimes have sex strictly out of urgency or pure lust — is not necessarily a cruel one.

Personally, I'm a very sensitive woman and I've always kind of hated the idea that guys are emotionally capable of "love em and leave em".  But the very fact that such a phrase exists (plus others like one-night stand, one-shot thing, etc) pretty much proves the longstanding, historic nature of that behavior.  If men were truly incapable of such behavior, brothels would never have existed.  In my opinion, it's a damn sad thing, and I don't like it.  And I think there are men out there who are very selective about who they're with, and require genuine emotional connection along with any lovemaking.  But the presence of one kind of man doesn't preclude the existence of other types.

In the context of Brokeback Mountain, Ennis has mistaken the sex with Jack for animalistic rutting.  It's part of his denial.  ("This is just a one-shot thing" etc.)  In truth, their relationship is much bigger and more emotionally substantial than that, for both parties.  Ennis only realizes this later.