What a well written and easy to undersand post, Laura. I love your use of metaphors comparing Jack with Ennis as if he were "shepherding" him and looking after him, and you are right, thats exactly what he does, and Ennis allows himself to be the novice in the arrangement, to be the shy and timid one, to be embraced into this new discovery of emotion.
Getting back to all of us... I have to say that it really angers me how women are on some level denied sexual recreation and release. A reply to that might be, "Denied? How, exactly?" And I can't specifically put my finger on a particular rule or whatever, but I hope you all know what I'm trying to say. I mean, how many movies featuring lesbian lovemaking have been made for the entertainment of straight males? Now how many movies featuring man-on-man have been made for us? (Or any kind of sex, for that matter.) It's just assumed that every guy from the age of 11 will be coming his brains out — zillions of times over his lifetime — and entire industries are devoted to helping entertain him along his way. But us?
Yes, there is erotica for women, but how much by comparison? And how recently was that little cottage industry allowed to come out of its own closet?
I think that is part of the core of my empathy with Ennis and Jack. Straight women have more in common with them than we might realize.
As you guessed, many straight women might ask why you think we have been "denied".
Speaking for myself, I dont think I was denied, because I had never gone looking for it, or wanted to go looking for it. Not because of any homophobia, but because I didnt ever think that it would be a turn on for me. If I wanted to get my "jollys" I was quite happy to do so, watching man/woman or sometimes women/women.
Even when I went to see BBM, I realized that somewhere in the movie, it was going to be clear that these two blokes were in love, how they were going to portray it was a complete mystery to me. I thought maybe, the eye contact between them, or maybe a longer than usual hug, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it was going to be portrayed as in TS1 or TS2. So......in fact, the man/man sexual connection was virtually thrust on me, as no doubt it is on many others. I had no choice of whether I wanted to see it or not once I sat down in the theatre, and as I said in my first post, I found it embarrassing, maybe that was because I felt trapped into watching it, I dont know, all I could think of, was "thank god its dark in here". By the time TS2 came up on screen I was prepared for anything, so the shock value had gone, and I just allowed myself to enjoy the tenderness of it,
I laugh now at my initial reaction to TS1, especially now that I have seen the movie so many times I forget. Now, when I watch it, even though the sex is rough and tumble, I can feel a tenderness to it and a meaning to it.
Getting back to your comments about us being "denied", I still cant say that I am eager to watch any other man/man sexual act, but I must admit, that men kissing, embracing and outwardly showing affection to one another is something that I find very very romantic, and sensitive....and it turns me on in a sexual/romantic kind of way. Seeing two bare chested men, skin on skin, I find totally erotic, and because I have a "thing" for bare backs, to see a man touching or embracing another man's back, I find totally seductive.
But you know, as I write this, I have just realized too, that even when I saw man/woman or women/women, I was more than happy to see only the top half of their bodies too...so, in actual fact, I feel the same way viewing all sexual contact.
Then again, legs entwining is pretty much a turn on too....so I guess maybe YOU ARE RIGHT.....give us more.