Talk:Cowboy/Article improvement subpage

Article improvement subpage. Montanabw (talk) 19:46, 3 August 2017 (UTC)

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Homosexuality in cowboy culture
During the 1800s, for every woman that lived on the Frontier, there were six men. So it was difficult for men to socialize with a woman, let alone marry one. Hence, men often formed intimate friendships, which sometimes ended in real love stories, and it was accepted as a fact of life. It is difficult to know up to what point these same-sex relationships were simply due to the lack of women, or if this kind of life attracted men who preferred the company of other men.

Western writer, Larry McMurty, believes that cowboys were not repressed gay men, but rather repressed straight men "complicated by a heroic concept of life that simply takes little account of women." This is the same view held by Alfred Kinsey, who reasoned that "western men have "sexual relations with women when they are available," but when they are not they turn to other men." Regardless, some men were drawn to the frontier because they were, in fact, attracted to men.

The lack of women in the region meant men mostly socialized together.

While homosexual acts between young, unmarried men occurred, cowboy culture itself was, and remains, deeply homophobic.

There were also lesbians and transexual cowboys. One example was "Little Joe Monahan," who worked in Idaho and Oregon. Joe left Buffalo, NY and went went west in 1869. He was strong with a gun and with horse, and eventually acquired over 100 head of cattle. But, after leading cattle through the valley during a bleak winter, Joe caught a cough and died in early 1904. His birth gender was only discovered upon his death.

In 1985, the International Gay Rodeo Association was founded, nearly 10 years after the first gay rodeo. And, in 2005, Brokeback Mountain became the first mainstream film about homosexuality within the cowboy culture.