The Wild West was actually very Gay

Rennaisance-themed orgies...?

Wouldn’t mind having me a two-spirit twink.

I was hoping this was something to do with Robert Conrad.

Nature always finds a way. Males adapt and in this one example in which men ultimately adapt to their environment.

I do wonder how the men decided which guy would be the home stay man and the other go out to work. Was it based on age, physicality, race, was it forced, etc. What were the circumstances this partnerships.

R4 the bottom stayed home and did the housework.

We had lots of gay companions, back then. You didn't need to identify as gay.

I find myself oddly intrigued by this.

How the west was hung!

Mmmmm, lots of swarthy mins panning for gold in the hot Western sun, with their muscly brown backs and no one to love them.

The level of delusion here is hilarious.

Whenever I think of the old West, I always think of the painting "Sunday Morning in the Mines," circa 1872.

It's pretty much what you're talking about, op.

PS, regarding the painting at R11.

Note the twink in the middle, flanked by the two burly guys on either side of him.

One of them definitely has a lusty look in his eyes.

And remember, the painting was from 1872, not 1972.

Just watch the Wild Wild West and you'll see how gay...

Re R11

The twink was probably the town's slut.

Were these arrangements based on twink /daddy pairings?

Also noticeable on that painting are the hot asses.

I wouldn't be surprised but that many of the men who went west did so precisely because they were gay and wanted to be free of the judgmental/restrictive society of the east. The same pattern occurs in the age of European imperialism -- gay men running off to the colonies where they could indulge in their sexual proclivities without the prying eyes of family and society.

R11 How about the two guys on the right of the picture? One has his pants off, and the other is sitting, smiling at him rascally.

His practically presenting hole.

His=He's

I like that term "berdache" it sounds so much more sophisticated and exotic than gay.

[quote]did so precisely because they were gay and wanted to be free of the judgmental/restrictive society of the east

Interesting, I never thought about that. Also, many of these men were single young males that had the stamina to travel West. Young people, even then, are more flexible and likely to experiment.

Many of these people had to have had a sort of a free spirit attitude to make the journey in the first place.

I think that the "Sunday in the Mines" painting seems pretty representative of actual life in an all male encampment.

No, they weren't all gay.

Some were racing horses, some were gambling, some were washing clothes, some were cavorting with each other, and some were reading the Bible.

I'm guessing that it was a lot like life in prison. You have guys who engage in same sex activities, and most just accept it.

Guys are pretty okay with man-on-man action, as long as women aren't around. Once you add in the female element, then men immediately think that you have to act more macho, which includes frowning on the "gay stuff."

There’s a great old vintage porn called Gold Rush Boys that plays to this era. It’s sctually pretty hot.

[quote] We had lots of gay companions, back then. You didn't need to identify as gay.

Really? You were there?

Sex prior to modern day hygiene had to be pretty disgusting. Everyone no doubt stank to the high heavens.

Go West!

this is like when Brokeback Mountain came out and they said, yeah, cowboys who had to watch over herds for months at a time, without anyone but their male coworker for companionship, were fucking each other. It's just that no one had ever talked about it before.

Gold Rush?

Gold NASTY!

Thinking the article is mostly click bait and the actual scenario was more akin to what happens in prison or on ships combined with a higher than average number of gays likely heading out as per R16

Here is another article

Never thought this but it makes sense as R16 does. Men left their societies with tight rules and became free to express themselves. Not all were gays but they needed sex, young horny guys out there. Funny R11 is fantasy vs R29 reality. Dirty guys after hard working day. The smell must have been something.

You bet it was!

They didn't call him Hoss for nothing.

Hop Sing was the pass-around bottom.

I like that painting at R11. It's meant to show miners behaving badly on the left and behaving properly on the right... and BOTH sides have homoerotic action! It's just on the left there are two creeps grabbing the drunken twink, and on the right there's a stable couple doing laundry together like an old married couple, while presenting hold.

The painting is at the Crocker Museum of Art in Sacramento, if you ever have a reason to visit Sacramento.

Interesting article. The same theme of same-sex relationships pops up every time groups of men organize without women (e.g. gladiators, prison, and the military). And yet straight men will never admit that they could sleep with another man. The men always start fucking when the women are away for too long.

"...doing laundry together like an old married couple, while presenting hold. "

I meant HOLE, obviously.

It is NOT gay if it happens in a woman free enviroment!~

R34 Sparta huge military camp where men lived together except when in war or at home once a year to breed their wives. Homosexuality was normal part of life. And those guys were fit strong guys. Physical strength was very important. Just imagine all the sex in the camps between those athletic men.

Straight men still never admit that they sometimes fuck men. We never labeled it gay. The fact is that straight men are in denial about the boundaries of their sexuality. Fucking a dude is fucking a dude.

R4 indeed. People all adapt to their environment.

As far as roles and division of labor, I imagine they were more shared than in a traditional MF marriage. Perhaps in more extreme bachelor marriages the Alpha male might go out more and the Beta present dinner and hole when he got back.

But I'm sure for the most part they all become straight once they got back to town or their wives.

That queen in R25 looks like the Senatrix, Miss Lindsey Graham.

If hetero men were 100% honest a huge percentage of them would admit they get sexually excited by the thought of men having sex with each other. The only reason many hetero men don't engage in homo sex is because they're terrified they may get found out. They live repressed lives keeping those thoughts secret. Of course a fair percentage of them do act on their secret urges.

I thought they just fucked sheep

Only on Sundays.

I'll just leave this here.

Was it only anal ?

Any orals and men kissing involved ?

Would the hungry bottom ass be too sore to ride a horse the next morning ?

I've had the acquaintance of a few big strong cowboys in my time. Some of the best lovin' you'll ever have.

The Good, the Bad, and the Snugly

Oh Willie!

Anyone ever see the gay western "Song Of The Loon"?

The TVShow, or the horrible movie?

Conrad strutted around in his very tight pants...it seemed good.

I'll have a bit of that please, and thank you!

Stop being a little girl, r24.

Were their holes clean ? Were they cut ?

Remember those letters President Lincoln wrote to his young friend who was serving in battle? Most did not think that was odd, or the fact that they slept in the same bed. That had to be in the1860s.

“Laramie” was Brokeback Mountain before there was such a thing.

'Dust Unto Dust' from 1970

I think segregation of sexes made it easier for men to show affection towards other men. Back then, young women were kept away from men unless chaperoned. At least the marrying kind:

There's a beautiful recent novel called Days Without End by Sebastian Barry that's the story of 2 young men in the 1850s in the American West who meet up as teenagers when they're both hired to disguise themselves as girls and dance with cowboys in a saloon. They develop a romantic relationship and travel around, fight in the Civil War and eventually settle down on their own farm. Wonderful writing and their love story is told without comment.

Apparently, the author, who is Irish, wrote it for his son when his son came out to him as a gay man.

The problem with classifying things into gay, straight, and bisexual is that those terms ideas were not in use at the time. It was like how we know that men had a lot of sex with one another, in boarding schools, universities, and the military, especially the navy. I appears that men in the past were a lot more fluid in their sexuality and thankfully we are getting back to that. The idea of rigid sexuality was pretty much just a 20th century phenomenon. The only difference between the fluidness of the past and the present, is that in the past they were acting against the laws of society and couldn't act as open as we can today.

I wish things did not have to be separated into gay love and straight love, I wish it was all just love or couples.

R48, I believe Lee Van Cleef was gay.

He was married for 50 yrs (3 different women).

Lee Van Cleef

American actor

DescriptionClarence Leroy Van Cleef, Jr., was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few

Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Wikipedia

Born: January 9, 1925, Somerville, NJ

Died: December 16, 1989, Oxnard, CA

Height: 6′ 2″

Spouse: Barbara Havelone (m. 1976–1989), Joan Marjorie Drane (m. 1960–1974), Patsy Ruth (m. 1943–1960)

Children: Denise Van Cleef, Deborah Van Cleef, Alan Van Cleef, David Van Cleef

[quote]Remember those letters President Lincoln wrote to his young friend who was serving in battle?

The book "Love Stories: Sex Between Men Before Homosexuality" talks about this in one of it's chapters. After reading those letter in detail, I was convinced Lincoln was in love with a man.

Ride 'em cowboys! Hot!

The really interesting letters that have been found from back then was those between South Carolina politician James Henry Hammond and his classmate/lover from South Carolina College(now the University of South Carolina) Thomas Jefferson Withers, unlike the Lincoln letters which are open to interpretation, there is no denying that Withers had a thing for Hammond's "long fleshen pole." Later, Hammond left public life after deflowering his four underage nieces.

You could tell which guy was the alpha.

R69 I can’t tell, the right ?

R65, you make him seem like the father of Frances Gumm

I think that prior to the 20th century and the anonymity that large cities gave to men, men who were not the "marrying kind" looked very precisely at professions and locations that were all -male. They joined the navy, or became sailors, or western scouts, or cowboys. Things probably had to be pretty discreet, but I'm sure that most people found someone compatible after awhile. Guys of 18-24 are at the prime of their sexuality as regards hormones, and there wouldn't have been many ways to hide an erection in long johns which is what most people wore under their clothes. (And slept in). I'm not sure that people knew all the variety of things that men could do with each other - it's not like there was a copy of the Joy of Gay Sex in every saloon - so probably most people just found something they liked and stuck with it. I suspect that frottage was common, and probably mutual masturbation. Anal was probably a little more problematic, and oral, I'm not sure.

Yeah - R62 sounds more on the money.

There weren’t any homosexuals - but there were homosexual acts. Masterbation was considered a sin anyway. So jerking your buddy off - or giving him oral - or fucking - were all sins too - but more fun! - so might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb...

Most of the guys would have been uncut - and bathing wouldn’t have been frequent. Doubt anyone douched much! But you all probably smelled much the same so it wasn’t a big deal. And I’ve known plenty of men nowadays who have revelled in cheesy foreskins and manstink.

And look at the lads in British public schools - heaps of homosexual hijinx and activity - but as one got older - most began to start preferring women. And do one’s duty by the family and procreate. But many still liked men and lads too - either occasionally or exclusively.

There’s nothing new under the sun - the gays have always been with us! Just different eras had different thoughts and rules about it all - which dictated how transgressive it was - and how discreet one had to be...

Black hats were tops. White hats were bottoms.

Another interesting book about this topic is "Men in Eden: William Drummond Stewart and Same-Sex Desire in the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade" by William Benemann, which examines the life of a Scottish nobleman who ran off to the American west in the 1830s, participated in the fur trade and fell in love with Antoine Clement, a French Canadian-Cree Indian hunter. Would make for an interesting movie, if anybody had the balls to do it.

There is this obscure side to American gay history that is never explored and the more time it passes the less likely it is to be discovered.

I've been trying to expose this obscure side for decades!

I ain't queer!

it's nobody's business, but ours.

R61, thanks for the recommendation

r74 So Ladd is a bottom and Cowboy Josh is a top?

LOL, R22.

Antoine Clement was kind of cute, R75...

R72 Why was anal problematic in those days ?

[quote] this is like when Brokeback Mountain came out and they said, yeah, cowboys who had to watch over herds for months at a time, without anyone but their male coworker for companionship, were fucking each other.

They were sheep herders, no cowboys.

They used Vaseline or spit and water.

No they shove it in dry

That's where all those jokes about fucking sheep started. Back in the olden days if you were out with the flocks for weeks at a tie, young shepherds got horny and that's how animal husbandry started......

Do they douche the sheep first ?

r84 Buttholes were tighter back then so it hurt more, Rose.

R90 Oh really ? Were you alive then ?

I'm a big fan of of painal. So I hope some of that went on...

Lol of corse they used lubricant. Lard, petroleum jelly(Vaseline), cream, spit, or water.

Lubricant is not a modern custom.

It also wasn't uncommon for women to pass as men. I think it had more to do with protection than gender identity though.

Were there any feminine cowboys ?

Annie oakley

Calamity Jane? More of a rowdy gunslinger though?

A fish-free world with unlimited uncut sizemeat!

HEAVEN!

The desert west has a long history of attracting gay people to it. All along the Mojave, you'll see these abandoned, derelict shacks dotting the landscape, basically in the middle of nowhere. They're the last evidence of the Small Tract Act of 1938, when the government authorized the lease of up to 5 acres of land for a nominal fee. Lots of these homesteads were popular amongst gay couples, fleeing discrimination and scrutiny. Sadly, most of these homes have ended up abandoned and in disrepair.

Wyoming: Where the men are men and the sheep are nervous.

R100, lol.

Anal sex must have smelled horrible in those days. Especially if the bottoms were dirty cowboys whose diets consisted of God only knows.

Oh you silly boy, r95!

[quote]Anal sex must have smelled horrible in those days. Especially if the bottoms were dirty cowboys whose diets consisted of God only knows.

It couldn't be more disgusting that when men fuck their women on their period.

Anal wasn't as bad as you imagine. Most people took a daily enema because they believed it was healthy.

Lot of bareback riding...

^ hot!

Very big fantasy but reality was probably very dirty.

[quote]Quinn quotes Mormon Founder Joseph Smith as writing that male friends “should lie down on the same bed at night locked in each other’s embrace talking of their love.” Smith said he did so himself.

Once again proving that the virulently anti-gay are merely overcompensating.

[quote]When the miners at Angel Camp in southern California held dances, half of the men danced the part of women, wearing patches over the crotches of their pants to signal their ‘feminine’ role.”

The old hanky code is quaint by comparison.

Bump. ::: ricochet! ::: BUMP

….

Sublime Gary Cooper. The injuns wouldn't have scalped such a pretty white boy, they would have turned him into a captive frau and pimped him out to the best warriors.

A professor of American history once told me that public bathhouse in which cowboys paid a nickle to get a good hot water bath , often offered the service of a young nude boy to " help " with your bath. Considering that a female would not venture into a Male bath house, this was considered normal. Having a nude boy accompany your bath was just a extra service like soap or a shave. Also most shoe shine boys were also prostitutes.

r113 and to think, I worked in a plant nursery during high school!

If you want the real story of the American West, check out the movie "Song Of The Loon". It's about as realistic as you could get.

No wonder there was so much rape of Native American women.