The Queer Side of the Great Divide

Back in the dark ages of the 1970s, when I still clung to the belief that snake-hide Tony Lamas and muddy Stetsons made a man that much more of a man, my young eyes were pried open in a men’s restroom. The location was a bar in a small western town, and all I was doing was just searching for a little relief for my beer-battered bladder. As I walked in, I heard, how should I put this?, “amorous” male grunts arising from behind a locked stall. Curious, I peeked down below the stall door to spot two pairs of cowboy boots…pointed in opposite directions.

I had long forgotten this moment of disillusionment, actually one of many in which I began to question the much-ballyhooed machismo of the Western cowpoke, until I heard Willie Nelson’s song, “Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other.” The song, written more than two decades ago by Ned Sublette, came on the heels of the runaway hit movie, “Brokeback Mountain,” about two cowboys who have some amorous feelings of their own.  Nelson says he’s played the song for years for friends in the privacy of his tour bus.

“The song’s been in the closet for 20 years,” Nelson said. “The timing’s right for it to come out.”

“Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly (Fond of Each Other)” will probably never be made into a video for CMT, which believes in giving viewers what they really want: Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney wiggling their pretty butts. (Smile when you say that, mister!)

But are we ready for a song about the queer side of the Great Divide? The gay prairie? Sing it Willie, my outlaw friend.

There’s many a strange impulse out on the plains of West Texas;
There’s many a young boy who feels things he don’t comprehend.
Well small town don’t like it when somebody falls between sexes,
No, small town don’t like it when a cowboy has feelings for men.

Indeed. Then Willie poses this question, “What did you think all them saddles and boots was about?”

You know, come to think about it, I have been puzzled for years about the way a cowboy holds his saddle horn. Since “Brokeback Mountain” and now Willie’s song, I’ve been seeing things a tad differently.

First of all, about those Wrangler jeans. They just don’t quite sit right on a man. Have you ever noticed how Wranglers emphasize one part of a cowboy’s anatomy? Well, sometimes two parts. If you don’t believe me, check out a Professional Bull Riders Association event. After a bull rider makes his eight seconds there seems to be a lot of celebratory Wrangler backside slapping that goes beyond friendly camaraderie and reaching for the communal Skoal.

Am I reading too much into this? What do you think, Willie?

Well I believe in my soul that inside every man there’s a feminine,
And inside every lady there’s a deep manly voice loud and clear.
Well, a cowboy may brag about things that he does with his women,
But the ones who brag loudest are the ones that are most likely queer.

Which brings me to the Big Daddy of them all, none other than John Wayne. No one could fill a pair of chaps like the Duke. But one question needs to come out of the closet: What’s up with the scarlet kerchief? Oh sure, westerners will say a cowboy needs a hankie…er…kerchief, to protect him from the relentless wind and flying Hereford cow pies. But why was Wayne’s always clean and festively knotted? Here was a dude hanging out for months in Monument Valley without a decent dry cleaners or steam bath for miles, yet he always appeared sparklingly fresh, as if he was dressed by Queer Eye for the Cow Guy.

And don’t even get me started on the Lone Ranger (the mask, the tight blue pants!) and his special friend Tonto (such slavish devotion!). Why no girlfriends, Kemosabe?

One of my favorite cowboy songs is the old Patsy Montana hit from the 1930s, “I Want To Be A Cowboy’s Sweetheart.” Lately, I’m sensing a whole new meaning in the lyrics:

I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart

I want to learn to rope and ride
I want to ride through the plains and the desert
Out west of The Great Divide.
I want to hear the coyotes singing
As the sun sets in the west
I want to be a cowboy’s sweetheart
That’s the life I love the best.

The verse is followed by a stretch of raucous yodeling, which, come to think of it, is not usually considered the most manly of activities except, perhaps, in the Swiss Alps. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, pardner.

You can find more of Stephen J. Lyons’ writings at his Substack, “The Revolution Starts Here.”