As traditional notions of ‘normal’ gender roles were challenged and unsettled, men could display both subtly and openly the erotic connections they felt for other men. That point is strongly supported in the article, “Paradise of Bachelors: The Social World of Men in Nineteenth-Century America.” It notes: “Without the presence of women, the always unstable line dividing the homosocial from the homosexual-that is, dividing non-sexual male bonding activities from sexual contact between men-became even more blurred.

People engaged in same sex activities weren’t seen as homosexuals.” “Society didn’t really designate people as homosexual or heterosexual through most of the 19th century it was not really until the 20th century that those identities crystallized.”īoag, who wrote the 2003 book Same Sex Affairs, explained to True West: “In all-men societies, it was not unusual for same sex relationships, and it was just an acceptable thing to do. “It’s important to know the history of homosexuality,” notes History Department Chairman Peter Boag from the University of Colorado at Boulder. While most would expect the cowboy’s lechery was pointed towards women, that wasn’t always true, but it also didn’t mean what it would mean today. “Of these … lechery is often alluded to but is the least detailed activity of his frenetic pleasures.” He notes the traditional cowboy had four failings: drinking, gambling, lechery and violence. “To tamper with the image of a folk hero, a historic formula, a legend, and most of all, that of the American cowboy heritage is probably more dangerous than the proverbial where ‘fools rush in,’” Westermeier writes. Westermeier noted any examination of sexual activity by cowboys-homosexual or not-was such a cautious topic, his article in the 1975 Red River Valley Historical Review was titled “Cowboy Sexuality: A Historical No-No?”

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