Amazing post Jetz, and I agree with everything except the part about Jack and the restaurant.I think that Jack has the proper social manners to be taken out to a restaurant!! Jack liked people and he was used to deal with them. He was the one who wanted to live his love for Ennis in a more open way, he wanted to live with Ennis and not only hidden in the middle of nowhere. Jack liked travelling too, and he used to take drinks in bars, do rodeos, and meet new people. Jack, was a free spirit, yeah, but we saw him having dinner with Randall, Lureen and Lashauwn, and he was talking and dancing. Jack was for sure the restaurant type, and even more town boy than Ennis. Jack could be the shelter type because he wanted to leave those times with Ennis in the mountain and he wanted to do a normal life living with him in a house of their own, and he was living with Lureen in a town bigger than Riverton, and he was in more contact with people than Ennis. He talked a lot and he could make friends if he wanted. Ennis was the solitary cowboy type, not Jack.Ennis thinks of all the dirty spoons sticking out of the open cans of beans sitting around the cook camp tent on Brokeback Mt. when he was dreaming about Jack, not thinking about him as you said. He always dreamt about Brokeback Mountain, and I think he did it not because he didn't see Jack in a certain way (restaurant type) but because he was dreaming about the time he was the happiest in his life, the time he met Jack Twist, the time that branded him for the rest of his life.Ennis said: "You know me, Jack, the only travelling I've done is going around a teapot looking for the handle...", or something like that. And that was true. Ennis wouldn't go anywhere outside of a small frame of reference he could hold on to. It was a great leap for him to move to the apartment over the laundromat- he didn't want to do that. It was Alma who wanted that. Ennis was happy living somewhere out of the town and he said to Jack up in BBM that he was saving to get his own ranch. Ennis didn't feel confortable with people around him, he was alone in the bars and diners (we see that at least twice in the film) and he didn't speak much. Ennis wouldn't get a job at the power company, making more money. Jack did, he worked as a salesman making good money, dealing with people. That's why I don't think that Ennis wished to be a part of the wider civilized world, as you said. He wanted to have a "normal" life with a wife and kinds, that's true, but he didn't want to make social life, and you see that he didn't want to move to the town and later he didn't want to go with Alma to the church social events. You said that the "cowboy", just like the "outlaw", would left alone, on a permanent frontier, away from other people. And that's the exactly picture of Ennis we got from the film. Ennis wanted to met Jack in the middle of nowhere and then when he divorced Alma, he lived in a cabin far from town, alone, with no people near, and then, at the end, in a trailer, not in a house in town.I think that Jack was the restaurant type and Ennis not. Maybe Jack was not exactly the Shelter type because he was a dreamer, but Ennis, for me, wasn't that type neither. He was the cowboy type. Jack in his beliefs and way of living became almost a city boy, while Ennis was always a cowboy, the perfect picture of that. Just my humble opinion. Thank you. 
Thanks for the compliment on the post Tammy!
Part One: "Settler" vs. "Outlaw" (Wild West Frontier) Culture; "Old" vs. "New" World
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I think the primary difference between Old West "settler" culture and Old West ("wild" frontier) "outlaw" culture is that the settler culture's main value is "permanence." Stability, continuous growth, multi-generational habitation of the same place are all included in the Old West settler's ideal of geographic "permanence" (staying put in one place, long term).
In order to do this, settler culture requires an economy with sustainable "viability" (over the long term). In other words, it has to be multi-generational. It's a place where families can be successfully raised, generation after generation.
"Settlement" includes both town and country. It includes both urban and rural residence. It's the intention of permanently remaining in a place that's most important to Old West "settler" culture, not that it be solely "urban" rather than "rural."
The "Wild West" frontier "outlaw" culture is less interested in economic sustainability. It's often associated with a "gold rush" mentality, for example, and a "boom and bust" economy.
"Wild West" frontier culture is often violent. Its shoot outs, robberies, duels, brawls, etc. are legendary and even a celebrated as part of America's cultural mythology of the Old West's "wild frontier." (It's no place to raise a family, in other words.)
Is the contradiction between "settler" and (frontier) "outlaw" the primary contradiction within Old West culture? In other words, are "settlers" and (frontier) "outlaws" the two most important cultural ideals dividing Old West culture into opposing sides?
Such differences between people's thinking (especially within a culture) not only divide them against each other but can also against themselves. People are torn apart, within themselves, by conflicting attitudes toward politics, religion, sexuality, etc. In other words, the same person within Old West culture can be part "settler," part "outlaw," all at the same time.
There could be other types of contradictions within Old West culture that might also be important.
One avenue of examining what the most important contradictions (differences of opinion) within Old West culture are might start at what is (culturally perceived as) the "opposite" of Old West culture. This can be a little complicated because the phrase "Old West" contains two terms (of reference): namely, "old" and "west."
First, break down the differences between "West" and "East" in American culture. The "West," in American geographical terminology, is used to define one of the most important "regional" differences within American culture.
The opposite of the "West," of course, is the "East."
The American "West" - different in its natural environment, geology, culture, history, climate, economy, etc. than the East - encompasses both the "Old West" and the "New West." In other words, it's an overall category of geographical description that includes both the "Old" and "New" West.
From the Western perspective, the "East" is seen as a "settled" culture.
Interestingly, America, as a whole, looks to Europe (Britain in particular), to find its "old" country of (European ancestral) origin. For Americans of any ancestry (Europe, Africa, Asia, South America, etc.), Europe is the standard example of a settled "Old World" civilization that America compares itself to (and measures itself by).
Europe is the original source of what is now American culture.
For example, the birth of eighteenth century ideals of American political democracy is closely tied to precedents in seventeenth century English political history. The English Civil War between King Charles I and Parliament in the 1640s, resulting in the (temporary) overthrow of the monarchy by Oliver Cromwell, parallels the end of monarchy in the independent American republic declared in 1776. The Ascendency of Parliament in 1689, permanently limited the prerogative of English royal power with a Bill of Rights in the "Glorious Revolution" when William of Orange (King William III) became king. A century later, in 1789, the U.S. Constitution attached a Bill of Rights of its own.
Of course, American culture is also influenced by cultural contributions from other continents. For example, Buddhism (a cultural "derivation" from Asia, if you wish to describe it that way) influenced Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and other members of the Beat Generation in the America of the 1950s.
Americans of all ancestry, of course, share a knowledge of American history, politics, customs, habits, etc. (However, these are also seen from many opposing perspectives, of course.)
All of American culture has a sort of "split personality" in regard to the issue of "settlement" vs. "frontier." This might go back to the differences in the two original permanent English-language colonial settlements on the North American continent: Jamestown, Virginia (1607) and Plymouth, Massachusetts (1620).
A PBS television documentary series, Secrets of the Dead, discusses the differences between the Jamestown colonists and the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth Rock on the Mayflower (in the case of "Death at Jamestown"). The Jamestown colonists were primarily commercial in their motivations for coming to the New World. They were looking for gold. When the search for that precious metal failed, Virginia's earliest colonists turned to tobacco to "get rich quick." They also begin to import African slaves to work their plantation fields very early in the 1600s. The Pilgrims were primarily religious in their motivations for colonizing a New World, rather than commercial.
However, the Puritans and Pilgrims who inhabited what would become Massachusetts also sought economic prosperity, too. Settlers in both Virginia and Massachusetts took land away from the original native tribes inhabiting them.
Thus, from its very beginning, America has always been split between two purposes: the "sacred" (religious devotion, political idealism, cultural advancement, etc.) vs. the "profane" (money, the market economy, profit motive, power, competition, etc.).
Characterized by this division (contradiction) within American culture, the differences between the American East and West are often perhaps not so much a matter of type but rather of degree.
That is, both the American East and West pursue the same dual purposes (the "sacred" and the "profane"). But they each pursue these two different purposes to a different degree.
The American East, within American culture, is regarded as more "settled" because its English language settlement stretches back to the 1600s, far longer than it does in the American West.
Nevertheless, both East and West also share a "wild" (frontier, outlaw) side. In the American East, this wild side is found in its gangsters, teenage gangs, drug addicts, prostitutes, and other "outlaws" and "outcasts" beyond the fringe of a "mainstream" society.
But the American West's frontier "wild" side is much more prominent. It is one one of the West's most cherished cultural values. The American East may romanticize such historical figures as the gangster Al Capone in Chicago. But it is much more ambivalent in its attitude toward its "outlaws" than the American West is (even in Chicago). The East keeps its outlaws at a greater arm's length distance from its everyday life.
Part Two: "Old" vs. "New" West
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The Old West embraces both a "settler" and a wild frontier "outlaw" cultural mentality. What separates the "Old" from the "New" West is not one having only a "wild frontier" culture and the other only a "settler" culture.
Perhaps, instead, the most important difference between the "New" and "Old" West is how the "New" West seeks the preservation of the "wild frontier" as an environmental, scenic, and even cultural characteristic of the American West.
The Old West sees its natural resources (including its scenic beauty) as "limitless." It allows itself a more romantic capitalist view of the world, in which the market economy can exploit natural resources forever, without limit, without regulation.
In order to save the West, the New West knows it needs to set priorities about what it thinks is "best" about the West (and, thus, worth preserving). In other words, the New West knows that it has to choose between competing values to "save" the American West. (The New West knows it is not a "limitless" frontier, in other words.)
The New West is "practical" in the measures it's willing to use in order to preserve the "wildness" threatened by overlogging, overgrazing, strip mining, pollution, uncontrolled growth, dams (water reallocation), etc. (Doesn't that also make the New West more "devout," or "spiritual," with a greater interest in advocating what's "sacred" in American life: protecting scenic beauty, saving the wild natural environment for future generations?)
The New West is not willing to hold onto those traditional Old West values that threaten to destroy all that the New West finds best in the West. The New West does not wish to exploit itself solely for the commercial purposes of business and profit.
Part Three: Cowboys (Two Versions of an American "Heroic" Masculine Legend)
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Ang Lee, the director of Brokeback Mountain regards Ennis as an embodiment of the "Old West," while he finds Jack to be "New West." The most important contradiction within "Old West" culture is the difference between the "settler and "outlaw" (frontier). In his pursuit of his ideal of being a "family man," Ennis stands on the side of the "settler" not the "outlaw" (nor the cowboy).
I'm certain that Ennis belongs to the "settler" side of Old West culture. Annie Proulx describes him as having a "cattleman's" pleasure in the smell of the dirty diapers of his very young daughters. These remind him of "fertility" and "fecundity" (of a cattle barn, etc.)
Ennis enjoys being a father. He insists upon remaining one - to the best of his ability and to the full extent of his legal rights for custody of his children - after his divorce from Alma. (However, after the trauma of his Thanksgiving kitchen argument with Alma, where she accuses Ennis of having sex with Jack on "fishing trips," Annie Proulx says Ennis did not see his daughters for a very long time.)
There seems to be some cultural confusion about what the American ideal of a "cowboy" is. In one version, the "ideal" cowboy is a man "strong" enough to stand on his own, a "rugged individualist." He is somebody who doesn't allow others to persuade him to give up his own opinions (just so that he can be in "agreement" with a group of his peers).
Ennis appears alternately fearful and conformist in regard to his own homosexuality. Thus, Ennis fails to measure up to the first version of the cowboy "ideal" that says he should be a "individualist" willing to go it "alone" (as a "lone" cowboy) in order to do either:
1.) what he wants (without regard for other's opinions);
2.) or what he thinks is "right" (without letting others decide this for him.
The first legendary version of the cowboy - the "lone cowboy" - is an ambivalent, complex masculine hero of the American West. As a hero, he remains embittered, cynical, ornery, and proud. He's not expected to be otherwise. (Here, as a Marxist might point out, the psychology of the "lone" cowboy often closely resembles the "rugged" competitive individualism of a nineteenth century robber baron big industrial capitalist titan of industry.)
A second version of the American ideal of a "cowboy," however, places the cowboy within a group of his cohorts (fellow cowboys). He is given a social life. He becomes a member of a group of cowboys who herd together out on the range. They come into town on Saturday nigh in "high spirits": drinking, gambling, brawling, and whoring together.
Cowboys, as a group, in this second view of a cowboy, are raucous. They seek excitement, such as participating in rodeo events: bull riding, calf roping, etc. They are expected to "whoop it up" for joy during such events. They are supposed to be so enthusiastic about participation in dangerous events (sports or otherwise) that they ignore the possibility of their suffering the injuries that typically occur during such events.
Because "wild" cowboys - as a group - provide work that has been historically vital to the cattle ranching and the other agricultural livestock "industries" of the American West, their leisure pursuits seem to be tolerated by the settler culture of the American West - much more than they might otherwise be. Cowboys are seen as "boys being boys," in other words, as opposed to being thought of as "dangerous" lawbreakers.
Jack quit the rodeo because he was already "busted up" and wanted to get out while he was still able to walk away from it. Ennis, like his father, was never interested in the "8-second ride" (on the back of a bull or "bucking bronco") the rodeo offers its participants.
But Jack starts out as a "cowboy" - in spirit, at least. Only then does he begins to move away from it, perhaps often unconsciously.
Yet, when Jack becomes frustrated (and lonely) at not being able to spend as much time with Ennis as he would like, he seeks solace in Mexico - with "boys like you, Jack" - as Ennis puts it. Mexico, in Ennis's & Jack's time (the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s) is the late 20th century's version of the modern wild frontier - with all of that Latin American nation's corruption, vice, and Third World poverty.
Ennis, perhaps never that much interested in the rodeo, enjoys all the ribald, exuberant antics of Jack on Brokeback Mt. Ennis frequently follows Jack's lead and joins in.
Part Four: San Francisco & "Wild West" Tolerance; Conformity of "Settler" Society
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The Old West's "settler" culture side is perhaps more communal than its "Wild West" frontier culture side. "Settler" culture presumably has greater "community spirit."
There is a larger concern for others within the settler community reaching beyond the self. The well-being of family and neighbors are important. At its highest ideal, "settler" culture is not limited to relations of pure mutual self-interest, such as a business deal in the capitalist market economy (for example, a card game in a frontier town saloon or a mining prospectors' partnership with a town bank or merchant).
But "settler" culture may also be more conformist than what's typically associated with a "Wild West" frontier town. For example, San Francisco, as the ultimate gold rush city (a type of Wild West frontier town), dates its rapid growth dating from the California gold rush of 1849. San Francisco has a cultural heritage of independent thought and tolerance for the differences between people. This tolerance, of course, has long included those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
Obviously, San Francisco has always been very different than the cultural world that Ennis perceives himself as being part of: the conservative rural Wyoming of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s.
For Buddhism, the "settler" and "outlaw" cultures of the Old West probably each have separate advantages and disadvantages of their own. Certainly, Buddhism would be cautious about the high passions released on the lawless, violent, wild frontier of the Old West.
Uncontrolled passions run riot in the wild frontier of Old West legend. These often lead to violent confrontations in shoot outs, pistol duels, hangings, etc.
Gold fever, for example, is an uncontrolled desire to find that precious metal. It consumes those who fall to prey to it. Miners and "claim jumpers" kill each other over it.
But the frontier Wild West is also free of the moribund social traditions of Old West "settler" culture. Such stagnant traditions trap people in lives of "quiet desperation."
Obviously, the conformist character common to a homophobic culture would lead many to deny their own sexual orientation in order to "fit in" and be "just like everybody else." When people attempt to believe they are something they are not, they become stricken within anxiety. They inevitably fail to fill the expectations they've set for themselves (in order to achieve some impossible social ideal imposed upon them).
In Zen Buddhism, "beginner's mind," releases the mind from its preconceptions about what society says is the "proper" way for people to live. Thus, Buddhism might find at least something comendable in the "freedom" offered by the American West's "outlaw" culture.
But, again, Buddhism would not accept the criminality or licentiousness of Old West frontier culture, either. "Beginner's mind" does not release you from the obligation to follow a "right" path in your life, whatever it might be.
Jack stares at Ennis on Brokeback Mountain. Ennis says, "What?" ("What's on your mind now, Jack?").
Jack tells Ennis that he's taken by surprise: Ennis is suddenly willing to open up and start talking to him: "Friend, that's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks."
Ennis replies, "Hell, that's the most I've spoke in a year."
Ennis, in the past year, has been living with his brother. But there was "no room" for him any longer when his brother got married.
Ennis also found himself engaged to Alma. His silence toward his fiancé, Alma, during that past year is telling. He hasn't spoke much in the past year. He probably hasn't spoken much to Alma in that past year.
There certainly seems to be a lack of enthusiasm in Ennis about his pending marriage to Alma (maybe a sense of foreboding, too). Perhaps Ennis is already aware that he lacks a (sexual) interest in women that "everyone" else seems to have.
That makes Ennis different from others, in his own mind. He doesn't know what to think about this. Isn't "everyone" supposed to fall in love, get married, settle down, and have children? That's what Old West "settler" culture tells him.
This self-doubt about not being the "same" (normal), as everyone else, reappears in Ennis throughout the years.
After the first night Ennis & Jack have sex together in the cook camp tent, Ennis comes back the next evening. He finds Jack lying on his side looking out over the sunset. He tells Jack, "You know I ain't queer." Jack responds, "Me neither."
It's interesting that instead of simply declaring, "I ain't queer," Ennis prefaces his declaration (of not being queer) with an additional qualification of: "You know..." He seeks reassurance from others, including Jack, that they "know" he's not "queer." That is, Ennis worries about how he appears to other people, even Jack.
Identifying himself with Old West settler culture (in his aspirations to be a "family man," etc.), it is probably no accident that Ennis worries so much about how others perceive him. "Can people tell who fellas like us are?," as he confides his fears to Jack.
Jack seems taken by surprise by Ennis's worries (about whether people can "tell" who "fellas" like Ennis & Jack are). Then again, Jack also takes precautions against the revelation of his own homosexuality. He keeps all the names and telephone numbers of his "friends" in his head, as Lureen tells Ennis when Ennis calls Jack's number in Childress, TX, long distance from Wyoming.
Part Five: Ennis as "Settler" Introvert; Jack as "Outlaw" Extrovert
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Ennis is an introvert. But introversion shouldn't be mistaken for either a rejection of human contact or a lack of emotion toward others.
Ennis does not seek to escape people's company to live his life, alone, as the classic "lone" cowboy. Rather, he fears the hurt he suffers when others disappoint him.
You can sense Ennis feels abandoned by his brother when his brother got married. It left "no room" for Ennis, anymore, in his own words. He had been living together with his brother until then. Ennis responds warmly to Jack, as a friend, when "none was expected" on Brokeback Mt. It's Alma who sues for divorce, not Ennis.
In the end, as Larry McMurty & Diana Ossana describe it in their Feb. 28, 2006 interview in The Advocate, Ennis chooses his daughter over his usual "workaholic" escapes into his ranch hand job. In fact, Ennis says his boss can find a new "cowboy" - if he's not going to give Ennis time off to go to his daughter's wedding.
Again, just because somebody is an introvert doesn't mean they don't want to have other people in their lives. Introverts care about others - as little or as much - as extroverts do. In other words, introverts don't have a psychological "problem" that needs to be overcome.
Introverts are as mentally healthy as extroverts according to the personality theory developed in the Myers-Briggs (Personality) Type Indicator (MBTI). "Introversion" and "extroversion" (alternately spelled as "extraversion") are simple variations in human personality, to be accepted rather than "cured."
Jack is an extrovert. His wife, Lureen, tells him he's most successful salesman in the farm implement dealership. (Obviously, for sales of any sorts, being an extrovert can be a great occupational advantage.)
Furthermore, as an extrovert, Jack probably knows how to get along better with people (especially strangers) than Ennis does, especially on social occasions. But having good social skills doesn't necessarily make you a better human being.
When Jack & Lureen go to a community social event in Childress, TX, Lureen complains that husbands never ask their wives to dance. Instead of responding to Lureen's hint (that must have been obvious to Jack), he turns to Randall's wife, LaShawn, and asks her to dance, instead.
Ennis had asked Jack how things were between Jack & Lureen in their marriage. In the end, Jack said their marriage could be conducted over the telephone. Jack adds, "for what it's worth," he found humor in Lureen's busyness at the office, running here and there as a jackrabbit might.
Of course, it wasn't Lureen whom Jack wanted to spend his life with. In his marriage to Lureen, Jack was left with a pale shadow of the life he wanted for himself (and Ennis).
But Jack's neglect of Lureen contributed to the lack of psychological intimacy in his marriage. These are the highly predictable consequences of neglect. If you hurt others, they are more likely to avoid you. If you neglect others, they are more likely to respond with a lack of interest of their own.
It is possible to imagine Ennis - if he had been there - taking Jack quietly aside and objecting to his neglect of Lureen. Of course, Ennis never even took Alma to the church dance, when she asked.
Ennis preferred to stay at home to watch TV: a program featuring a dark-haired man with 1970s-style long side burns, dressed in a suit, presumably an urbanite. Perhaps he drew Ennis's sexual interest. (Alma might have seen this, too, perhaps prompting her to ask Ennis to take her to the church dance, in the first place, in order to distract Ennis from what - or who - he was so intently watching on the small black & white television set in their apartment over the laundromat.)
The conversation between Lureen and Randall Malone - left stranded together at their table while Jack dances with a very talkative Lashawn - ends uncomfortably in awkwardness before it even starts. Perhaps seeing Jack's seeming indifference to Lureen's wish to dance with her husband tells Randall that Jack might not be that interested in his marriage. Randall might take this further: if Jack is not particularly interested in women, Jack might be open to a sexual invitation from a another man.
Perhaps Jack would also recognize that Randall, too (an especially quiet husband), would rather be someplace else than with his wife.
Ennis and Jack regard their married lives very differently. Ennis, at least theoretically, takes his marital obligations between husband and wife more seriously than Jack does.
At the Siesta Motel in Riverton, WY in 1967, Ennis says that if he had understood in Signal, WY (the last day Ennis & Jack were together after they came down from Brokeback Mt.) what he did now, "things might have been different" between him and Jack. (Of course, "might have been" is not the same as "would have been.")
But since both of them now had wives and children, they had to be "decent." Of course, Ennis subsequently also "cheats" on Alma, too. He goes on frequent "fishing trips" with Jack.
Being a "decent" member of the community is how "settlers" viewed their lives in the Old West. "Outlaws" and "cowboys" were less concerned about this sort of "decency." They, or course (as "outlaws") seem disinterested in most of the other sorts of "decency" law-abiding society demands.
The most important difference (contradiction) between "settler" and "outlaw" is not whether all settlers are "urban" and all outlaws are "rural." "Outlaws" on the Wild West frontier, such as saloon keepers, dance hall girls, gamblers, etc. are often found in "town." (Of course, all cowboys are "rural," by definition, since their economic profession is an agricultural occupation.)
It's also not even a question of whether all settlers are "extrovert" and all outlaws are "introvert." Again, many outlaws, including drunken brawlers, six gun duelers, even train robbers - as well as saloon keepers, dance hall girls, and gamblers - are "extroverts," too.
Nor, again, are all cowboys "introverts," either. Jack, herding sheep out in the open on Brokeback Mountain, remains an "extrovert." He enjoys talking, roughhousing, and joking with Ennis, encouraging an introverted Ennis to open up.
Rather, the primary difference between the Old West "settler" and the Old West "outlaw" is how they view themselves in regard to their society (community). As a "settler" - even though preferring to be settled on an isolated ranch far from town - Ennis still takes keen interest in being a father to his daughters, Alma, Jr. and Jenny.
In contrast, Jack, seems willing to walk away from his wife, Lureen, and his son, Bobby. While he may have enjoyed letting his young son drive a big tractor in the farm implement dealership parking lot, he would have left both Lureen and Bobby without a second thought, without a glance backwards, in order to have a "sweet life" together with Ennis.
Jack is a rebel. The "outlaw" side of his character can be found in his willingness to make a "deal" with Lureen's father, L.D. Newsome. In exchange for leaving Lureen, Jack thinks her father will offer him a sum of money. Jack proposes in the Siesta Motel in 1967 that he and Ennis can use this money to start up a ranch of their own.
There lies the contrast between Ennis (as an admittedly introverted) "settler" (who's also terrified of public exposure of his homosexuality) and Jack (as a cowboy "outlaw"). It can be found in their differing priorities in their romantic lives (as homosexual lovers) for doing what might be in the best interest of their wives and children.
Even for married men in the heterosexual "mainstream," promiscuity is viewed as a questionable way to lead your "social" life, at best. (A sexual double standard about promiscuity continues to exist in the heterosexual mainstream. It encourages men to be promiscuous - at least to some degree. But women are supposed to be in love with their sexual partners. In the Victorian era of the 19th century, women were supposed to "keep" themselves virgins until they got married, too.)
Jack is very promiscuous.
Furthermore - as Ennis well knows - it's not women with whom Jack is promiscuous. However good Jack keeps up an appearance of heterosexual masculinity, Jack's homosexuality will always place him outside of the heterosexual mainstream, of course.
Jack, if anything, is far removed the "settler" values of (heterosexual) family, stability, etc. (Yet Jack, more than anything else, also seeks a stable, long term cohabitation with his male lover, Ennis. When Jack decides this is no longer possible - on their last day together, the May 1983 argument - he seeks it with Randall.)
Of course, as Ennis sees it, Jack is caught by the "thing" between them. Jack is so emotionally overwhelmed with Ennis, he finds it difficult, if not impossible to have any thoughts to spare for the wife and son he has in Childress, TX.
In the Siesta Motel, Ennis declares - to Jack - that he's "wrung it out a hunert times" thinking (fantasizing) about Jack. He's never thought of anyone else (another man).
Jack, telling a lie, says he's never thought of anyone else, either. (Annie Proulx adds in the short story that Jack rode the bulls rather than rolled his "own.")
In a contest between "settlers" and "outlaws," Ennis's preferred cultural identity is his being a "settler." Ennis's declaration of himself as committed to his marriage to Alma in the Siesta Motel (even as a pretense of homosexual monogamy) would place him outside the "outlaw" camp.
Ennis tells Jack they have to remain "decent" in Riverton, WY in 1967 (the first night they are together since Brokeback Mt.). In the movie, before Jack comes back into his life in 1967, Ennis fought against "outlaw" bikers who used "rough language" in the presence of wives and children at a 4th of July "family" event.
Ennis also chooses a (presumably genuine) homosexual monogamy for himself. (He says he only thinks of Jack, not other men.)
Gay culture, in general, is very tolerant of most, if not all, types of sexual activities between consenting adults. Ennis might not choose homosexual promiscuity for himself but I don't think he'd be morally judgmental about it in others (with the possible exception of his lover, Jack).
In the Siesta Motel, Ennis says that in order for he and Jack to remain decent, they have to remain apart (except once in a while, when and where the "thing" can't harm them). They need to be careful in case they become overpowered by their emotions for each other, again. "If you can't fix it, you have to stand it."
Of course, Ennis is also afraid of the public exposure of his homosexuality. But fear is not what Ennis aspires to. Ennis, in part, aims to do what he feels is "right." That's a "settler's" perspective, as opposed to an "outlaw's" wild frontier perspective.
At the very least, Ennis is probably much more attracted to men, members of his own gender, rather than to women. But any degree of bisexuality in Ennis would probably be small, in my opinion. (Women don't seem to excite him. But Jack does.)
So, what must he do to be "right" by Alma and his daughters? Ennis may be sexually attracted to men rather than women. Nevertheless, he is married to Alma. He has a commitment to her.
Ennis does not see her as his ideal romantic partner (since she does not belong to his own gender, the one most sexually exciting to Ennis). But he knows that she, too, has made a commitment to him (as her romantic ideal).
It's not easy for Ennis to just walk away from his marriage, as Jack seems very willing to do from his marriage to Lureen. Furthermore, Ennis's commitment as a father to his daughters, if anything, is even more important to him than his marriage.
Ennis also likes being a father.
He tells Jack that he would have like to have had a boy, just as Jack and Lureen do, with their son, Bobby. Although he said nothing, Ennis must have been taken aback when Jack said he wanted neither sons nor daughters: "none of neither" (in the Siesta Motel, in 1967, that night on the day they had first seen each other in four years).
Again, even though Ennis loves Jack, he does not feel free to leave his family. All he feels he can offer Jack is their getting together "once in a while, way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, but..." (Jack then cuts in, "Once in a while? Every four fu**in' years?")
For Ennis, Jack (a cowboy "outlaw") may represent a side of himself that he is attracted to. But, as a "settler," Ennis sets being a stable "family man" as his ideal. He won't allow this attraction to deter him from what Ennis sees as the "right" course to take in his life.
Ennis, here, is torn by contradictory emotions and values. (Ennis does agree to see Jack more than every four years, going on frequent "fishing" trips with him while he remains married to Alma and Jack remains married to Lureen.)
Something similar also happens in Jack but in reverse. Perhaps attracted to Ennis's settler side, Jack begins to fantasize about how the two of them can begin to spend the rest of their lives together.
This is not something Jack ever discusses openly (as far as we know) on Brokeback Mountain. It is the young Jack - 19 yrs. old, with wavy hair and buck teeth - whom Ennis dreams about when he awakes with wet sheets. But even the young Jack asked Ennis directly, in Signal, WY after they came down from Brokeback Mountain, if Ennis was coming back next year to herd.
The young Jack, when next year came, asked Joe Aguirre if Ennis del Mar had been around. (Whereupon, in typically bruising words, Joe Aguirre says he doesn't want either of them since they were too busy "stemming the rose" to take care of the sheep.)
Yet, without Ennis (to keep him from becoming so lonely he can hardly stand it), Jack is promiscuous ("riding the bulls, rather than roll his own"). Perhaps that changed when Randall asks Jack if he wants to spend a weekend in a cabin.
After telling Jack they have to remain decent (by staying with their wives and families), Ennis concludes, "If you can't fix it, Jack, you gotta stand it." Jack responds, "For how long?" Jack may be attempting to get Ennis to comprehend the magnitude of this decision. They will be apart for long periods of time. They will be together only briefly, then separated again, back to living the pretense of a heterosexual life, a prospect that excites neither of them.
Ennis tries to reassure Jack that they can "ride it" for as long as they can. (Ennis is saying he won't abandon Jack, even if they can only see each other only briefly, on rare occasions.)
Ennis adds, as a declaration, "There ain't no reins on this one." It's almost as if he's telling Jack that he won't put any reins on his love for Jack (just as Jack has decided not to put any reins on what Ennis calls the "thing").
But Ennis has done just the opposite. He's tightened the reins severely on the "ride" he's having with Jack. If they were tightened anymore, he'd choke the horse and kill the "ride." (In other words, he'd have to become completely abstinent from all sex with Jack.)
Ennis attempts to restrain the "thing" from ever taking hold of him (and Jack) in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Public exposure of their homosexuality could expose them to Old West "vigilante" justice. (It would not have been surprised Ennis if his father had practiced this sort of justice against Earl, the old gay rancher, whose body lay in the irrigation ditch. Ennis's father had showed it to Ennis and his older brother, K.E., when they were 9 years and 11 years old.)
Of course, Ennis is afraid of what could happen to him and Jack. He sought to avoid the risks the "thing" posed to them. He feared a recurrence of the overwhelming emotions that took over their "good judgment" when Ennis initiated his kiss with Jack at the bottom of the landing steps up to the apartment over the laundromat in Riverton, WY.
Ennis had looked to see if anybody was watching them, before letting himself being taken over by the "thing" take over, too, at the bottom of the landing steps. He may have never realized that he hadn't been careful enough. Alma saw what happened from behind the apartment screen door.
Part Six: "If You Can't Fix It, You Gotta Stand It"; Stoicism; Buddhist 8-Fold Path
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"If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it" is as good of a summation of stoic philosophy as you might find anywhere. It defies desire. It stands for doing what's "right," no matter how much emotion (desire) says to do otherwise.
It spurns the happiness that desire offers us an illusion (a deceiving appearance that turns us back toward our experiencing still more suffering). If we succumb to desire, Buddhism says it will lead us to the opposite result we hope for.
Buddhism offers the "8-fold path" as a precursor to a way of understanding the world that can end our suffering in it.
These 8 points are:
1.) Right Speech
(speak in a non-hurtful, non-exaggerating, truthful way)
2.) Right Actions
(wholesome action, avoiding action that would do harm)
3.) Right Livelihood
(not harmful in any way to oneself or others; directly or indirectly)
4.) Right Effort/Exercise
(make continuing efforts to improve)
5.) Right Mindfulness/Awareness
(know things for what they are in a clear, conscious way)
6.) Right Concentration/Meditation
(examining the present reality within oneself, without craving, without aversion)
7.) Right Understanding
(understand reality as it is, not just as it appears to be)
8.) Right Thoughts
(change the pattern of thinking, to correct erroneous or wrong thoughts)
Secrets of the Dead (PBS)
"Death at Jamestown"
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_jamestown/index.html Wikipedia: Saddle bronc and bareback riding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle_bronc_and_bareback_riding Memorable Quotes for Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Internet Movie Data Base (imdb.com)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/quotes "Brokeback's big secrets"
Anne Stockwell interview with "Brokeback Mountain" screenwriters: Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
The Advocate (February 28, 2006)
http://www.advocate.com/issue_story_ektid25277.asp "Myers-Briggs Type Indicator" (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers_Briggs_Type_Indicator "Buddhism" (Wikipedia)
The Noble Eightfold Path
Main article: Noble Eightfold Path
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism 
