The Movie & Story > Characters, Quotes & Scenes

"You may be a sinner, but I ain't yet had the opportunity"

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bloodless_moon:
When Ennis and Jack are talking about the Pentecost, Jack says 'fellas like you and me, we march off to hell' and Ennis responds with this: "You may be a sinner, but I ain't yet had the opportunity" what does it mean?

choompty:
I won’t say my interpretation is the correct one, but I always saw it as Ennis admitting that he was a virgin. There’s a million little bits and pieces to the scene for me, like Jack probably implying that they were sinners because of their sexuality (or at least regarding himself), and that maybe Ennis’ response to his comment made him enough confidence to act upon his feelings during TS1. All in all, I saw that line as Ennis saying he was a virgin as they both came from religious upbringings and premarital sex would have been a sin. Especially when we see that Alma got pregnant almost immediately after being married (if they were messing around before that, she probably would have gotten pregnant before they were married). Thats how I always took the line, but I’m sure there’s other ways of reading it, too!

bloodless_moon:

--- Quote from: choompty on Jul 23, 2024, 01:26 PM ---I won’t say my interpretation is the correct one, but I always saw it as Ennis admitting that he was a virgin. There’s a million little bits and pieces to the scene for me, like Jack probably implying that they were sinners because of their sexuality (or at least regarding himself), and that maybe Ennis’ response to his comment made him enough confidence to act upon his feelings during TS1. All in all, I saw that line as Ennis saying he was a virgin as they both came from religious upbringings and premarital sex would have been a sin. Especially when we see that Alma got pregnant almost immediately after being married (if they were messing around before that, she probably would have gotten pregnant before they were married). Thats how I always took the line, but I’m sure there’s other ways of reading it, too!

--- End quote ---
Oh I like this interpretation! Since Ennis is estranged from his family I’m not really sure he would be bound by the restrictions surrounding premarital sex but Alma would be. It could also be that Jack meant he ‘sinned’ by having sex with other men but Ennis hadn’t…. yet. That flirtatious wink lol.

FlwrChild:
Agreed. It could definitely mean that he was a virgin altogether or that he'd never had sex with another man.

My instinct was that he meant he hadn't yet had the opportunity for any type of sinning, meaning he was a virgin. Especially in the context of when that conversation occurred in terms of the development of their relationship. Intentional or not, he did seem to be a little shyly flirtatious, didn't he? 

rampantlion:
"You might be a sinner," Ennis suspects that Jack could be gay." But I ain't yet had the opportunity." Ennis has not engaged in gay sex or avoided it, perhaps because there were no opportunities until that night when Jack took the word literary to  tempt Ennis to have the opportunity "of gay sex".

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