Nikki Payne: 0:00

Hey y'all, welcome back to Unbound. It's Gay Cowboys Day. Welcome to Unbound, the podcast that explores the intersection of pop culture and the steamy world of romance literature. Join us as we celebrate the voices and stories often left in the shadows and unravel the threads of joy, passion and heartache that keep us coming back to the page and the screen.

Adriana Herrera: 0:24

I'm Adriana Vera and I write romance novels with hot and horny Latin people.

Nikki Payne: 0:28

And I'm Nikki Payne and I write steamy romance based on the books you were forced to read in high school. We're steering our rainbow series with the fringe on top right into the heart of the pride parade, western style. In this episode we're kicking off with a provocative exploration of homoeroticism in the West, how the isolation and lawlessness of the frontier life opened up unexpected doors for queer expression and identity.

Adriana Herrera: 0:53

That's right, folks. It's Gay Cowboy Day.

Nikki Payne: 1:00

Okay, the West has a secret. Y'all, all those Marlboro men, squinty Clint Eastwoods and swaggering John Waynes they have been playing in your face. The cowboy, an iconic figure of American mythology, traditionally embodies hyper-masculine traits such as ruggedness, stoicism, independence, and they all have those deep Batman voices like I'm not going to be able to do it, surely. But this portrayal often overlooks the inherently homosocial environment in which these cowboys operated Extended periods of male-dominated settings, sharing physical spaces, relying heavily on one another for emotional and sometimes physical support. We're going gay on the trail, folks.

Adriana Herrera: 1:46

I mean it's kind of about the isolation really, on the frontier, away from the structured society of the East, all of those rules. Men and women and persons of any gender really found themselves in roles and relationships that defied the norms of the times. With fewer eyes to judge, the West was a place where one could explore a more fluid sexual identity. It was a place where constructs fell away and a person could redefine their way of life. The very aesthetic of the West, as we've said before, lends itself to reinvention.

Nikki Payne: 2:20

After all, it's a blank canvas and there's something hot, right and homoerotic about these settings by themselves. In romance we love a trope the road trip, only one tent.

Adriana Herrera: 2:31

Or one horse or, in Nikki's case, only one wigwam.

Nikki Payne: 2:35

Yes, it's all here, y'all, from cattle drives to the intimate confines of a shared tent. The West was ripe with male bonding and the blurred lines of camaraderie and desire.

Adriana Herrera: 2:47

And I mean it's so intriguing, so beguiling, to think about the possibility of the West for people of queer identities. Even pop culture is sort of fascinated with the homoerotic aspects of the West. It has started to peel back these layers. Take films like Brokeback Mountain and even classics like Rio Bravo, where the tension between John Wayne and Ricky Nanslan can be cut with a knife. But despite Wayne's intention of making the film a defense of McCarthyism, it was pretty gay, pretty, pretty, pretty gay. Or my favorite fate of mates in the west film, bush cassidy and the sun basket. Or how I like to call it, dance butch. Because, come on, how do you pair paul newman and robert redford in a movie like that and not expect us to ship the hell out of the entire situation? I, I mean the amount of leather in this movie. The amount of leather, okay, those stories tap into that undercurrent of tension, affection, comfort, deep bonding that challenges the traditional narratives of the cowboy as a stoic, solitary figure.

Nikki Payne: 4:02

And we talk a lot about the cowboy in the past, but the cowboy is actually happening right now too. There's an ongoing journey to understand and embrace the nature of Western mythology. So, from Almodovar's films to the most powerful narratives that are captured in modern Westerns, we actually see a continued fascination with the layers of identity that this cowboy represents. This is Unbound, and we're just getting started on our journey through the gay west.

Adriana Herrera: 4:30

Y'all don't want to miss what's next? Welcome back to Unbound, where we argue, like Orville Peck, that cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other.

Nikki Payne: 4:46

Let's kick things off with cinema with a movie that disturbed me and had me riveted to my chair the Power of the Dog. This is a film by Jane Campion and I know I'm breaking the rules. This is actually an aggressively white film where Benedict Cumberbatch plays the embodiment of an extremely toxic gay man eating himself up from the inside. His character is monstrous the the he's a walking talking manifestation of self-loathing and internalized homophobia, and it doesn't end well for our boy this.

Nikki Payne: 5:16

What I'm what I love about this movie is that it's actually this death blow to the toxic masculinity of the cowboy archetype, fashion by Hollywood. It is a counter-argument and makes this character pitiable and withering and disgusting to our eyes, because we know that that archetype by Fashion by Hollywood is really cis, white head, able-bodied lore. It's a myth. The twist here is that he is ultimately failed by this waifu young man who is also a manifestation of what media would consider the opposite of the cowboy Ultimately a person drowning in their own loneliness, love and yearning, and he's cut down by that. What I find so interesting and, adriana, we can talk about this is that Jane Campion tends to do her most feminist work when the central characters are men, and some of our greatest critical race theorists. Patricia Hill Crenshaw often argues that feminism isn't actually about gender at all. It's about liberation for everyone.

Adriana Herrera: 6:24

Yeah, it all comes down to gays in the end, and I think part of the idea that Campion is trying to posit here is that no one's safe from patriarchy and hyper-masculinity and that level of toxicity that that kind of behavior literally destroys lives and ends up with death, like it literally just like ends up with like the ultimate kind of violence which is homicide, like it must be put to death almost.

Adriana Herrera: 6:57

It's kind of like the message of this, of this film and that, no, there's so much symbolism there sorry to cut you off when you, when you say it like that there's so much symbolism of like corrupt, corrosive, corrosion and death and just like ultimate um vile, corrosive nature of that way of thinking yeah, I mean, I think a lot about this, like like benedict cumberbatch's like uh, acting is really really effective in that movie and you can almost see like the spiritual disfiguration of him, of of that like internalized homophobia, of living in that in the closet of the self-loathing and the like it comes out like it's, it's starting to be a physical manifestation, like you can see the destruction of his soul in his face and and it's very interesting to me how she used like this man as kind of like this figure and I mean romance does that all the time right, like the idea of um, kind of using these like ruthless heroes, as kind of like an avatar for the patriarchy, and how it needs to be like undone and and a lot of times it can be undone, you know, under the guise and through the gaze of feminism. So I do think that's a great example of this kind of conversation around the Western and the things it can do. But it's also interesting to see someone like Almodovar right, that's a legendary queer filmmaker take on the Western and his short film A Strange Way of Life, which I love and everybody should watch because it's got Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal probably two of the very few men in Hollywood who are just letting themselves age naturally, and they look amazing and very rugged in this movie. But the story is these two men who have a history and who are facing off after decades from each other and it is a period film, so you can tell it's sometime in the 19th century and they were outlaws together and had an affair, um, as young men. That changed everything between them, um, but ethan is a lawman now and doesn't want to rehash the past. But pedro. But then pedro shows up and he wants to rehash everything.

Adriana Herrera: 9:42

Um, this film is really sensual. Both hawk and pedro really lean into this decades-long regret and journey. I think in the in the film they haven't seen each other in like 25 years and so they have this like um coming together. That's pretty amazing and explosive, like very subtle but also um really well acted, like you can see in both their faces, like the agony, um, and it's really kind of to me and nikki, I want to hear your thoughts on that it's kind of like what that film does. It's almost like what fan fiction does, like gives you finally, like the release and the satisfaction of what you've been needing and wanting to see for you know, all this time, like you know the idea of like a paul newman and robert and robert reff finally kissing and and butchering this thing that's getting kind of like I feel like part of what that move, that little film, did for me um, you are blowing my mind right now with that fan fiction idea, because that is precisely what, like the nature of um, of fan fiction is right.

Nikki Payne: 10:56

It fills in the, the desire gaps. Right like this didn't happen. I'm not seeing this happen in the media that I love and I'm going to build in this secret new world where the things that I want to happen happen, right like in this interesting, like these stories are like western fanfic, like writ large, right, but that fanfic can now become.

Adriana Herrera: 11:23

Can you like the fandom? I mean, I'm a big fan reader and usually the fics that I gravitate to are fics that are either queer and it's usually couples that like two characters in a story that are not allowed to be together because of a heteronormative thing or an interracial couple like I know we talk about the other all the time where, like, there's amazing chemistry between, for example, a white actor and a black actress, but, like they, it can never be like for Steve DiFallo fan.

Nikki Payne: 12:00

So I think can I just like put in a moment right here and just like hashtag to all my the Bear Watchers we know what you're doing. Okay, exactly, we know what's happening.

Adriana Herrera: 12:12

Exactly so to me, that piece of it is always like we need that satisfaction.

Adriana Herrera: 12:19

And I think Amodola, who is obviously a film master and the student as well, yeah, and he did it in a way that really understands the genre like it really is, like he uses the setting and he captures like all these iconic elements of the western, like you know, the like the lone horse rider, like at dusk.

Adriana Herrera: 12:45

He captures like that campfire moment, like there's so many iconic shots that are like really part of like the conventions right of the genre. Um, he really captures the outlaw, the lone rider, the terrain, the standoff at high noon high noon, yeah, and also kind of like an orgy, like with wine and stuff, because I think he was gonna going off like the spaghetti westerns, kind of like, you know, the the clean films. But anyway, I thought that was an interesting addition to the genre because I think it really alleviates and gives us relief those of us who have watched these films and thought this could be a lot gayer, a lot gayer, and so, because it is out in moldova, we don't really get like a full-on hea, but we do get the possibility of something hopeful, um at the end.

Adriana Herrera: 13:45

So I, I do, I do it um encourage people to watch it. It's only like 35 minutes long.

Nikki Payne: 13:51

Oh, TLDR Watch this film, Okay. So in the typical Western, so both men are contained and they're scared of asking for what they want. In Elmo Delvar's gay-ass movie, Pedro puts all these cards on the table. He's going to risk it all for the. He's going to risk it all for love. This is a perfect example of the power of shifting perspectives in film. This is what it means when there is a queer person behind the camera telling that story, and this is a perfect example of what it actually means the power of turning that gaze on and making that desire not dirty, making it pure, making it something that the audience can root for also.

Adriana Herrera: 14:39

It's a perfect fit. Yeah, when the gaze is gay, it matters Gaze for the gays. Exactly.

Nikki Payne: 14:50

But music is also a space where the gay cowboy has struggled for invisibility. Um, if there are any parents of um children that are in the age range of like 8 to 12, you may be eligible for damages, because when this um, when this song came out Old Town Road, my kids wore me out. I don't even know if I can listen to it without feeling like it's a kid song, but Lil Nas X's hit Old Town Road, smashed records and challenged what it meant to be a Black queer and a little bit country, even today, and people play them for a joke.

Adriana Herrera: 15:31

But the Billish People's cowboy was signifying to the queer community. The song YMCA was all about leaving your home to find a safe queer community. Thinking of our Beverly Jenkins theme and how important finding community was for her characters, we can see these same themes pop up in Village People's songs. In the Navy, yes, you can put your mind at ease in the Navy. In the Navy.

Nikki Payne: 15:58

Common people.

Adriana Herrera: 15:59

They make a stand in the Navy.

Nikki Payne: 16:05

Can't you see, we need a hand.

Adriana Herrera: 16:07

I mean you need a hand, you make a stand, Okay, In the Navy, and I mean the whole thing right, it's like thinking about these hyper male spaces, the military, a YMCA space, which is a Christian space technically, where young men can fly under the radar and find what they needed.

Nikki Payne: 16:30

Yeah, orville Peck, who we quoted at the very beginning of the podcast, is a great example of this. He wears these fringe masks and he has these hauntingly beautiful country ballads and he brings this mysterious, almost otherworldly dimension to the cowboy image and his work is incredibly melancholy. But I think there's nothing actually counter-genre with respect to country and singing about yearning for a male lover. It does take on a different lens when we discover exactly who Peck is longing for.

Adriana Herrera: 17:04

Just as a parenthesis here, I just want to point out that Orville Peck was born in South Africa right at the end of apartheid, which Okay, wait, are there even cowboys in South Africa?

Nikki Payne: 17:16

We can't be doing this.

Adriana Herrera: 17:17

I don't know, but what I do know is that little Naxxess, who is from the South, is not allowed in country spaces and Peck is sort of allowed to navigate them.

Nikki Payne: 17:29

Oh, that's tea for another episode. Adriana, don't do any-.

Adriana Herrera: 17:34

Focus, focus, focus. That's what I think the most important part of the queer gaze in Western media kind of is that there is no interest in subverting it, it's just a claiming of it. I think like that to me is one of the most interesting things, specifically like with queerness, claiming of it. I think like that to me is one of the most interesting things. Specifically, I like with queerness, like I think a lot of different marginalized communities have something to say in terms of their place in the West, but specifically in the queer gaze I do see this sense of like. We don't. It's not necessarily like a subversion, it's just a claiming of it and just establishing that queer, queer identities have always had a place there. It's like painting themselves into a picture that should have had them from the beginning.

Nikki Payne: 18:23

Word, word. So are we actually rewiring our brains when we watch these films and listen to these songs? Are we spectators just consuming media? Like what does it really mean to participate in media? Part of me thinks that we're complicating the cowboy a little bit, so you have these symbols of, like, rugged individualism. But I think what we're doing is really cool and we're uncovering that true symbol a little better, this isolated hero who has the courage to be his or herself in the face of this vast, sometimes really hostile territory.

Adriana Herrera: 18:58

Well, that's a better ending. I think the idea that wherever they arrive in the West, the destination is not only geographical but it's existential, and sure, it might be a little bit colonialist, um, in some ways but you could be gay and also stealing land, you know like but there's, there is deeper meaning in thinking of people who went west looking for a place to bloom and to reinvent themselves. See, that's a romance hero I fuck with, listen. I've read quite a few gay cowboys in my day.

Adriana Herrera: 19:39

Um 15 years ago, when the mm scene was really taking off in romance, there was a lot of the gay cowboy romances and all of them were written by white authors. But they were gay, they were men who were going out there into the unknown and they were staking their claim of their little piece of America and they were starting over and like reinventing themselves, also romantically. So again I think, and again I think that's like what makes it all really interesting, right, like seeing it from our point of view and kind of like unpacking those aspects of it too, of saying like these two things can be true, these people can be, uh, free to be themselves romantically and find love, and also let that like be complicated in the sense that they are also, you know, colonizing in some ways yeah, do you know what this brings to mind?

Nikki Payne: 20:40

Marathon Cowboy by Sarah Black. This is our romance for this episode what do you think about it? Oh, let's leave that for act three, because we are going to talk about this book and we're also going to dive into the themes of the gay. Because we are going to talk about this book and we're also going to dive into the themes of the gay west. We're going to talk about this liberated space on the frontier being a symbol for freedom and self-discovery and queer narratives now we're writing off this jack.

Adriana Herrera: 21:02

We've got some more tales to tell and more trails to trail.

Nikki Payne: 21:10

Welcome back to Unbound. Okay, marathon Cowboys, let's get into it. The book is about two artists and the tropes are grumpy sunshine. There's only one studio. One is Lorenzo Maryboy, who is a stoic retired Native American Marine and a vivacious kind of a manic pixie dream boy. Jesse and they end up working together at Jesse's grandpa's home in Marathon, texas. From the beginning, from the start, these two characters see the world so differently and see their art as connected to their experiences for vastly different reasons.

Adriana Herrera: 21:46

I mean, on one end you've got Lorenzo, who's trying to make sense of his time in the Marines, read Justice to Civilian Life and trying to get his comic Devil Dog off the ground.

Nikki Payne: 21:57

While JC3, jesse's art is loud and demanding. He wants the world to see through his eyes, and the writing and the setting is so crisp and clear. When I read this I was transported so convincingly to Big Sky's isolation longing. And they also have a lot of fun banter. They're talking about nicknames and having profound conversations about what it means to make art, what it means to communicate.

Nikki Payne: 22:23

There's so much depth and we are allowed to see the setting of Marathon, texas actually work on them, open them up, right. This is actually what I love about westerns is that the setting does character work as well, and Justin is much more flirty and open about his sexuality when they are in Marathon, which actually gets him into some pretty dangerous situations. There's this instance where he is in a bar and gets into some trouble and Lorenzo comes to save him. This is a theme that we see often in Western romances and this politics of protection. This is exactly what Dixon Wildhorse from Beverly Jenkins' Topaz would have done to protect our hero or heroine. A lot of our characters are moving into safe spaces, places where it's safer to be gay, places where it's safer to be queer, places where it's safer to be a person of color, and so there's this politics of a protector that moves them to that safe space, and I think we're seeing that in Marathon Cowgirls.

Adriana Herrera: 23:29

And I mean I think part of it with them specifically, like the dynamic between Lorenzo and Jesse is also like of the time. I think this book is about 12 years old, maybe 13 years old, and I think that was like it's a good example of an era of of queer romance, or specifically mm, which is like a romance between two men where things were very gendered. You had your femme, uh, character and you had your more mass character, which usually meant one was comfortable with the sensuality and the other one was in the closet. One was like physically smaller, one was like physically stronger and bigger, one was more fragile emotionally, you know what I mean. One was more stoic, and that dichotomy is also something that like is very apropos of the west right, like you usually had these pairings of of characters where usually one was more like the, the one that was like stronger mentally and physically, and the other one who was the more, uh, you know, sent, like emotional, perhaps like the one that mentally had a little bit more fragility, and one ended up protecting the other until the tables turned. That is kind of like a really tried and true arc of the western Right.

Adriana Herrera: 24:57

What's interesting here, too, is that Marathon isn't Lorenzo or Jesse's home. They're both exiles in a way. They're both new there. This is not their space. Like. Jesse has a history with it, but it's not where he's from. So he really is kind of charting a new ground there. And Jesse's there because he had to leave San Francisco because of some trouble, because he kind of starts trouble, and Lorenzo is coming back to civilian life after serving in the military and this western setting is is where they start over you know, what's so interesting about this story is that neither of these characters are actually cowboys.

Nikki Payne: 25:47

But, like thinking about thinking about cowboys, I think we have to start seeing them as a symbol that does a lot of real political work. So there's this like idea of American rugged individualism and traditional masculinity Sure, the cowboy does that. But it's also this kind of like national, like FYP, like this story that we keep telling ourselves and we keep clicking on and it constantly reinforcing to us who we are and what we believe. I was reading this article in this historic and this historian, richard Slotkin. He calls Cowboy Miss the primary language of historical memory. So this is like how we are remembering ourselves as a, as a country. It's literally our algorithm to ourselves. This is who we are. Here's our proof. We click on it. This is who we are. Here's our proof, we click on it.

Adriana Herrera: 26:42

This is who we are, I mean the, the, the cowboy really is such such a big part of the myth of america right, like I mean, I know, as someone that didn't grow up here, I grew up in in the caribbean but consuming a lot, lot of American media, I don't know if there would be a more quintessential figure of lore, of like American lore that I could come up with visually, than the cowboy. Like sure you have the robber barons or whatever, but none of that comes to mind. You know what I mean. None of that is as emblematic as the cowboy and it's also it's taking a symbol that's being in terms of our kind of interpretation of that myth and queering it up, so to speak. It's taking that symbol that's been used to propagate a very certain type of American narrative and opening it up to include those who were always there but never acknowledged.

Nikki Payne: 27:49

Yeah, yeah. Not only that, the books in general have these broad threads, these still threads that run through them, right? So when we're reading and watching and listening to a lot of queer media about the West, those themes of isolation, community and even a alone with this thing that you know about yourself, and don't know where it's safe to unleash it or to disclose it.

Adriana Herrera: 28:30

So, like the vast and often lawless landscape of the West, provide a backdrop where traditional societal norms can be reimagined or ignored. Just it's such a perfect place for queer individuals to kind of like, let themselves be who they are without the danger of suppression.

Nikki Payne: 28:55

No, that's real talk. The physical and symbolic isolation is crucial, right? But like you're alone. But what do you do with that solitude, right? I think that's the difference In queer Western media isolation often turns into self-discovery, and it's a pivotal difference that allows characters to forge identities away from societal scrutiny.

Adriana Herrera: 29:15

Yeah, I mean it makes me think a lot about Brokeback Mountain and like the possibility of letting that movie actually be a movie that is from like a queer gaze that can hold a freedom, you know, and liberation, like a queer feminist gaze, because then these men would have been allowed to just love each other right and found a way to be together and would have found a community right, like I think part of of the missing piece, um, in a story like brokeback mountain is that they had no one to turn to to be able to like, see possibility of what they could be.

Adriana Herrera: 29:59

And that is a piece of like that Western story where ultimately, like a queer feminist, you know, bipoc gays would have to envision a way to build community once you've reached your place in the West, because community is the emphasis of isolation, but equally vital. This sounds counterintuitive, but those men were very much alone, together out in the vastness of the West, so they were each other's community and ultimately, for them to actually be able to thrive, they've got to find more of them, of people like themselves.

Nikki Payne: 30:44

Mmm, I mean, but hold up, hold up, like I understand community, but like, aren't we being too right now about this? I just can't imagine cowboys coming out to their friends and loved ones like after the trail. They're just like okay, let me, just now, I'm in my community, I'm safe. Wasn't this just like the sexuality of opportunity?

Adriana Herrera: 31:05

hashtag, hashtag gay for the state? Um, gay for today? Um so? So I mean thinking about it like again, like it's just like a place that anything is possible, right? So like cowhands or these transient people perhaps didn't have the modern, very rigid framework of sexual orientation that we have.

Adriana Herrera: 31:35

The binary of sexual identities is relatively modern, emerging prominently in the last two centuries. So prior to that, the distinctions between and. Then we have to take into consideration that everyone in the West wasn't coming from a puritanical, like white Christian like framework. There were people from Mexico, there were Native Americans, there were indigenous people from Mexico, you know what I mean. There were people that were coming from Africa, there were people that were coming from everywhere. So these people perhaps didn't have the same views of, like homosexuality, heterosexuality that we have been fed in in, like representations of the West and the media. So all of this was less defined and in many societies, including the American frontier, sexual behaviors were often influenced more by situational factors than strict personal identities. Relationships and identities were fluid and shaped more by personal connection and necessity rather than strict labels.

Nikki Payne: 32:48

Oh, that cowboy is embracing the complexity and fluidity of identities better than we do now.

Adriana Herrera: 32:53

Let's talk about the hanky code, for instance.

Nikki Payne: 32:56

Oh yeah, absolutely. We don't need to tell you that there was a shortage of women in the West. We don't need to tell you that there was a shortage of women in the West. There's mostly mythos, but the bandana system was actually set up to signal sexual preference in all of these male dominated dances and saloons, california, where people would want to hang out and dance and vibe with each other, and they needed, like, really quick symbols, right to let you know like, hey, I'm, I'm doing, I'm running this show, this is what I like. Let's um, I don't want to. I don't know what all we can say down there this is a family show.

Nikki Payne: 33:39

Okay, okay, um. Originally these practical accessories for cowboys and rail workers in California, that bandana evolved into a very nuanced code, particularly in queer communities, especially seen in the 1970s, to start to advertise your desires. And growing up I, interestingly enough, only associated bandanas with gangs, which are honestly still largely male. Hyper masculine spaces. Wait, are gang bangers, urban cowboys. I see a lot happening here. No, gangs and mafia. That's another episode.

Adriana Herrera: 34:18

That's another season that's another season, but I like what you're cooking. Episode, that's another season. That's another season. That's another season, but I like what you're cooking. I'm going to let you cook in another season. So, as we wrap up today's journey, we're left with the question if the cowboy can embody such diverse and complex identities, what does this say about the potential for other American categories to evolve the housewife, the company man, the millennial, the boomer, the veteran? So, as we consider moving forward, how do we honor the death and diversity of queer identities in retelling of Western myths?

Nikki Payne: 34:58

Oh, we're leaving you with questions. Okay, y'all not ready for that. Not that Aristotelian. Thank you for joining us on this journey through the queer West. As we close this chapter, remember the West and people from the West may not have all been crooked, but they probably weren't all straight either. The gay West hinged on slippery identity and community. We've also seen how the isolation of the frontier offered this unique canvas for self-discovery and how those communal bonds formed in the most unexpected places and it shaped the way that we actually see the West today. As we leave you, here's some cool things we'd love to see from you. You have homework, see. We know that there are gay rodeos happening all over the country. If there's one going on near you, send us a flyer, send us a link. We want to see it.

Adriana Herrera: 35:47

Share with us your favorite country song send us pics of you in your flyest cowboy gear. We want to share your iconic western styles. I want to see chaps. I want to see boots. I want to see spurs. I want to see spurs. I want to see fringe. We'll compile it and share all these images in our episode announcement.

Adriana Herrera: 36:09

Thank you for riding with us today on Unbound. If you love what you heard, don't forget to subscribe, Leave us a review and share this podcast with your friends. Your support helps us keep bringing these stories to life. Find us on all major podcast platforms and follow us on TikTok, YouTube and Instagram for updates and behind the scenes content. Until next time, keep your hearts unbound.