Don't Let Your Gay Boys Grow Up to Be Cowboys

Who knows if mainstream America (motto: we vote for Geroge Bush so you don't have to) will have a cow over Brokeback Mountain (or as Village Voice wit Michael Musto would have it Bareback Mountin' or Crouching Cowboy, Hidden Penis or Eat Drink Man Man), but here in Santa Barbara, which still takes its Wild West heritage seriously enough to market it as Old Fiesta Days every summer, the cowboys are having none of it. As the local paper the News-Press reports:

Just above Si Jenkins' desk at Jedlicka's Saddlery Inc. hangs a panoramic picture showing a row of cowboys saddled up on a Santa Ynez ridge.

"I can guarantee none of them are gay," the shop owner says, the smell of leather wafting through the saddle, boot and Western clothing store on De la Vina Street in Santa Barbara.

Now, let's leave aside how you guarantee someone isn't gay without some serious testing (parade Ruppert Everett in his skivvies around them for awhile? I'm not sure), but if as some estimates say 10% of American males are gay, how can 0% of American cowboys be gay? Is it because the numbers of priests (gay model soon to be discontinued) and hair dressers balance out those hunky, sweaty guys home on the range with mostly just other guys all wearing chaps?

It's possible that cowboys can only become gay not around other cowboys, but in the right combinations--like if there's an Indian and construction worker around.