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Queer Cowboys and Other Erotic Male Friendships in Nineteenth-Century American Literature
Chris Packard

In its search for examples of “homoerotic affection” between males, Queer Cowboys documents pre-1900 popular U.S. “frontier” literature and the lives of many of the era's public literary figures.

Employing investigative and scholarly gaydar, author Chris Packard teases out evidence of male-to-male same-sex attraction from pre-1900 songs lyrics, poems, photos, fiction, illustrations, correspondence, news articles, personal journals and stage performances to suggest evidence of same-sex desire.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the literature of large fiction work authors such as James Fenimore Cooper (Last of the Mohicans,The Deerslayer, Two Admirals) and Owen Wister (The Virginian). Here Packard scopes out much of the genre's (conscious or unconscious) homoerotic imagery and language, loving frontier partnerships and pre-1900 popular “noble savage” type concepts of primal sexual dynamism and idealized male-to-male intimacy.

The second section focuses on the lives and work of “satyriasis” writers and poets Walt Whitman, Frank Harris and Claude Hartland. As is well known, these homosexual poets wove homosexual themes into their writings and even publicly espoused same-sex philosophies.

The third section deals with journalistic, pulp and “dime-novel” writers including Mark Twain, Bret Hart and Eugene Field. Here Packard includes more obscure writers and diarists of the era and also investigates them for any insinuative homoerotic content and/or discourse. In this section one finds more of the era' s anecdotal and bawdy humor, “men-only-clubs” type male-bonding and dirty talking journalism.

The problem in interpreting a work like Queer Cowboys is that there is such a fine, (and often confusing) line, between “erotic male friendships” and genuine homosexual behavior.

Queer Cowboys's cover photo of two cowpokes merely shaking hands, placed beneath the large and bold “Queer Cowboys” title, is misleading. In fact, most of the books illustrations – be they vintage photographs depicting men touching or dancing together; or Frederic Remington sketches of cowboys sharing a haircut and exiting a tent – are not convincing evidence of what the book's title insinuates.

While the book Queer Cowboys intimates that many 19th century frontier male relationships may have been sexual in nature, its author Packard takes a step backward when interviewed. As he recently told The New York Times, “I use those words 'erotic' and 'sexual' very carefully. 'Sexuality' is different from 'eroticism'. My book tries to point out these are homoerotic friendships; whether they're sexual is not part of the literature. Unless you have evidence, you really have to err on the side of eroticism."

The emergence of gay culture and rights, greater artistic freedom, as well as 20th century acknowledgements of the existence of specifically “homosexual” intimacy between men has created a modern perspective that can't help but color our analysis of history and prompt various reinterpretations. The accumulated meaning of “gayness” though history creates revisions whenever we try to look back on masculine frontier archetypes like cowboys and sailors.

Even though Packard's analysis of frontier literature seems a bit slanted by his own orientation and modern perspective, gay readers will enjoy his unique academic brand of “queer” revelations, arch observations and coy innuendoes regarding frontier writing in 19th century America.

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