Reply #2: Eh, disagree with this review...

[SkipNewarkDE]

This is review is a bit silly, because the author is looking at this story through the context of today's more accepting views, and also apparently desires that the character's themselves have some perspective and basis or even CONTEXT for their own feelings and plight. The point of the story is that these two, BECAUSE of the repressed view of the society and their upbringing, didn't even have THEMSELVES a context for discussing and thinking about what they were feeling. Their monosyllabic, completely inarticulate interactions on the subject was dead on in portraying the repression, and absolute inability to deal with what they were feeling.

And the romance doesn't have to be all flowers and rose petals, for crying out loud. I think the most telling thing about these two being in love was the fact that Ennis was incapable of putting two words together EXCEPT when he was around Jack.

The first sex between the two was as clumsy, and inarticulate and embarassing as first encounters always are. Oh darn, the awful straight people are going to think this is how all gay sex is. Who the fuck cares? Again, it ain't all romance and birds twittering, for crying out loud. The clumsiness fit right into the overall theme of the piece.