When you think of the Old West, your mind might conjure images of tough, macho men who embody stereotypically masculine traits. A cowboy riding valiantly on his horse to rescue a poor damsel that’s tied to the railroad tracks, for instance. Spitting dip, loading guns, drinking hard, and wailing on whores.

If that’s how you view the Old West, you might be shocked to know how cowboys really viewed homosexuality. Wild West society didn’t necessarily label people homosexual or heterosexual, but rather allowed each person to be who they need to be in any given moment. In an interview (“Homos on the Range: How gay was the West?”), University of Colorado at Boulder History Department Chairman Peter Boag, who wrote the book Same Sex Affairs, said, “people engaged in same sex activities weren’t seen as homosexual.”

When women weren’t present in large communities, say a mining camp full of men for example, some men would fill the role of women sexually and domestically, and normal gender roles were challenged. In effect, men in the Old West got it where they could.