PHOENIX (AP) – Until now, the cowboy was the West’s quintessential metaphor for masculinity: John Wayne, the Lone Ranger, the Marlboro Man.

Until the movie Brokeback Mountain came out, that is. The story of two cowboys in love has dared to spoil the long-held notion that being gay and being a cowboy don’t mix.

While real-life gay cowboys generally see the movie as an enlightening window into their world, many of their heterosexual counterparts see Brokeback Mountain as an attack on the last bastion of manhood.

Being a cowboy is “all about machoism,” said 53-year-old Rocky Pietz, a bull-riding event coordinator from Weiser, Idaho.

Though he hasn’t seen the movie, and never plans to, Pietz said it “doesn’t represent anything in the cowboy way of life.”

Added George Akers, a retired rodeo calf roper from Maricopa, Ariz., “Well, I’ll put it this way: I’ve never had a cowboy wink at me.”

Brokeback Mountain is the story of two men who have a romantic fling as young sheepherders in 1963, then find their summer of love blossoming into a 20-year love affair that they conceal from their wives. The Ang Lee-directed film has focused attention on a corner of society where the topic is still mostly taboo.

Though homosexuality is far more accepted now than in the 1960s, the disdain for gays among traditional rodeo contestants hasn’t necessarily changed with the times, or because of Brokeback Mountain.

Rick Miller, a bareback rider from Brogan, Ore., said if there are gay cowboys, they aren’t talking about it at mainstream rodeo events.

“If one showed up, he’s been real quiet about it,” said Miller, who likened talking about being gay at a rodeo to “crackin’ a Coors Light in church.”

Without hesitation, he added: “There is no room for gays in the rodeo.”

Many gay cowboys feel the same – so they started their own rodeo circuit with the International Gay Rodeo Association. Formed in 1985, the association stages more than 20 rodeos in the United States and Canada each year.

“It’s just a comfort to know that I’m with people who know me and understand me without question,” said Chuck Browning, who has competed in finals in all 13 events for men at IGRA rodeos.

Though Browning said he’s gone to regular rodeos without trouble – albeit without revealing his sexual orientation – he said the movie reminded him of his initial concerns about being a gay cowboy growing up in Casper, Wyo.

Browning was born in 1963, when the movie begins, and came to terms with his sexuality in the 1980s, when the movie ends. He said he was initially very careful about revealing that he was gay back home in Wyoming.

The fear of being socially outcast and the physical harm that could result from being discovered as gay is an underlying theme in the epic romance.

For Rafeal Rivera, a 42-year-old openly gay cowboy living in Phoenix, being gay meant getting past his past.

“That’s how I was brought up. Gay is wrong,” said Rivera, who was twice married and had a daughter before coming to terms with his sexuality.

James Allen, 32, of Austin, Texas, grew up on a ranch and said the idea that gay cowboys don’t exist is nothing more than homophobic denial.

“The movie shows that it doesn’t matter what aspect of life it is, gay people are there,” Allen said.