Nightmares for Cowboys

The cowboy has always been framed as the ultimate outlaw: free, untamed, living by his own code.

But what happens when she isn’t just a dream, when she steps fully into the same qualities the cowboy prides himself on? When she’s just as free, just as wild, just as anarchic?

That’s where the nightmare begins.

The phrase calls out the double standard. Society admires men for embodying independence, chaos, and rebellion, but judges women for the same thing. The cowgirl is no longer his fantasy. She is his mirror. And in that mirror, the cowboy sees his myth unravel.

I have faced this in my relationships with women. Seeing them live with the same freedom and fire that I claim for myself forces me to recognize how easy it is to slip into judgment or discomfort instead of respect. This design is a reminder to confront that, to recognize the double standard, and to let that freedom belong equally.

“Nightmares for Cowboys” is about that tension. It is about reclaiming the outlaw spirit as something beyond gender, and pointing out the fear it provokes when women embody the same untamed fire men have always claimed as their own.