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Cousin!!!

Discussion in 'Coming Out Advice' started by nintenfreak92, Nov 25, 2008.

  1. So a little while ago my grandmother got a computer and internet and the first thing my mom told me is we are not allowed to use it. Well my cousin like lives with my grandma and he is constantly on the computer. So my mom told me if i get a chance check his history to see what he is on because my grandma technologically retarded. So today i checked the history i saw that my cousin was on porn but not on any kind of porn, GAY PORN!!!(insert evil music and dun dun duh!!!) and alot of gay porn. My cousin is younger than me by 3 years and is incredibly religious and has nothing nice to say of gays. Well, my sister tries to stand up for gays when she hears something bad said about them, well i guess she told me that my uncle was watching a tv show and he saw a gay guy on it and he said that he won't be watching that show again cause of them damn fa****s. Well my sister(who doesn't know my cousin is) asked him what he would do if his son was gay and he said he would beat the fu** out of him till he prolly killed him. Now I am concerned for my cousin cause I honestly believe that my uncle will harm him if he ever found out.

    P.S: as far as I know me, my mom (i told her), and,of course, my cousin know he is gay.

    P.S.S: I would also like to point out that this cousin irritates me a great deal so trying to help him will probobly drive me insane...
     
  2. Emile

    Emile Guest

    I don't really know what to say... you spied on him and then, you outed him to your mom.

    If someone would have done that to me I would have been extremely pissed off... but like, big time. I don't see how you helped him with it. Being gay isn't easy, as you should know.
     
    #2 Emile, Nov 25, 2008
    Last edited by a moderator: Nov 25, 2008
  3. Agerardii

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    I think you did the right thing in telling your mom, especially if you are concerned that your uncle might harm him if he were to check the computer history himself. I wouldn't necessarily say that you outed him to your mom, it seems to me that you were trying to protect him. I would be careful about assigning labels to someone who hasn't explicitly come out to you though. I don't think wanting to look at gay porn means he is gay, especially if he's only 13. When I was 13 I didn't have the internet, but I know I (and all my friends) wouldn't have passed up the chance to see any kind of porn. The only person who knows if your cousin is gay or not at this point is your cousin, and maybe not even him.
     
  4. I don't mean to be rude or disrespectful, but even though your mother told you to check the Internet history, you should have used your own judgment and not invaded his privacy to begin with.

    The rest of this issue I'm honestly not sure about. On one hand, I agree with Emile -- whether he is gay or not, outing him to your mom might not have been the best thing to do. If she can't keep a secret, your cousin's safety might be in jeopardy. And he might not even be sure of his sexuality himself. However, as was pointed out, his father could have stumbled upon the history, so letting your mother know just in case things go wrong might have been the best option.

    Time will tell, I suppose.
     
  5. n8i2c7k

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    Im a bit tired of stating my opinon (spent a long time on controversal threads doing so) so im not going to tell you whats wrong or whatever.

    My advice personally, this is what i would do. You dont have to help him much, you dont have to baby him, all you have to do is say one simple sentence and if he is smart enough, he will catch on. All you have to do is while passing him (or stop him for a bit) in the hall or something (dont get into a position were a full conversation will take place after) were you two are alone and tell him slowly and clearly "I would delete your internet history if i were you."

    Thats all. Offer no explanation, just keep walking away after like nothing happened. If hes smart enough to understand then he will know exactly what youre talking about. And there you go. You have just helped him because now he will go on the computer first chance he gets and erase his history and his dad will never know. You have also taught him to remember to do so in the future thus (hopefully) preventing something horrible from ever happening ever.

    Congrats. Now perhaps he will even be less irritating to you and maybe even confide in you any particularly unusual feelings he has been experiencing towards the same sex. :grin:

    Of course this is if you think he will be able to comprehend what you will be telling him. If he doesnt get it then i dont know maybe you will have to sit him down somewere alone and talk to him very slowly and clearly so he will get it.

    Hope this helps :grin: (wow it was long even without opinions)
     
  6. OK, my mom only wanted me to check because he was doing this on my grandma's computer. also, my uncle, like my grandma, don't even know there is a way to check the history on the computer. Finally, mom won't tell anyone else cause she knows the severity of this situation cause of me.
     
  7. xequar

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    This is actually very good.

    As odd as it may sound, I'm not necessarily in agreement with the majority of posters here who are saying checking the history was a bad thing. In this case, the cousin was NOT on his own personal computer, which means his expectation of privacy is gone. The same is true for me when I use my friend's laptop and forget to clear the history. Whether the OP's mom asked him to check, or whether he checked on his own, it doesn't terribly matter. It was Grandma's computer, so the cousin had NO expectation of privacy.


    Speaking of the cousin, there's a bit more going on than just the gay porn thing. Speaking from both personal experience and a scientific perspective, the cousin's anti-gay rantings are his effort to convince people he is straight, and possibly a defense against his uncle, as well. The cousin is very likely doing some stunning mental gymnastics to keep his anti-gay religious beliefs and his homosexuality from colliding with each other.

    Nintenfreak, whatever you do, don't alienate your cousin, and don't try to throw this back on him. Having been in a state very much like you describe your cousin (super-religious anti-gay but actually gay), he's going to need someone that's accepting and that will engage his brain. If you try to just throw it back on him, he'll just retreat further into religion and get even more twisted around and closeted. If you can engage his brain a bit, he might start to reconsider some of his religious beliefs. At the very least, if he knows you're someone he can talk to, maybe he'll come to a point where he'll talk to you about some stuff.
     
  8. Techcompu2

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    I created a hidden account on my computer because of privacy issues. my dad only knows about the visable account, so if he checks the history,he will not be able to find anything. plus I added a keylogger on to my computer so that if anyone uses it I can access it's log and see everything they did on the computer. that is also very good for if I think that someone used my computer because I can see when it was turned off or on.

    to make the hidden account http://www.tinkernut.com/archives/144
     
  9. Evilmonkey

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    sure it wasn't his computor, but that doesn't justify going through history just to snoop. And coming from a place where you understand how important it is to have privacy, and the right to tell who and when you like that you are gay, why, after you found out, did you think it would be ok to tell your mum?

    to those who say he shouldnt expect privacy because it wasn't his computor, he's 13. When i was 13, i got $5 a week pocket money. nothing i used was owned by me, does that mean i didnt deserve privacy?
    as for the issue of your cousin, keep an eye on him. Hes becoming a teenager, and perhaps only just realising that hes gay, and coming from such a harsh religious family it seems, he may not take it so well. take care of him. maybe you and your sister can take him under your wing (without telling your sister as to why). dont tell anyone else.
     
  10. xequar

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    Ok, I'm 27, and I'm posting this from my parents' computer (I'm visiting them for the Thanksgiving weekend). If my parents stumble onto this or anything else I've visited (which includes some most assuredly inappropriate sites) because I was careless or they were snooping, well, tough shit for me. This isn't my computer.

    When I surf the web at work and post on EC at work, I have no expectation of privacy. It's not my computer, even though I'm the only employee that uses it. At that point, I'm using corporate computing resources and subject to whatever usage policies they put in place. It sucks, but it's true.

    In the case of someone who's 13, if they have a computer in their own room that only they use, then they have an expectation of privacy (unless the parents have said up-front that they're going to snoop). If the computer's in the common room and the whole family uses it, sorry, no expectation of privacy. In the case of the cousin here, he used a computer that wasn't his that was in a common-enough area that both he and the OP were allowed to use it. Sorry, but in that case, it's his own fault he got found out. He had no expectation of privacy and he was careless.

    It's all about personal responsibility, folks.
     
  11. Techcompu2

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    Very true however, he might not know that someone can find out what he has been on before. I know that when I first looked at sites like this, I knew that it was something I wanted to keep private but I did not know much about a computer's history. For me, it took my parents to snoop some for me to learn about this. if no one else has found out what sites he has visited, it might be a good thing to tell him he needs to be more careful. He wil not be happy with you for snooping, however, that might be a good time to tell him that you are gay as well. This still will make him upset that you snooped, and even more upset for telling your mom, but knowing that he has that in common with him might make him feel a little better about it.

    I am not saying that it was right to snoop, nor that it was ok to tell your mom. I am saying that it is about personal responsibility, but he may not know what precautions to take to have put in place to keep people from being able to look and see what he is doing online.

    One thing about eraseing your history, most internet browsers do not keep track of what time a website is visited, nor do they keep track of how long someone is on a certain site. If someone were to put a keylogger on that computer, that information would be available to them.

    being that he is 13, he may not know that all websites put cookies and keyloggers on your computer to try to get information about you. (I am guessing this computer runs Windows XP or Vista) I would suggest putting Mcafee security center on it and also putting a program called Spybot Search & Destroy found here. these programms,when used correctly, will remove the harmful things that websites put on your computer when you visit them. I also suggest adding a feature to Internet explorer called McAffe SiteAdvisor which will tell you if a website will try to put a virus on your computer. If you don't stay on top of those things it will sooner or later cause the computer to crash and that will most likely cause your uncle or another family member to be thinking that something is going on.

    sorry that that was a long post.
     
  12. As of now, I think what i did was right, he had no right to privacy, He was looking at PORN on my GRANDMOTHER'S computer. I wouldn't have any problem with it if it was someplace like EC. But it wasn't, it was PORN! When i told my mom there wasn't a big deal that it was gay porn, she was just mad that he was on PORN on my grandmother's computer.
     
  13. -Michael-

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    I'd so laugh if it was grandmas porn and not his. :')
     
  14. Trystan

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    history is intended to return to the pages you were on beforehand, so technically you weren't snooping. Remeber thought that routers might store history too, so he might need to check that :S there's normally a way to log in to your router, wireless or wired