Ok. So my cousin Amanda is coming over tomorrow for the super bowl, and I really want to come out to her. She seems like most accepting person in my family, and she's a HUGE fan of yaoi (boy on boy manga/anime) But the thing is that everytime we see a gay guy on TV she's all like "ewwww! That's gross, wrong, ect." and shes from a very religious family. So I'm gettin some mixed messages from her. What do I do?
I smell psychological compartmentalization... If she's into yaoi and "seems... most accepting," why do you think she reacts the way she does when she sees a gay guy on TV? Can she not handle male/male interaction in reality? (Not that TV is actually "reality," but it's closer than black and white manga pages!) Maybe all she needs is a real-life contact (a family member, at that) to come out to her and open her eyes a little, so she can see that homosexuality does exist on a real-world basis, and accepting it in one form (yaoi) but not in another (among actual human beings) is holding a nasty double standard.
yeah........you're probably right, but that just makes her seem like such a bad person......thank you for the advice MusicMan
Do you think that maybe she's accepting but that for some reason she thinks that you're not, and therefore feels the need to act like that in front of you when homosexuality comes up on TV? Or she could be ok with it in the abstract, but not reality, or vice versa. I think really that it's up to you, but I think that although there is the possibility that she isn't supportive, it sounds more likely that she is supportive, or at least "tolerant" (not that we need to be tolerated!). It's your call, but I've come across people where I get mixed messages too - and usually I've found that that the homophobic/eewwww! remarks are because they're unsure of where *I* stand on the issue. But then I don't want to say this and have you come out to her and it all go terribly wrong... Good luck!
thanx again! And I forgot to mention one thing that might be pretty important. She knows that I love yaoi and talks about it with me, so she's probably a little suspicious......
Hehe. Well, in that case, I say come out to her if you want to. I doubt she knows any other guy (who's straight) that likes yaoi, so she probably does suspect already. Let us know how it goes if you decide to tell her!
