Had a night in with my family tonight, just a curry for my birthday.
As usual it was like an episode of meet the fockers, everyone talking over each other having had one too many glasses of wine.
Then my mum started telling me about my male cousin, who also happens to be gay, having an eating disorder. Apparently it is a binge-eating disorder, he has always been thin, but has put on over a stone in a month. I said it is not surprising given the extreme diet he has been on, he went on a "boot-camp" and posted all the chocolate he was going to eat when he finished. What I meant was that it was quite a disordered way of dieting. I commented that it was like how I ate, given that I yo yo after a lifetime of dieting.
My mum said "yes, he's thinking like a woman because the gays have more female hormones don't they?" I disagreed and said that that is not the case at all, if gay men had more female hormones they would have breasts.
My dad and brother then started chipping in with, "well why are gay men camp then?" And other such enlightened contributions...
Then my brother said the reason why he is gay is because my aunt was a single mum, my dad then stated "yes, single fathers do not have gay sons - FACT!" - yes those very words.
(All of this went on on a background of listening to my brother, who happens to be an IV drug user btw, sp shouldn't throw stones, ranting on about immigrants all evening, and how he didn't mind gays as long as they weren't aggressive ones)
At this point I then stated very firmly that they were all talking bollocks - homosexuality is a multi factorial thing, and is in fact a variation of normal, not s psychological illness but a lifestyle choice if anything... But this was the "wrong" thing to say as my dad then (interrupted) said "oh so they CHOOSE to be gay do they, I thought they were born that way but did not have a choice..."
I tried to explain that that was not what I meant, but that basically being gay was a variation on a conventional normal, and not anything to be ashamed of, but was interrupted and shot down for having "extreme" and "radical" views. At this point I just gave up, after being made to feel I was getting a bit shirty and had no sense of humour. I ended up apologising for being moody.
Please tell me I am not a moody freak, but had a fucking point?! Worse thing was I used to think my dp was fairly well brought up and open minded, but seemed to agree with them and was equally ignorant.