When I (23M) was growing up, my parents hated whenever I locked my door for privacy. Like most adolescent boys, I had a libido and things that I liked to look at when I was taking care of that.
When I was 15, my dad would lean against my door every day to listen in. One day, he heard I was in the middle of it, and as quickly as possible, he picked the lock of my door and caught a glimpse of me watching some pretty crude and wacky rule 34 that was sorta ambiguously gendered. He immediately closed the door and retreated to his room. When I cleaned up and asked why he “knocked,” he said “nothing” with an unsettling smile.
7 years later, when I came out as passionately heterosexual because I finally figured out what my type was, he became very angry and told me I was REALLY a [f-slur], and he could prove it by revealing what he caught me watching all those years ago. I actually thought he would be glad to know how I turned out, but it seems that he, a conservative, was angry that I wasn’t queer.
Recently, my older brother got into my journal with all of my private thoughts. The first thing he read was the dozens of pages of sexual fantasies I wrote down for my sole enjoyment and reference. When I confronted him, he justified his intrusion into my most intimate thoughts with “God told me to do it.” He nitpicked my fantasies and told me that my openness to choosing my gender and sexual expression instead of forcing myself into the cishet box would inexplicably turn me into a pedophile. It seems that 5,000+ unfiltered words exhaustively proving my heterosexual attraction for strong mature women and wholesome consensual lovemaking style were not satisfactory. Not that any of it was ever his business.
I’m curious if others have have experienced this dynamic of family members violating someone to “test” their sexuality and look for evidence of deviance, or if this is a complete “WTF” situation that isn’t even a thing among most conservative households.
I have Asian parents (we live in the US) and they’re kinda abusive, mostly emotionally, and yes the trying to get in your room all the time was kind of “normal” in my “overton window” of parents. (emphasis on quotes, I’m not saying the “normal” equates to acceptable)
As for invasion of privacy, yes that was a common thing. My mother is constantly try to get access to my phone because she’s “worried about bad influences” or some shit. Like around when I was like 13, 14(?)… That kinda stopped when I got older.
The sexual aspects… idk, they said porn was bad, but I never really had any parental controls on my stuff (the stuff they allowed me to have, technically electronics not “my” things, more like they bought me stuff after I sort of begged for it). For context, Asia really represses the sex-related stuff, especially in China, where we were from, porn is blocked, like you could theoretically go to jail for porn, even of depictions of consenting adults. But even in democratic countries like South Korea, its still blocked (though, VPN access is easier in South Korea).
So yea… I never really told them about the porn… which I eventually kinda stopped anyways because I think I might be just asexual lol. But yea if they found out, they’d think its like “damaging for the brain” or something, they treat it almost like if you chatted with adults strangers or something.
Like “if you watch too much sexual stuff, you’re gonna lose the ability to reproduce” or some stupid shit. I don’t think China even has sex-education lmao. They never even said a thing, until I just randomly mentioned about my mother’s period stuff just as a subtle indicator of “yes, I know how human anatomy works lol”, they never really said a thing. Never had “the talk” lol. Very weird family dynamics in thos aspect.
I never had a journal, didn’t feel safe. I mean, I was very nerdy with codes and stuff so I’d probably have used a code had I been journaling.
My older brother never really dared to go through my stuff ever since I got my own room and like I got older. Like dude I can fight, sure, we both get hurt, but its like Mutually Assured Destruction, wanna start shit, I’ll mess us both up. Still, I worry he might perceive a transgression for something I didn’t do and then “revenge” on such perceived grievance. So yea its kinda like cold war all the time.
But as for the “test your sexuality” stuff, never happened. They kinda just assumed everyone is heterosexual. Religion isn’t that serious in China, so its never as crazy as the American South and the “Christians”. But yes it’s still very hetero-normative society.
My mom joked about “do you have any girlfriends? no? what about gay-friends?” then laughs like its funny or something. But also tells me to focus on school and not romance stuff. I don’t think they oppose romance, but they are more worried about grades. But then again, I’m kinda asexual so I never bother with romance anyways.
If I was gay, I think my mother would, not really shame the gay aspect, but more like the “what about my grandchildren” type of stuff, and be disappointed, and would probably try to use inheritances as leverage (I assume, since this part is hypothetical). Like… being “gay” isn’t really a “sin”, but “continuing the bloodline” is very important somehow, everyone in Asia is obsessed about it. So yeah, on thay aspect, they’ll be disappointed. But I think they’ll still be happy I have a “gay-friend”, they’ll just assume I’ll “eventually become heterosexual again” and this is just gonna become another normal friend, as if this is just a “phase”. Again, hypothetical, as I’m not actually gay.
As for if I was trans… yea no… they’ll think it’s 变态 and a mental illness and would constantly try to “cure” me of it. Or probably disown me for being “broken”. This is less of anti-trans, more like ableism. I mean I have depression and they already treat me like I’m sort of “broken” and they are talking of leaving me out of inheritances lol.