This is one of my periodic "How will I ever make them understand?" posts. This time, the encounter was with my mother. After eight months on the boards and my first pedophilia-related Web site soon to debut, I decided it was time that I got across to her the fact that this was now an important part of my life - she has changed the subject every time I tried to talk about it in the past.

So first I told her about my Web site, and then I told her about this forum, and then I told her about Julius and Bach - about Julius struggling to decide whether to come out to his pastor and about Bach's remarkable success in coming out. And all the while she's smiling and nodding, and I'm thinking, "Wow, she's a lot more broadminded than I thought."

Of course, it turns out she thought I was talking about homosexuals. The minute she realized I was talking about pedophiles, it was a different matter. "I have a real problem with that," she said, her face all screwed up. (My retort: "So do they.") After three tries to keep the conversation going after that, I finally had to admit defeat and talk instead about the local library's recycling plans.

This is defeat number three: my attempt to talk with two other family members failed as well. Fortunately, I have a friend who thinks that spending four hours talking about boylovers is neat - she's my one lifeline in real life. But I can't talk with her all the time about boylove, and we don't converse very often.

How do you guys handle this? How do you manage to live your lives without talking about such a centrally important matter? It's becoming a real problem for me.

Heather