Gay couple cleverly turn the tables on 'edgy' nephew who asked which of them was 'the woman'

When it comes to same-sex couples, outdated gendered questions about who's the "man" and "woman" in the relationship often arise in inquiring heterosexual minds. While this comes from a place of pure ignorance in some cases, in many others, bigotry and spite are at the root of it all. A Redditor recently shared how he and his partner handled the situation when his "adorably precocious kid" turned "edgy teen" of a nephew threw the question at them during a family get-together. The Reddit user, who goes by the username Ok-Independence-9919, turned to the r/AmItheAsshole forum to enquire whether they'd gone a step too far with their ingenious tactic.

"My family (my folks, my brother and his family, my sister and her family, me and my husband) had our first get together since the thing started on the weekend (we're all vaccinated now), during which I discovered my formerly adorably precocious kid of a nephew has hit his 'edgy teen' stage with gusto," he shared. "He had an attitude all afternoon, which culminated in him asking me and my husband (gay couple) which of us was the 'woman.'" Naturally, the Redditor was taken aback by his nephew's pointed question and initially attempted to handle the situation gently.

"I was pretty taken aback and just said 'neither of us, we're both men, that's the point', at which point he came up with some [evolutionary psychology bullsh*t] about how male always seeks female and therefore even with two guys, one will always be the more feminine or something," he wrote. "The thing is, I know he knows better and his whole attitude was blatantly just trying to get a rise. I didn't feel like ruining a nice afternoon by giving it to him, so instead, I decided to make a joke of it and told him seriously that no one had told us that and in that case, we'd better figure it out asap huh."

The Reddit user and his husband decided to give their nephew a taste of his own medicine. "My husband grabbed a notepad, drew columns for each of us, and we started noting down our various 'feminine' and 'masculine' aspects, deliberately absurd stuff like I wear more pink but he cries easier, he's much better at sports but I've got him beat in survival skills, etc. At some point, the other adults minus my folks drifted over to see what we were doing," he wrote.

"My brother immediately wanted to join in, saying he'd never really been sure in their case either, so he and his wife started their own list, and my sister and her husband (parents of nephew) followed suit. It was honestly pretty funny, we made up a points system and debated the gendering of breakfast foods," the Redditor recounted. As expected, the nephew wasn't too pleased with how his uncles handled his intentionally spiteful question. "My nephew got more and more sulky (we kept asking for his verdicts) until finally he walked away in disgust and ended up hardly saying a word for the rest of the afternoon," the Redditor revealed.

However, the teen was far from done with the incident and apparently complained to his older brother about how the adults had allegedly "ganged up" on him. "At the time I thought it was a harmless and amusing way of making a point about the stupidity of his argument without giving him the satisfaction of the 'you're too sensitive' rise he was obviously looking for, but earlier today, [I got a text] from his brother (19 - he was not at the get-together) saying my nephew was really upset and accusing us of being a bunch of adults ganging up on a child, and of drawing his own parents into it. I honestly hadn't thought of it in that light, and now that I do, I must admit it's not a great look. I still think he's old enough to not be catered to when he acts like this though," the Redditor wrote.

He concluded by asking fellow Reddit users whether he was the a**hole for how he'd tackled the incident. AITA members resoundingly voted no as they pointed out that the incident might eventually turn out to be a learning experience for the teen.