...I already decided to stop talking about the "politics" (sure is funny how and why that word gets used) of the manga, since it was just causing more trouble than it was worth. But I have to say, after repeatedly being told I was reading too deeply into things, and that I was forcing my own weird interpretations onto the story, and that there was obviously no way the author was even thinking about anything remotely like that... Having the protagonist spend chapter three saying basically all the things I wanted to say, and having exactly the same somewhat creeped out reaction to those conclusions that I did? That felt preeeeeetty vindicating.
I'm still not feeling particularly smug, since the fact that seemingly nobody was able to understand what I wanted to say probably means that I fucked up saying it. But it's nice to know that I wasn't just imagining things, at least.