1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

HOCD or gay (LONG)

Discussion in 'Sexual Orientation' started by SoulSearcher, Feb 18, 2015.

  1. SoulSearcher

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jan 19, 2015
    Messages:
    39
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    US
    Gender:
    Male
    Sexual Orientation:
    Questioning
    I have gotten to the point where i think i must be gay now.
    I am trying to think about my past and how it effected me now.
    Near the end of elementary school the only guy friends i had began to think i was weird and no longer hang out with me. I wasnt good at sports or anything and i didnt talk nasty about girls, my mother raised me that way and i was a big prude.

    This was around the time the my girl that i crushed on rejected me and then moved away and i got sad. During middle school i was really depressed and was bullied, people called me gay for whatever reason, and i was so nieve about anything sex and got uncomfortable around the topic. I was also overweight so i constantly compared myself to other guys. I couldnt relate to them because i didnt like the stuff they liked ( iwas into art), and i didnt look like them either. I was depressed but i made sure everyone didnt know. Comparing myself to guys was what did all the time. I think i always kept girls at a friend distance after that because of being hurt by my two crushes originally.
    Eventually i was afraid to talk to other guys really, not extremely but i found it easier to talk to girls. Because they wouldnt make fun of me (even though some of my friends did).
    I was a really late bloomer on puberty too so that gave me more anxiety, everyone else was changing and i wasnt. So i tried peeking at guys in the locker room to see where they were at. I wanted to know if they had hair down there and how big they were compared to me, or hair under their arms or their legs. Around 14-15 i found one website where it showed images of people in public with boners tenting. I remember being aroused by this and picturing myself in their shoes i guess. Then i found a forum website like this where guys talked about puberty and that was my only outlet to talk about it. Never got straight answers though, so i tried talking about it with guys, which was hard to do because i didnt have guy friends open to talk about it. One guy found me though and he was gay and he talked to me alot about that stuff, and i found it nice to be able to talk openly. Now that i look back i feel as though he was manipulating me because he pushed limits alot and i went along with it. I dont know why i went along with it, maybe becuase it was taboo and i liked having attention. He kept asking to hang out and experiment but i never did it because i didnt want to. . I was like oh suree okayy but never did. I never found him attractive he was just someone their that used me and i used him i guess. But as i grew older i got more curious, so my use of porn started. It was mostly reading about male masturbation and then eventually watching guys jerk off solo. Or reading about kids experimenting or watching guys jerk off together..it was taboo, and I feel like i could relate because i did that action and i know how it feels or i could imagine what it felt like to be touched at all by anyone. I never dared watch anything with a female in it because it felt dirty and wrong. Girls and sex were not supposed to be mentioned and i felt like i was disrespecting them by looking. So i avoided it. As i got older everytime i was horny, i just turned on that and skipped to the part at the end just so i could finish. Knowing the guy feeling something and expressing it was something i could relate too. It was mindless. I did think about what this meant though and i figured all guys are curious, so i was straight but curious. Because i never had crushes on guys ever, and i never wanted to have sex with them. sometimes i got boners in real life, anything sexual was triggering for me. So relieving sexual pressure with this and having depression and low self esteem + compulsive comparing to other guys + the constant need to be gay friendly and open minded (my main friend group some were gay and bi)= concoction that enabled me to get by on life and get rid of annoying sexual desires. It was funny because i think i was addicted to it. I have now been trying to stop all porn usage.

    Now that i am way older i am starting to open about about female sexuality. I began looking at porn with girls in it, but i dont get a boner from it. Some girls i see are really hot and i DO surprisingly find their bodies attractive and think wow i think i would have sex with her, but i get no immediate boner.
    When i see attractive men i think wow lucky i wish i looked like that, but i never thought to myself ever about having sex with them, or even touching them. I never had the confidence with girls because i thought i was ugly and fat all my life. I never gave myself a chance with girls, so i always "friendzoned" them. She wont like me, so even if i did like her it wouldnt work. Crush everything down basically was my mindset. But everytime i had romantic fantasies it was for girls (even now after all this freaking out) Ive had moments where thinking of them romantically made me smile uncontrollably and wanting to dance with them and make them laugh and have them love me and love them.
    I cried two nights ago because i was scared i was going to lose that experience that i never even had or let myself have yet. If im gay this all means nothing and i have to think about men now forever. I have tried thinking about men like that but it doesnt work as well and i dont get a happy warm feeling.
    Only after my freak out did i decide to check out full on gay porn, and found it very gross, but i got aroused slightly,not a full on erection but something. Nothing about anal sex or oral with guys interested me back then or now, but i had a reaction which scared me to death. Before my freak out i prided myself on being open minded and so did my friends, i actually told some friends that i wouldnt mind mutually jerking off with a close guy friend. After my freak out,i realized wait a minute, i dont want that i never wanted that? Why did i say i wanted that, was it because i thought it was normal because of the stories i read
    I keep having Hocd unwanted thoughts, i see an attractive man in a erotic position, my thought process was a mix of envy and "this man is hot and you should like this because your gay, now get hard, or think of kissing him" and "you dont get aroused when a sexy women picture is there your gay" then i get aroused slightly and have a panic attack. Then i return later and dont have that big of a reaction. Have i trained myself to get erection over a strange concoction of things over the years? Or am i really gay, or bi.
    I know my friends would accept me and my mother would, my dad would get over it. Nothing that big would change, but what is scary is actually being gay. Because then i would have to desire men romantically, and want to have sex with them. Which is something i dont want. I have tried masturbating without any stimulus and i tried to emulate gay acts, at first it is arousing because it is something new and different but then after a few seconds i get bored, and i think of having sex with a girl. I find it harder to reach the end though becuase i dont know what sex feels like so i have nothing to draw from. Its like all this time i could only get off because i could relate to a guys experience they were having since we had the same "parts". I feel like i screwed up my arousal system for all these years. I DO want to have sex with girls someday. But all these thoughts of what if i dont get hard for her? Shell leave me, shell never love me, you wont like sex with a girl, youll think about a guy. You dont get hard to a picture of a vagina or straight porn so you are gay and even loving a girl or having sex with her would be a lie to yourself and her. Its a cycle that continues. So now i am sad and basically have convinced myself i am gay. Or bi, but good like finding a girlfriend ever. Even though i am a virgin and have no experience with either sex but it doesnt matter i guess.
    I caved and watched some gay porn gifs, i tried practicing HOCD tips and tricks and it did work. I told myself that by putting so much importance and coming into this looking for a reaction is a compulsion and i need to accept everything that i feel and not give it power over me.
    So as i was looking through i was not hard but i felt slight blood increase. It didnt interest me looking at it, it was pretty boring actually scrolling through. So since i didnt get a big reaction i went off and tried girls, no reaction, but i didnt feel as much blood flow as before. So sorry for this long and annoying blocks of text, i know nobody really cares, and i dont know what i am looking for. I dont know who i am or what i like truly and everything feels empty.
     
  2. SonicBoom

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Jan 19, 2015
    Messages:
    542
    Likes Received:
    0
    Location:
    Trying to find my way.
    Gender:
    Male
    I read through all of what you wrote.

    We do care, we are here for each other.

    My guess is that you have HOCD and you are not gay.

    Please, please take this journey ONE DAY AT A TIME.

    Please, please remember that you do not need all the answers today.

    In the mean time, try to chill and find other things to occupy your mind and your time.

    You will get through this.

    (*hug*)
     
  3. Jax12

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2014
    Messages:
    1,875
    Likes Received:
    71
    Location:
    Canada
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Here's what I think.

    If you have HOCD, then you might want to speak to a psychologist about that, since they specialize in that type of field.

    I found it easier to talk to girls because all my cousins were girls, and my mom was around much more often than my dad. He was also abusive so I stayed away from him.

    People have mentioned this before, but sexuality is a spectrum. You could be somewhere in between, who knows? Ever since I was 12, I begun to have thoughts about my male teachers (possibly driven by father issues and sexual harassment). However, when I spoke with my guy friends about which girl was attractive or not, I had no issues agreeing with them. Kissing, being with girls felt natural to me, even now it still does. And of course, it should feel natural because we grew up in a hetero-normative society.

    However with some guys, it's also the same (the feels), whereas before it was not, maybe because I did not consider it. I do have to admit that it kind of sucks that I do all these "checks" of whether I like this guy or not, because I never saw guys in that way.

    You are still under the influence of porn. How I can see that is the amount that you type and the content that it contains. Porn is not good in general; it confuses you with the things in reality. It's only about sex and doesn't say anything about the relationship and what leads to the sex. Doesn't matter what type of porn you watch, it is based on pure fantasy.

    Right now, it seems to me that you are looking for an answer that your mind can agree on. I struggled between gay and straight but never really considered bi/pan, which is something that fits me much more. Looking back, I realize that a lot of times I looked for the personality of an individual.

    What's similar between HOCD and a gay individual is the thoughts. The only difference is whether the person likes the thoughts or not. Regardless, in both cases, the key is to accept the thoughts as they are and move on. A disorder is a disorder, so it'll be a part of you for the rest of your life. It's the same for a gay/bisexual individual. The fine line between HOCD and gay/bisexual is so small that anyone can miss it, which is why the question all comes down to "am I gay".

    You'll be fine. Whatever conclusion you come to, when you are happy with it, I don't think you'll want to change it.
     
  4. hiimpaul2014

    Regular Member

    Joined:
    Sep 29, 2014
    Messages:
    55
    Likes Received:
    0
    Gender:
    Male
    I know it has been awhile since any of these have been commented on, but I want to thank you for posting that. I think I feel the same way about guys and girls as you do. I am so glad I am not the only one that thinks like this. That story sounds just like me except for the overweight thing, but I have the exact opposite I am basically bones with sleeves. 6'5 160 on a heavy day kind of physique. I was called gay all my life, by many different people. I want to have an impossibly close friendship with a guy, but that's because that's the culture I grew up in. there is one guy I struggle to go a day without seeing, but I never desire him sexually. I think that he is an attractive individual in a platonic way, but nothing sexual. I do however find myself checking to see if I get aroused by him though, on a compulsive level, rarely do I get aroused. He is also more of a dad to me than my dad and more of a brother than my brother. He has helped me deal with more things in life than anyone and he gives me hope about life. (I hope one I day can repay the favor since we both deal with depression) I never really want to do anything sexual though with a guy. I had a dream where I almost kissed him, but I opened my eyes in the dream and was completely grossed out. then I woke up freaking out.

    I guess to back to the point I have done the same thing you have done about getting aroused by some men given certain circumstances and not getting aroused by women because it was dirty and wrong. Coming to college has confused me more than ever since I see women more sexually, but I still compare myself to men compulsively (to a point where I compare myself to them more than I find women attractive.). Its nice knowing you aren't alone in a similar struggle.
     
  5. Jax12

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2014
    Messages:
    1,875
    Likes Received:
    71
    Location:
    Canada
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    ^ come to think of it, people have called me gay acting or whatnot just because of how sassy I was. I just liked making people laugh and so I didn't really care if I was gay or not, really. I'm sure denial isn't even the issue anymore, at least for me it isn't. It's just that there's so much information that it's hard to even sort out, especially when anxiety is in the way.

    Anxiety has a funny way to make you believe things that stents true, which is why anxiety is closely related to OCD. That's also why it's so common for questioning individuals to claim they may have OCD,.
     
  6. YermanTom

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Nov 3, 2014
    Messages:
    731
    Likes Received:
    37
    Location:
    Co Wicklow Ireland
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Personally I believe people develop their interest in sex at different times. Some people only develop sexuality late in life. Personally I think you may not be totally gay, you could be bi or (shock horror) straight. But the only person opinion that matters is you.
    First of all a little about my background: as a young man I didn’t have much interest in sex, either gay or straight. When I was about 16 my best friend (male) made a few passes at me which I rejected. When I was much older (mid 20’s) I developed a HUGE crush on a male work mate, I went to the occasional gay club and bars. Eventually I panicked and went to therapy to cure me of homosexual desires. At that time sexuality was thought to be a learnt behaviour scientist know that is incorrect. Eventually I got married to a wonderful woman. I suffered years of low level chronic depression. Keeping fit helped me stave of the depression, I took up a full contact martial art and got to a level where being emotionally honest with myself was important to advance in the art (advanced black stuff). This is when I broke down and admitted to myself that I was gay.
    Because of my history I have done a lot of research in the field of conversion therapy and other similar ideas. I regularly come across therapist and websites that look plausible, but if scientific methodology is applied these ideas the fall at the first hurdle. I have looked at HOCD and it is not a recognised psychological condition. The best way to check this to Google it with “Google schooler” and see if it mentioned in peer reviewed publications.
    I can see that you are in a lot of emotional pain and confusion. What I found worked in my journey to figure out who I was to forget about putting a label on myself. I found training at a very high level helped me deal with my inner demons, but I would not recommend this path for everyone. I would try and stop worrying whether you are gay bi or straight and just concentrate on the fact that you “like” particular people, if they are male or female so what. Looking at porn while enjoyable it will tell you nothing much about your sexuality.
    I would recommend that you think about talking to a good therapist. Look for one that has some experience with issues of sexuality. Steer clear of therapists that will push you one way or the other.
    Most of all RELAX and don’t put a label on yourself.
    (*hug*)
     
  7. Jax12

    Full Member

    Joined:
    Sep 28, 2014
    Messages:
    1,875
    Likes Received:
    71
    Location:
    Canada
    Gender:
    Male
    Gender Pronoun:
    He
    Sexual Orientation:
    Gay
    Out Status:
    Out to everyone
    Lots of good advice in there. And I agree, talking to a psychologist helped me a lot. At first, my initial goal was to find out what my orientation was. But now, I'm targeting my anxiety and depression. Then once my mind clears up, I'll work on discovering more about myself.