Hi everyone, I thought my thread was was submitted but apparently it isn't so I'm going to post again The thing is I have HOCD. I identify as lesbian, so it's not homosexual ocd but rather heterosexual ocd. I suffer from very bad anxiety and I am prone to obsess over things, especially very distressing ones about myself. All my obsessions have been proved wrong but all of them felt so real, including this one. I knew from childhood that I liked girls. I had big crushes on them through school and fell hard for a few. I like to play videogames and watch anime and I even crush on female characters. I feel a strong emotional and mental attraction to women and love to flirt with them, I get all blushy and warm when I get attention from girls. I love to ship female/female couples in tv series and I get turned on by reading fanfictions of this and also think it is cute and moving. All of my bedtime fantasies, romantic and sexual, include girls, especially my girlfriend. She is so lovely and she loves me a lot, and I can say the same. I never fell in love with a man and was never interested in having a relationship of any kind with one, except friendship of course. If it helps even if I'm fine with being a woman and identify as one, I strongly relate to male characters and I have a soft butch style. It isn't the first time I obsessively question my sexuality. The first time it happened I was like 11 or something and didn't have any real reason to doubt what I liked. It went away after I stopped questioning and testing myself. Then it happened again after a few years because I was afraid of having a crush on a close male friend. I even had a dream about us and felt a brief sexual response, but I woke up crying and feeling extremely anxious. I didn't want that and luckily it never happened again. When I'm not obsessed, I dream of women sexually and romantically. I don't get such a strong sexual response from these dreams or at least I think I don't, but I definitely like them more and feel super happy during and after the dream. However when I have ocd spikes I dream of men (sometimes of women too) probably because of thinking and fearing men all day. I wake up everytime in an anxious state feeling somewhat aroused and during the dreams the arousal is high too (again I can't tell for sure) and I read that it's common and it might be the result of anxiety. Also when a boy is kind to me I feel happy and I ask myself if I feel nice because I like boys or simply because it is nice to be treated well in fact I love kindness and I'm not very used to it. The worst things is my masturbation experiences in regards to porn. I have done it to lesbian porn too but I seem to prefer and do it fair more to male/male or more generally to males. I never wanted to act on it and while watching I don't think of me doing it with them or anything like that. I simply enjoy the act per se. If I were to think about doing it with someone it would definitely be a girl. Maybe physically the male body and face is for some strange reason sexier to me but it stops there. I don't care about being with a man. I'm very worried and confused. All I ever wanted was to marry my girlfriend and now I don't know if I can anymore. I'm afraid of being straight and give up on being what i want to be. I'm okay with being bi but not with being heterosexual. Thank you very much in advance for helping love you all.
Hi there! I know I'm a guy, but maybe I can at least help on one count: what you say is "the worst thing" your porn preferences. From what I read on this forum (and elsewhere) it seems that it is very common for lesbians to prefer porn with men in it. (Ladies, can you confirm with your experiences?) The strong consensus on EC is that porn preferences are 1) OK not to worry about and 2) just not connected to your personal orientation. Now I know that just saying something is not going to cure an obsession or OCD of any kind. But at least know that everyone agrees that your worst worry is not a problem. I hope you have more of those good dreams.
Thank you so much for replying, I feel better now! It really is my biggest worry and it would be nice to know that porn doesn't really tell much about sexual preference. In fact when I think about my girlfriend it has an emotional side too and it is not purely sexual, that's why it is somewhat more satisfying. I don't really want to bother anyone with this thread because reading it again I noticed that it can come out as heterophobic (is it even a thing?) or even biphobic but I promise I'm not against any of it and I fully support what makes people happy. It's really just my bad anxiety showing. Also sorry for the long post!
I don't have any real experience with HOCD, but one thing to remember (easier said than done) HOCD's "job" is to cause doubt and insecurities in your sexuality. As for the porn part of your post. Plenty of straight men watch male on male porn and they are not gay. Plenty of straight women watch female on female porn and are not lesbians. The same goes for lesbian women and gay men watching straight porn, it doesn't mean your straight.
Well having an actual girlfriend must be a big help. Hope she's good to you! The general idea is that porn is so designed to stimulate your arousal that it sort of circumvents your actual preferences. But a lot of lesbian porn is designed to push male buttons. Arielle Scarcella has a whole bunch of (funny) YouTube videos on why gay/bi/straight people watch the "wrong" porn. A simple search will turn them up. Yup heterophobic is a word (now, at least) but we understand. This is part of the gift of being gay: you have personal understanding of being different, and of why diversity should be embraced. Good luck.
It sounds like you're anxious over nothing (although I do understand anxiety so don't take that the wrong way). You don't sound straight or bi. As for the gay porn thing, most lesbians I know don't even like lesbian porn that much. At least not mainstream. It's shit. I identify as a kinsey SIX lesbian, and I still only watch male/male porn. It has nothing to do with my attraction to men and everything to do with how lesbian porn is complete garbage.
