HOCD and Escalation, or Denial ?

As in many cases, porn just got the better of you.

Believe me I recognize myself in a lot of what you're saying and it took a dick in my mouth to be convinced I'm not gay. I thought I'd like it but that wasn't the case, felt like vomiting. I"m almost certain you and I went through the same thing, and that is desensitization through excessive porn use. These stories keep on coming as people are opening up about these fantasies, and they all have one thing in common and that is obsession through porn exposure overload. Whether it's straight or gay porn, porn literally gives you the impression that homosexual acts are pleasurable. This association is especially reinforced by masturbation, and I very much doubt your childhood trauma has anything to do with it. Porn addiction creates this type of sexual alter ego in people's heads and it's messing up a lot of folks.
It's a big lie man, even if you get erect and feel aroused thinking of homosexual encounters, it's the unexplored that is so arousing.

I'm still having these fantasies and not having liked an actual homosexual encounter shows exactly how powerful porn truly is. It completely rewires the brain, quite literally. All of my wet dreams have been about women but my waking fantasies, a lot of them, have been about men although I've never crushed on one in real life, only women.

So you owe it to yourself to completely abstain from porn if you ever want to feel like your heterosexual self again. It really is the porn that causes these escalations and obsessions.

 

Hey man, no problem at all, I like talking to people who have been struggling with the same issues.

Some words I'd like to highlight from your post above: fear; confusion; obsessed; unsure; questioning; checking.

If you reread your own words, do you feel like they're coming from someone with HOCD, or latent homosexuality? All of these terms suggest you're obsessing about your sexual orientation, so that would imply hocd. I don't think real homosexuals question their orientation the way we've been questioning it. At least they won't obsess over it and spend half of their time checking just to be sure. Heck, I had a dick in my mouth to be sure, didn't even like it and am still not sure. It's the fear of being gay that causes these obsessions, and which then consumes you. If you were truly gay, you wouldn't even like girls the way you have. So the worst case scenario is that you're bi. But if even that thought is causing fear, you're most certainly straight. A homosexual or bisexual person isn't going to fear a different sexual orientation, because then it's just innate and the only thing they'll fear is others' reactions to their orientation.

Fantasizing about homosexual encounters may be a valid argument in terms of questioning your orientation, but it isn't if fear is what driving these fantasies. Don't know if you're aware of this, but fear itself can induce arousal and even erections. So the fear of being gay may actually cause gay fantasies, if that makes sense. The taboo, forbiddenness of it all can further feed these fantasies and desires, making them the ultimate kick.

The only real solution when it comes to dealing with hocd... is grabbing this fear of being gay by the throat. So instead of resisting and fearing the possibility of being gay, you'll have to use what psychology calls "reversed psychology." So instead of reassuring yourself that you aren't gay but fearing the possibility at the same time, you'll have to actually consider yourself to be a gay person and come to terms with that (pseudo)reality. It's only when you admit for yourself that you're gay, that you're going to find out if it's true or not. The fear will only then lose its grip over you, and you'll know for a fact you're not gay, because you'll laugh at the possibility.

Whatever you do, definitely stop watching porn. If you've been having these gay fantasies, especially from looking at porn, your brain is going to build pathways it associates with the fear based arousal, and over time it will only cause more and more obsessing and confusion. In my case, at the peak of my addiction, I started fantasizing about being the women in the porn I would watch, and identifying as female on forums and what not gave me the ultimate kick. However, I have no desire of being a women in real life, in fact, I couldn't because I like women so much. So yeah, checking with porn really isn't the answer. The answer can only be found in your heart. If you only feel butterflies for women, rest assured you're not gay. Real life love is the only thing that matters. The rest is just your brain being the biggest pig it can in order to bathe itself in endorphins.

Anyway, keep us posted please.

 

Overanalyzing definitely is part of the problem, constantly checking, perhaps even in real life. I recognize myself in the paradoxical reactions as well, accepting and then having that euphoria moment that it's all okay only to fall back in obsessing over it. I'm quite sure online porn has hijacked my sexuality to the point of almost exclusively getting erections to pics of men I think of as being more masculin than me (these fantasies always involve submission). This isn't always the case though, and although I have a hard time getting it up seeing the most gorgeous girls online, I've always had erections when being close to women in real life.
So I'd definitely take a break from all of the artificial stimulation. Porn especially is what's so toxic about all of this. There's some very reliable sources saying it can cause homosexual urges in men. Dopamine studies with rats have shown that high levels of excitatory neurotransmitters can induce homosexual cravings, that rats have even acted on in real life. I sincerely believe not everyone is 100% straight or gay and we all have the capability of having those fantasies, but there's always a stronger side, unless you're really bi and it's 50-50. But fantasies and real life are totally different things. I've tried to act on these fantasies but as I've said it has always grossed me out because there and then you feel in every fiber of your body that it's just unnatural to be doing it. I never got aroused seeing those men naked, only when I'd imagine that I was a hot female porn star could I get it up. So that's where porn led me personally and although it sounds funny it's far from it to be in such a mental state. I've always enjoyed loving relationships with women and sex with my ex-gf but rest assured porn has always convinced me of the lie that perhaps that's not what I am. I was very addicted, and at my worst couldn't handle the unexplored aspect of these fantasies. The novelty of it can be super arousing, although it's far from it in real life. There are similar stories on here of guys saying it wasn't as pleasurable as they thought it would, anal hurting really bad for instance, when appearing pleasurable in porn. For me the obsession has always been blowjobs. I can't put my finger on it but seeing straight porn has always made me want to give one, while seeing one in gay porn is a huge turn off. I just can't explain why that is but involves some sort of obsession with feminin beauty gone absolutely wrong in my mind. Likewise I just dislike nude pics of men most of the time, unless I consider them more masculin than myself. Perhaps you're recognizing yourself in some of it. Anyway all I'm sure of is that porn eventually leads to these obsessions, and while your fantasies can be pleasurable and you're convinced you're gay in that moment, it most likely isn't the case if you only feel drawn to women in the real world. Sometimes the mind wants most what it actually dislikes, or can't have. Throw porn and desensitization in the mix and you have the ultimate recipe for obsessions and things like confusion and hocd. I don't think a real gay person would constantly have to ask themselves "but am I really, or not...?" They'd know for themselves and they would crush on many different men in real life.
Reading your replies definitely helps me as well. I hope others will chime in and we can all help each other to come to terms with these fantasies and obsessions.
Take care.

 

It's HOCD, very common among porn users. Just stop watching, fantasizing and masturbating and it will go away.

 

You're overanalyzing, going way back in history to find clues about your sexual orientation. This is typically seen in someone with obsessions and I'm guilty of it as well. I also recognize the memory impairment, which is typical in porn addicts. The having to know for sure in any case screams hocd.

 

Your fantasies may worsen when playing video games because of the dopamine connection. Out of nowhere I started having relentless gay fantasies when I first started playing rdr2. That is definitely not a coincidence. Years of pmo can completely alter the dopamine pathways in your brain, to the point of them only responding to anxiety and or developed fetishes. So 1 dopamine releasing activity can feed/activate other pathways in your brain that were set up earlier.
I actually have a brother who is gay and thinking it could be genetic and I should just accept is absolutely scaring me. I used to check out girls in the street like a mad man before pmo withdrawal.

That doesn't mean you should give up playing video games though, but I would moderate my use of them and wouldn't binge on them. It's still not porn and a healthier activity/reward than watching porn, and there's no reason why you should miss out on a bit of video game fun while you're rebooting. As long as you don't overdo it.

I'd like to ask you another question... Did you start this thread when you were watching porn? Because let's be honest here, I used to start the same kinds of threads when I was watching porn and the massive high made me do it and I more or less wished the answer would be 'yes' in the heat of the moment. But then you climax and are like "wtf did I just do" and start deleting all of your threads or profiles on hookup sites and what not. Then the fear kicks in again. All because of porn. Is this something you've done as well?

Here's an interesting article to read btw, can be reassuring if you start doubting and obsessing again.
https://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/can-you-trust-your-johnson/

 

whatami, brother,

First and foremost, I'm going to begin my reply with the following statement: YOU ARE NOT GAY, NOR YOU ARE BI-, PERIOD. Question: SOLVED!

(*This is going to be a long post and I'm going to give you a lot of information and insights from my personal life. I'm also going to quote you a lot, because the things you say have to be understood and addressed. I'm also going to quote brother bken, who also shared extremely valuable and exact information, which hits the core of the problem with the PMO addiction. I am more than honored to be able to write about this matters, because this has literally been the work of my life. Let's get into it...*)

As a beginning, I'd like to welcome you, brother whatami, because with your post here, you've just made a critical step forward into direction solving this serious issue we are all talking about! The first step is to open up and start sharing your inner world. It is so crucial, because the P addiction has the quality to separate us from the entire world of human beings; it brings us into the state of isolation, loneliness, terrifying shame and fear of being exposed and rejected by the society, fear of being labeled as a "freak".

The beauty of this forum is that it gives this vital opportunity to start sharing. I've met many great human beings here, who have been through a lot in their lives and NoFap has made a huge difference.


Now, let me tell you that I took the time to VERY SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY read all the posts under this topic. As I was reading I made a parallel to my life and what I went through and, boy oh boy - I share about 99% of what you, whatami, has gone through. That's right. With a few slight differences in our stories, they are pretty much the same. (In the end of March 2018, I posted my story on NoFap, which describes in-depth my life and the PMO addiction. If you want to check out for yourself, here's a link to it: https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...-7300-days-pmo-over-365-days-pmo-free.164046/ )


Before I dive into your case, dear whatami, I'd like to just briefly tell you the end of my story with PMO and where I am now.

I am currently 35-years-old and one year ago I found my way to become free from the PMO addiction. I was a slave to it for over 20 years! But not only PMO addiction - along the way I got really messed up in the beliefs about my sexuality, I wrongly identified myself as gay, at times as bi-, but mostly as gay. I know nothing more devastating for my self-confidence in these 20 years as the false belief that I was not straight. A true hell!!

In the end of 2017, beginning of 2018, as I painfully detached from the PMO, I found out that I was indeed not a gay person, and much more than that hiding behind the curtain. I found out how everything that happened to me in my life added up to this false belief that I had adopted. (Please, check my story, because there I spend enormous amount of time and effort to describe what I'll describe here only briefly!).

I need to make clear that I'm not a psychologist, nor a doctor. I speak from my personal experience and I make correlations to other people's stories and create statements as bold as the one that I made in the beginning of this post ONLY when I'm more than 99.99% sure that what I say is true. Otherwise I just say "maybe".


So, let's get started...

In the very beginning of your story, whatami, you shared something that needs to be addressed and talked about for quite a while. What you have went through is a significant childhood trauma that has determined the rest of your life until this moment. As I said, I'm not a psychologist, but I don't need to be one on paper, to tell you that.

What I know about the child's mind is that it is very vulnerable and fragile. Until a certain age (usually after 18 years old), whatever happens to the young individual shapes it's views and belief system. I could say, the surrounding world and the events that occur are affecting the individual.

At the age of 5-11 everything is imprinted in the mind of the kid without much of his own will. The ego is not developed yet. After the age of 11 starts the formation of the self-awareness and self-exploration, including sexual exploration. This is the time when we usually first start to form theories and speculations of ourselves. We start to look for identification. The mind starts to ask and compare the individual with the rest of the society, trying to figure out who the heck he is.

Pay attention here: the events that happen in the very early age, 5-11, are accepted by the mind without filter!! That means the are simply adopted and imprinted vividly into the conscious and unconscious mind. The mind at this age is so active, that whatever happens is absolutely amazing, thus it is stored very deeply in us. Certain sounds, smells, pictures, moments, can stay with us for a lifetime.
And after I made that clear, now imagine what an event that you, whatami, describe, have imprinted in your mind. That moment when you were naked and you had to do what that older friend of yours told you - that was a moment which fired such a strong chemical reaction in your brain, that I can't even find the words to describe. Your mind was overwhelmed!!

/To quickly make the parallel with my childhood experience: I had an older friend, who also got me into sexual experiences, which no kid should have, but at a very early age I got used to touch his penis as he was touching mine. He told me that it's much nicer when we do it to each other and at that moment my mind was blown away from something so radical. This friend used to bring me to a dark roof, where we were hiding and secretly doing these pleasurable, but shameful things. We almost got caught a few times, which triggered such a strong reaction of fear in me. I was also forced not to talk about our dirty little secret and this hiding created even more intense feelings inside me. (More precisely I describe my sexual experiences in my story, please read there, if you need more details)./

So, I need to make something very clear: regardless of the fact that I got into PMO years later after these first sexual events, my first exposure to sexuality was not to heterosexual interaction, but was forced on me and looked like homosexual one!! Now, think again about how the young child's brain works and the impressions created back then.

whatami, your experience is even more traumatizing than mine, which makes it harder for your brain to cope with that past event than mine. But regardless of that, I see no reason for you not to be able to deal with that, if you are really determined to solve your problem. It might even take a professional help, which is also fine. In my case, in my country and the circumstances I have lived, I had no access to professional help, so I had to go through everything myself.

Back to your story:

I'm well aware what public humiliation can do to the young individual. The consequences can be devastating, really. I can put myself in your shoes, because I've experienced public humiliation, too. The interesting thing is that the trauma, if not resolved, continues to exist in us and comes alive when similar events bring it back to life.
I did not have the chance to visit a doctor for my anxiety problems, but I'm sure if I did, I'd be diagnosed and medications would have been prescribed. I had to deal with all that myself and kept it to myself. I've been hiding so much in me during all these years, it's simply amazing to me now how I did that.

One side effect of the public humiliation is the uncertainty and hesitation it brings in us. The self-confidence is so much shaken, that we are afraid to ask for a favor, or we feel uncomfortable to ask for someone's time and attention. We feel like we don't deserve anything good. We question our worth as human beings. Eventually, our right to exist. This can surely bring us to suicidal thoughts.
The fear comes from the rejection. Once we were in a stressful social humiliation event, we adopted the opinion of the others for ourselves. We literally thought: "If everyone say I'm a bad person, then I most likely am." That is the thought process happening in a child's head. That can hardly ever happen to a healthy adult, who knows his/her self-worth.

And now we come to another important point: PARENTS
You said:

Now, I can be making the wrong conclusion, that your parents didn't care much about what happened in your life as you grew up, based on what you said in the quote above, but generally speaking, a very few parents actually know how to raise a healthy children. Very few parents have an idea what the young child needs and gives it to it. In most cases where addictions are observed in any form in the family, that is passed on from generation to generation.

Certainly that has been the case of my family. I spend years researching what has happened to my parents as they were kids, with my grandparents and what they were like parents, and so on, and so forth.

My conclusion was solid: traumas are passed on from generation to generation until someone becomes self-aware enough to break the vicious circle.

Usually people are acting in a kind of automatic behavior, also called models of behavior. It took me such a long time to realize that the way my parents treated me was the only thing they knew and through their perspective, they did their best. Until I realized that, I always put the blame for my traumas on them.
I blamed them, because they didn't know what I need, what is going on in my life, what I'm doing on that roof with that older friend of mine.
True forgiveness couldn't occur until I understood the psychology of the parent.

ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE PARENTS
The role of the adults, who are responsible for the young and fragile child, is to protect it from the dangers of the outside world. The home, by definition, should be the safest place for the kid. The parents should be the support for the youngster. As I said above - when we are little, we cannot protect ourselves from the bad stuff in the world, that's why we need the solid support of our parents. They have the established ego, in which we trust. In case of emergency we run to them and expect them to protect us. And what happens when you end up in a situation where you are threatened by public humiliation, because you have been caught in sexual interaction with another man, but your parents don't give you the support you need? They can be ignorant and say that they don't care about that or even worse: beat you or punish you verbally. In both case you don't have the only support you can count on. That is the moment when dissociation can occur, anxiety can occur, OCD can occur. Basically everything bad can happen. It's like your trying to escape this world, because you can't handle the pain induced to you.

I see so clearly now, that the parents have such an important role in forming the child, but most parents are so busy with their job, with making a living and have their own unresolved issues, that they are unavailable for their kids.

Sounds tragic, but let these thoughts don't discourage you. I say that, because if I'm blessed with the chance to have kids in this life, I'll be much more aware of their needs, knowing what I've been through. The lessons I've learned are something that I can pass on and strive for the well-being of the generations ahead. Whoever has gone through such traumas and had come out successfully, has the chance to do that as well.

You can see for yourself, that your parents themselves had predisposition to abusing their sexuality. Would a sexually healthy adult/parent have such comics? What do you expect to adopt from people, who aren't aware of how dangerous such materials can be? I'm not judging them, but I'm addressing an issue, which you have to know of.

On the other hand, you see that you have began to exploit your sexuality way earlier than you should have to. That cannot go without consequences, which emanated themselves in the P/MO addiction, which you developed later.

That is the first solid statement that you need to grab and hold on tightly! That is the first statement, which signifies that IN REALITY you like girls. Biologically you are fine, friend. What I mean by "fine" is that your biological sexuality matches what you perceive as natural for you. But that thought is questioned because of what happened to you before and after this moment. Your first intimate interaction was forced male-male interaction, and later you further exploited your sexuality by reading and watching lustful stuff, which messed up your mind and pulled you towards the false sexual identification.

To me, at this point IT IS CLEAR AS A BLUE SKY ON A SUNNY DAY, THAT YOU ARE TOTALLY STRAIGHT, but you had tough times in life, which fooled you.

I dare to say something as bold as this, because I WAS EXACTLY LIKE YOU!!! I also liked and fell for girls and had never had a crush on a guy, but at a certain point in my life, due to traumatic events that happened to me and access to P, I started questioning my sexuality. I recognize myself 100% in you. It's so unbelievable, yet so true. The things you are telling about yourself could be written by me.

(I'd like to make a quick note that I promised I'm going to talk only from personal experience. But what is really interesting to further research on is the numerous people, who report the exact same condition that you are going through and I used to be living in for so many years. It cannot be just a coincidence, because the stories are so close - something is up.)


-----------
This is going to be the end of my first post, because I've got a lot more to say and I can already see it's a pretty long text.

Funny enough, I've covered only the first 3 paragraphs of your first post, dear brother whatami. I'm going to continue writing when I have the time and the mental strength needed.

Warmly,
Todor

 

Before I come back with my next reply, have a look here. It seems very interesting read: https://moodsmith.com/hocd/

 

Hey man I relate a lot if you want to hit me up

 

I've no doubt all of the obsessions are because of porn. Whether you think differently or not, they are caused by your years of watching porn and masturbating to it.

Let's consider some actual scientific facts.

Hebbian theory: Neurons that fire together, wire together. Meaning, the brain can actually use different sensual clues to come to a conclusion.
In your case: pleasuring yourself (masturbating) + seeing men have sex on screen = brain associating naked men with that pleasure you're getting from masturbating.
This is not going to happen overnight. Watching porn once isn't going to give you gay fantasies. The key word here is repetition.

As was the case with Pavlov's dogs, your own pleasuring will start associating the men/male genitals you see in porn with that pleasure. Throw desensitization (out with the old, in with the new) into the mix and you'll notice exactly how problematic porn can be. These fantasies can be reinforced by high dopamine in the brain's core, which doesn't give a fuck about what you're fapping to as long as it's causing a bigger release of endorphins each time. This is your brain learning, and making these associations. It starts associating the pleasure you feel with seeing male genitals on a screen over time, provided it's become a habit, which it has, in the case of repeated porn viewing, for months or years.

So in essence porn is a learning process, and there's a lot of psychology involved. Over time, as was the case with Pavlov's dogs, seeing male genitals or whatever your fetish may be, can trigger an actual arousal response, which then causes these urges, and which can freak you out when the urge is satisfied and the prefrontal cortex comes back in to play. It's this most human, rational part of your brain, the prefrontal cortex, which will then start to obsess and to analyze, going as far back into your childhood as it can to find clues about your sexual orientation, when all the while, you've been deceived by your own brain. This, my friend, is exactly how toxic porn really is. It will eat you up if you let it. None of your obsessions would be there if you had never seen porn. You can take that to the bank. Had you never seen porn, you wouldn't have had gay fantasies, as you're very much into girls, falling in love only with girls, and the experiences you had in your childhood would not have mattered. You would have thought "fuck that guy for harrassing me" and you would have moved on to better things. Deep down you know this to be true. The fact you didn't enjoy that experience suggests your gay fantasies are not innate, they're a product of your porn addiction. The obsessions are you trying to make sense of what the unevolved part of your brain is doing when it sees porn, all it cares about is lighting up your brain's reward center. It only cares about one thing: endorphins. And the easiest way for it to get those endorphins is by turning your fantasies into the most shocking, fear-inducing fantasies it can. Anxiety and arousal are close relatives indeed.

So in my opinion what you're struggling with really is more because of porn than because of your childhood memories. Always remember this, porn is a psychological tool. Porn makers are very aware of people's insecurities, and the taboo of it all is used to feed people's addictions, and is harming people's minds in the process. You are no exception. Just because you got off to gay fantasies, doesn't mean you are gay. All it means is that you're another porn victim.

Instead of obsessing about your sexual orientation and asking yourself the same question over and over again, AM I?, the only question you really need to ask yourself is, has porn been worth this? Has porn been worth my mental health? Because what you're suffering from is OCD, not denial. Someone who's really gay isn't going to ask themselves AM I, they're going to know deep down. If you look at a beautiful, real life girl and you feel butterflies in that stomach of yours, that's the only thing that matters. It's a feeling much more powerful, much more convincing then what porn is trying to inflict on you, and it's all you really need to know.

 

This is truly an amazing reply and insight, you should totally make your own topic describing this so others affected by HOCD see it.

There are also many scientific studies showing a very high correlation between childhood molestation and homosexual orientation but whenever I link them people call me homophobic. I am 100% certain early life experiences influence/mess up sexuality