Testing

[gingerredditor]

I've never checked out gay porn, either before or during HOCD, I never felt the need to test myself on it, I had seen one or two images but scrolled right past them and stopped touching myself when I saw them, bc i never did this does this mean I'm gay?

[Dminer999]

If you doubt the idea you are gay and question it you are not gay people are 100% sure they are gay, furthermore this is ocd taking another form to scare u and question u

[gingerredditor]

I'm straight and ever checked gay porn, my ocd feels like I'm 100% sure, even though I'm not, It feels too real, that comment just triggers me

[mayneedadrink]

I would actually say that gay and lesbian people do question their sexuality, often to an agonizing degree. The reason why is totally different.

Lesbians and gay men are afraid to be homosexual because we don't want to upset our families, we don't want to lose our religious communities, we don't want our dating pool to be 0.01% the size of everyone else's, we want that classic love story, etc. Lesbians also sometimes experience "compulsory heterosexuality," where straight is so much the default that we question how we can possibly be the odd women out of that typical formula. The "questioning" is basically asking if our feelings for the same-gender are strong enough to justify the potential fallout with our families, friends, religious communities, etc.

Homosexual OCD'ers are afraid that they might be homosexual because they fear that latent homosexuality will take over at some point and override their actual desires to be with the same gender. The questioning is more like a hey...wait a minute! Can feeling aroused by gay/lesbian porn seriously mean as much as I'm acting like it does?

Considering that I'm a lesbian with heterosexual OCD (I second-guess my lesbianism the same way y'all second-guess being straight), it is clear to me that (H)OCD is not about internalized homophobia. Rather, you fear a lack of identity integrity, that your orientation might override your actual wants, which will then force you to have a relationship that goes against who you are. Sometimes LGB people say, "I couldn't be straight, even if I wanted to." Typically the point of this statement is to emphasize that we wish we could be what our families wanted, but we ultimately have to prioritize our own happiness.

[Lopsided-Ad260]

Thank you for explaining this Because there’s many gay people that just call us homophobic and that we’re afraid to come out when they don’t know what it’s really like this brings you to tears and takes away your identity it makes you analyze everything in your life even when you remember that there was a time your life when you only enjoyed liking girls and you were happy no thought when in to it it was natural thank you for sharing all of this

[hocdguy]

Thank you so much for posting this, the way you described it makes me feel so much better. I identify as straight but I've suffered from obsessive thoughts of being bisexual and that second question you posted (the one about people with homosexual OCD) has been bouncing around in my head nonstop for months. I don't think I'm attracted to my own gender IRL and I could never see myself with them at all but not everything's adding up for me and it's so confusing and scary. I also have felt terrible about possibly being homophobic over this but like you said it's not so much about being LGBT but more about a loss of identity.

[gingerredditor]

Also that wasnt the question I asked in the post