Hocd: Homosexual Ocd & Sexual Orientation Ocd + 'homosexual Ocd': Straight Men Who Suspect They Are Gay + Am I Gay? Ocd Takes Many Forms

[GachiMuchi]

HOCD: Homosexual OCD & Sexual Orientation OCD

 

Steven J. Seay, Ph.D. on Apr 12, 2012 in OCD, Sexual Symptoms, “Pure-O” Symptoms

 

Fear of Being Gay (Homosexual OCD / HOCD)

Emerging sexuality can be confusing for any teen or young adult, and gay teens face a variety of unique challenges over the course of adolescence.
 

In addition to learning to understand their own sexuality, gay teens must navigate complex situations and pressures that may not be relevant for straight teens. They must also deal with opinionated parents, friends, and others who sometimes hold differing views about sexuality. Anxiety, distress, and confusion are often part of this process.
 

This post is not about the anxiety associated with being gay or with “coming out” but instead discusses homosexual OCD (“HOCD”), an anxiety disorder that affects a small number of individuals. HOCD is not unique to teens but can occur at any age.
 

What is HOCD?

Homosexual OCD (“HOCD”) is a specific subtype of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) that involves recurrent sexual obsessions and intrusive doubts about one’s sexual orientation.
 

Straight individuals with homosexual OCD experience obsessive fears about the possibility of being gay. Their HOCD obsessions often consist of unwanted thoughts, impulses, or images that uncontrollably pop into consciousness. To reduce the anxiety brought on by their obsessions, individuals with HOCD engage in a variety of rituals that focus on “proving their true sexuality” or reducing their perceived “vulnerability” to becoming gay.
 

Sexual obsessions can also affect gay men, lesbians, or bisexual individuals with OCD, who may become fearful about the possibility of becoming straight (“Straight OCD”). The common element that unites these seemingly opposite sexual obsessions is the fear of being attracted to something unwanted, taboo, or “unacceptable” based on one’s particular worldview. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll be using HOCD-centric language in this post.

However, the same basic elements are directly applicable to all people with obsessive doubts about their sexual orientation.
 

People with HOCD worry that they might secretly be gay or might become gay, despite not questioning their sexuality in the past. Prior to the onset of HOCD, they might have had few doubts about their sexual orientation. Many people with homosexual OCD also have a history of having enjoyed heterosexual relationships in the past.  It was only after the first unwanted thought “popped” that they became overly concerned about the prospect of being gay. The occurrence of this unwanted thought then causes them to question their sexual identity and reanalyze previous experiences, in light of the possibility that they might possibly be gay.
 

Individuals with homosexual OCD want to know “for sure” that they are not gay and often go to great lengths to prove to themselves that they are straight.  However, due to the way OCD is strengthened and reinforced by rituals, these attempts ultimately backfire.  The result is that some people with HOCD become extremely disabled.  In order to avoid symptom triggers, it’s not uncommon for people with homosexual OCD to become depressed and drop out of school, quit their jobs, end relationships, or make other life-altering decisions that paradoxically make their symptoms worse.
 

In some cases, individuals with HOCD experiment with homosexual relationships or adopt gay lifestyles because of doubt about their heterosexuality. This doubt causes them to leave their current spouses/partners, “come out,” and begin to date same sex individuals. However, in contrast to lesbians and gay men who “come out” and find happiness, individuals with HOCD find their new lives distressing, confusing, and dissatisfying. Moreover, they continue to experience doubt and uncertainty about their sexuality.
 

HOCD Symptoms

Homosexual OCD typically has elements that parallel checking, contamination, and Pure-O OCD.  Some individuals with HOCD have a predominantly checking-related variant of OCD.  When around same sex individuals, they “check” their own bodies for signs of sexual arousal.  Other people with homosexual obsessions have a contamination-related variant of HOCD and worry that contact with gay men, lesbians, bisexual individuals, or effeminate/androgynous people is “contagious” or may somehow “activate” their latent homosexuality.  Still others worry about acting on unwanted sexual impulses.  They worry that if they’re around gay people or same sex individuals that they might lose control and act out sexually. Some people with HOCD worry that other people will think they’re gay, and they spend excessive time and energy trying to “act straight.” Many people with HOCD experience all of the symptoms above.
 

What maintains intrusive sexual obsessions? Like any form of OCD, symptoms of HOCD are maintained by faulty beliefs, rituals, and avoidance behaviors. Faulty beliefs about sexuality and sexual orientation perpetuate fear about the possible consequences of resisting OCD-related compulsions. This is harmful because every time an unwanted thought is avoided or neutralized, it is reinforced and becomes more likely to become activated again in the future. Avoidance and rituals thus prevent the occurrence of corrective learning experiences that would ultimately cause these unwanted thoughts to decrease in frequency and intensity.
 

Rituals associated with homosexual OCD include mental rituals and behavioral rituals.
 

Homosexual OCD Mental Rituals

• Asking self, “Do I find that person attractive?” (often applied to both opposite sex and same sex individuals).
• Asking self, “Am I currently aroused?”
• Asking self, “Am I appropriately disgusted by this?” when seeing same sex couples.
• Other questions like the above that are designed to “figure out” or determine one’s sexual orientation.
• Re-analyzing previous romantic or sexual experiences to make sure that one is straight.
• Trying to convince oneself definitively of one’s sexuality.
• Reassuring self about one’s sexual orientation (“I’m definitely straight”).
• Mentally comparing self to straight people vs. gay men (or lesbians).
• Repeatedly redirecting attention away from same sex individuals to opposite sex individuals.
• Other mental rituals designed to “reset” or neutralize unwanted thoughts (e.g., mental washing rituals).
• Repeatedly telling yourself that you’re not gay.
• Trying to figure out why previous relationships failed (to make sure it wasn’t related to your partner thinking you were gay).
• Planning for and anticipating all the likely consequences of “coming out,” even though you have no desire to “come out” or have gay relationships.
• Planning how to leave your spouse or significant other (when you don’t actually want to do this).
• Neutralizing “gay thoughts” with “straight thoughts.”
• Mentally picturing opposite sex genitals or heterosexual acts to reduce anxiety about intrusive thoughts.
• Scanning the environment to identify people who might be gay.
• “Magical” rituals designed to distance oneself from unwanted thoughts (e.g., imagining oneself getting sick or vomiting when having unwanted thoughts).
• Escaping from unwanted thoughts by recalling/reviewing pleasant past sexual experiences.
• Replacing unwanted gay thoughts with violent thoughts.
   

HOCD Rituals & Compulsions (Behavioral)

• Checking one’s own body for physical signs of arousal (can also be a mental ritual).
• Walking in an overly masculine (if a man) or feminine (if a woman) way in order to “appear straight.”
• Interacting in a overly masculine or feminine way.
• Talking only about “appropriately” masculine or feminine topics.
• Washing rituals (hands, etc.) if one comes into contact with gay men, lesbians, or bisexual individuals.
• Watching straight pornography in order to reassure self that your’re aroused by it.
• Watching gay porn in order to “prove”  that your’re disgusted by it or not aroused by it.
• Asking other people if they ever find same sex people attractive.
• Asking other “Is it normal to…?”- type questions over and over again to obtain reassurance.
• Asking other people for reassurance about your sexuality.
• Repeatedly asking ex-girlfriends/boyfriends why your relationship ended.
• Dating excessively to “prove” that one is straight and/or that one is attracted to the opposite sex.
• Compulsive masturbation to straight pornography in order to “prove” that one is attracted to the opposite sex.
• Interacting in a way that is aggressive, insulting, or disrespectful to gay people.
• In some cases, adopting a gay lifestyle because it feels like it is inevitable (due to OCD doubt). However, finding this lifestyle distressing and unwanted.
• In some cases, dating same sex individuals or engaging in homosexual acts to figure out the meaning of these experiences, but finding these activities distressing and unwanted.
   

Homosexual OCD Avoidance Behaviors

• Avoiding gay men, lesbians, and bisexual people.
• Avoiding things that have been touched by gay men, lesbians, or bisexual people.
• Avoiding physical contact with same sex individuals (handshaking, hugs).
• Avoiding being alone with same sex individuals.
• Avoiding conversations with same sex individuals.
• Avoiding places frequented by gay people.
• Avoiding public restrooms, locker rooms, and other situations potentially involving same sex nudity.
• Avoiding attractive same sex individuals or pictures/movies featuring attractive same sex individuals.
• Avoiding activities that aren’t stereotypically masculine (if a man) or feminine (if a woman).
• Dressing in a stereotypically masculine or feminine way (e.g., wearing pink [for men]).
• Avoiding music by gay individuals or movies featuring gay actors or characters.
• Avoiding romantic relationships and sexual activity for fear of unwanted thoughts “popping in” during sex.
• Avoiding eye contact with same sex individuals.
• When in public, trying to avoid looking at the groin, backside, or chest areas of same sex individuals.
• Avoiding masturbation due to fear about an unwanted thought occurring.
• Avoiding TV shows with gay characters or gay themes.
• Avoiding purple items, rainbows, and other symbols associated with homosexuality.
• Avoiding androgynous or flamboyant clothing.
• Manipulating your voice so that it sounds more masculine or feminine.
• Not eating in public (in case food was prepared by a gay person).
   

Homosexual OCD Maladaptive Beliefs

• Straight individuals shouldn’t find same sex people attractive.
• Straight people shouldn’t have any doubts about their sexuality.
• Every thought means something. I wouldn’t be having these thoughts over and over again if they weren’t meaningful.
• If I turned out to be gay, it would ruin my life.
• Straight people should only have straight thoughts. Gay people should only have gay thoughts.
• If I’m not 100% straight, it means I’m gay.
• If I have a thought that’s inconsistent with my desired orientation, it means I’ve “crossed over.”
• Sexuality can be contagious.
• Every time I feel sexually aroused, there must be a reason for it.
• Feeling sexual arousal must mean that I want to have sex with this person.
• If my current partner found out I was having these thoughts, s/he’d leave me.
• If I keep having this thought, I’m going to have to act on it eventually.
• Maybe the only way I can be free of these thoughts is to act on them.

Treatment of HOCD (Homosexual OCD)

“What if this isn’t OCD? What if I’m really gay?” These are important questions that you might wish to discuss with your therapist. If you have HOCD, doubt about your sexuality reflects an OCD-related “false alarm” that has nothing to do with your actual sexual orientation. If you are gay, your gay thoughts will be associated with pleasure rather than with fear (although you might experience anxiety about the social repercussions of “coming out”).
 

If you have homosexual OCD, what-if questions about sexuality are ultimately unanswerable in the way that OCD demands they be answered. In my South Florida (Palm Beach County) psychological practice, people seeking HOCD treatment are preoccupied with attempts to know the unknowable.  Unfortunately, there simply is no objective way to determine your “true” sexuality.  If there was a simple solution, you would’ve found it by now.
 

Because there is no objective way to prove your “true” sexuality to your OCD (it will always ask, “What if…?” and “How do you know for sure…?” questions), your HOCD treatment must focus on the goal of learning to live with the doubt. In other words, treatment should not focus on “proving” whether or not you are straight or gay but rather focus on providing you with better skills for tolerating the unknowable. Remember that HOCD operates just like other versions of Pure-O OCD: the more you analyze your thoughts and body to try to “figure out the truth”, the more likely you are to unknowingly reinforce your symptoms.
 

The best strategy for reducing your symptoms will be based on exposure and response prevention for HOCD. Exposures for HOCD are built around purposefully seeking out situations you avoid and then resisting mental and behavioral rituals. Developing a good exposure hierarchy can be confusing, so find a good HOCD therapist to guide you. Moreover, your HOCD therapist will also help you stay consistent in the goal of learning to live with uncertainty. Because you have probably spent significant amounts of time trying to prove your sexual orientation once and for all, it’s easy to fall back into this unhelpful goal.
 

If you’re interviewing potential therapists and one suggests that they can “cure you of your gay thoughts” or help you “know for sure that you’re straight”, consider this a red flag. That person is not an HOCD specialist. These types of promises are inconsistent with how effective HOCD treatment actually works. Although everyone with HOCD wants to get rid of their gay thoughts, thought suppression techniques will be ineffective in the long-run.
 

To understand why, or to read more about my general treatment approach in my South Florida (Palm Beach) psychological practice, see my posts on sexual obsessions, thought control and thought suppression. Overcoming symptoms of HOCD requires hard work, but people recover from this challenging form of OCD every day.

Edited February 12, 2015 by GachiMuchi

[GachiMuchi]

'Homosexual OCD': Straight Men Who Suspect They Are Gay

 

Feb. 24, 2014 By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES

via Good Morning America

 

Some psychologists think that gay acceptance has hindered recognition of homosexual obsessive compulsive disorder.

Tony Latham/Getty Images

 

 

Steven Brodsky, a psychologist who specializes in obsessive-compulsive disorder, says that at any one time he has a "handful" of clients who are straight and suspect that they are gay.
 

Brodsky, who is the clinical director of his OCD and Panic Center of N.Y. and N.J., said he had one adult patient who was so crippled by obsessive thoughts about being gay that he was unable to live independently and had to move back in with his parents to cope. Brodsky said he determined his patient had OCD associated with homosexuality.
 

"He had a classic case," said Brodsky. "He had some sort of feeling that he was attracted to other guys."

This patient was straight, according to Brodsky, but he had intrusive thoughts that were not based on any hard reality in his behavior.
 

Brodsky said a previous therapist had misdiagnosed his patient as gay, and at the patient's request, sent him off to reparative therapy, a controversial method that has not been proven to be effective and can be harmful.
 

"I have many gay clients and phobia is my business," he said. "I treat them like any client looking for help, and derive great enjoyment in working with them and all my clients."
 

But, he says health professionals need a better understanding of OCD so patients receive proper treatment for a mental obsession, rather than counseling for a sexual orientation crisis that he says has nothing to do with mental illness.
 

This type of OCD falls under the category of sexual obsessions, according to Jeff Szymanski, a clinical psychologist and executive director of the International OCD Foundation.

 

"I have treated this many times," he said. "These individuals suffer from pathological doubt. Even though they know that they are 100 percent straight, not gay, they second guess it. For example, they might think, 'Wait a minute I spent too much time looking at that guy in the locker room. What does that mean?' They get lost in the need to know – the need to be sure."
 

Szymanski said that in 90 percent of the cases he has treated, the patient is clearly straight.

Occasionally, a person learns they are gay. "I say, oh, that's interesting, how do you feel about being gay and what can we do about that?'
 

He said the obsession is "absolutely common in the OCD world."
 

"If you contact a general therapist and tell them about something like this – or a person who is afraid they are swearing at God, they would say, 'That sounds weird.' But we specialists see it all the time."
 

Brodsky argues that today's open acceptance of homosexuality and gay lifestyles can blind therapists to this kind of anxiety disorder in straight men. Therapists can jump to a quick, but erroneous, conclusion that a patient is seeking a way out of the closet and help him "get out there and try it out."
 

Dr. Jack Drescher, a noted New York City psychiatrist who is considered an expert in gay and lesbian mental health and treats patients for OCD, agreed that "being worried that one might be gay is not the same thing as being gay."
 

"A person with OCD who has is having intrusive thoughts about whether or not he is gay, is not gay, in the sense that he has not incorporated a homosexual orientation in any minimally affirming way into his identity," said Drescher. "Also, if he is not actually attracted to people of the same sex, does not masturbate to fantasies of people of the same sex, is not really aroused by same sex pornography, then it is hard to make the case that he has a homosexual orientation."
 

Drescher has treated patients with other obsessive sexual thoughts. "One patient was obsessed about being a pedophile, even though he had never been aroused by children. Another was heterosexual and feared he had HIV.
 

He agreed with Brodsky that some therapists may miss an OCD diagnosis, but "the most likely cause of that is not that they are too gay-affirming but that they lack training in recognizing the symptoms of OCD."
 

OCD is an anxiety disorder in which people have recurring and unwanted thoughts and ideas (obsessions) that make them feel guilty or driven to do something repetitively (compulsions), affecting 2.2 million people nationally, according to the American Psychiatric Association. Typical obsessions include concerns about germs, harm or forbidden sexual or religious thoughts.
 

Brodsky said that a gay person has "pleasant association" with same-sex attraction and a person with OCD does not.
 

"A person with OCD "can't stop thinking about it and performs compulsions to lay the thought at rest," he said. "Repeatedly, anxiously, reviewing past situations, testing themselves, asking for reassurance, compulsively researching the Internet for gay tests, testing themselves with gay porn or gay people.
 

"They know they're not attracted to the same sex and are to the opposite sex, but are consumed all day long with this battle," said Brodsky. "They can think of nothing else. A gay person doesn't go through this battle."

 

Ross Murray, a spokesman for the LGBT advocacy group GLAAD, said he had never heard of this type of OCD, but that Brodsky made sense.
 

"It sounds exactly like a phobia or fear of snakes," he said. "I can't think of anyone who has that sort of obsessional focus on their own sexual orientation."
 

"Someone who is gay, but in the closet, is not spending time researching and testing themselves," he said. "They know deep down that is a part of them. Gay people are not looking for any kind of external validation."
 

Having an obsession about being gay is no different from any other mental obsession, said Brodsky.

"Something they have read or heard initially triggers it," said Brodsky. "A friend might say something and they think, 'Gee, I could be gay or I am doing something a gay person would do."
 

They might even get subtle body sensations, being aroused by another man. "Certainly that does not make them gay," he said. "It takes almost nothing to arouse a man."
 

These obsessive thoughts are not rooted in homophobia, according to Brodsky. "That – and even sex – has nothing to do with it," he said. "Maybe they were abused as a kid or heard 'gay' as a taunt. There are other issues in their lives preventing them from having loving, committed relationships."
 

As for treatment, Brodsky said he would help a patient who was truly gay validate their feelings and attain self-acceptance, "achieving calm and peace of mind."
 

"This is the opposite of the method of OCD treatment which uses exposure therapy, which tries to actually trigger anxiety and face fears," he said. "Exposure has nothing to with the truth, attaining clarity or self-knowledge … It is very simple, you face your fears and doubts enough times, not reassure yourself, and you physiologically become less bothered by it."
 

These patients can be successfully treated in the same way other forms of OCD are treated, according to Brodsky. "It's easy and it's effective."
 

Drescher said that medications are also highly effective, especially in tandem with behavioral therapy.

Determining the cause of the obsession is "never black and white," according to Brodsky. "And you have to look at the entire track record of their behavior... There is a clear difference between OCD and a person who is really attracted to the same sex."

Edited February 12, 2015 by GachiMuchi

[GachiMuchi]

Am I Gay? Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Takes Many Forms

The Rules

Hello there! My name is Mark, and I am a gay male with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). I am writing for the benefit of heterosexual folks who hope to use this article to understand their fears about being gay (also known as gay OCD or HOCD). No worries, my friend: If you are trying to understand yourself or someone close to you who has HOCD, you are reading the right article.

• Rule one: If you say you are heterosexual, then you are. Period.
• Rule two: There are no other rules.

Thank you for taking the time to read and obey the rules. I am a teacher in my real life, and I always spell out the rules early on.
 

Now that we are coming at this from the same mindset, please bear with me as I walk you through HOCD.

What is Homosexual OCD?
 

In November 2004, real-life stress was playing havoc with my emotions and OCD. I had been off medication and out of therapy for years, and I needed a place where I could talk about personal issues. Searching under OCD and gay, I discovered the old BrainPhysics discussion board and decided to post. I thought I was joining a board full of gay people with OCD. Only ten minutes after I had started reading the most recent posts, however, I realized that something was wrong: The folks with gay fears were clearly not gay. It took another five minutes for me to figure out what HOCD was and why so many people had gay obsessions. "Well, duh!" I thought. "This is an OCD board. Of course they have false obsessions."
 

Before my own OCD was treated, I had suffered for years with obsessions about natural disasters, religion, my health, and being rejected. What I saw in the HOCD obsessions mirrored the anxiety, checking, illogical thinking, and broken record quality of everything I had experienced. HOCD felt real to its sufferers just as my own obsessions had felt real to me. Again, duh! OCD always feels real. If it did not, it would not be OCD. It plays with your mind, making you believe lies and doubt truth.
 

I would later learn that truly gay people may also get HOCD, but that they falsely fear that they are heterosexual. Bisexuals with HOCD have the false fear that they are attracted to only one sex, usually the one they are not currently involved with. These facts alone should help straight HOCD folks to see that they are indeed straight. HOCD is an illness, and who but a gay HOCD sufferer would fear being straight, the thing society prizes? Just as HOCD obsessing over being straight = gay in reality, HOCD obsessing over being gay = straight in reality.

Straight folks with HOCD know deep down that they are not gay. But I am getting ahead of myself.
 

I turned 40 a week ago, and I have been out of the closet for almost two decades. In that time, I have helped other truly gay people come out of the closet. If I thought for a minute that even one of the straight HOCD sufferers on the board was gay, I would do the same for him or her. Yet, while I have done my best to help many on the board, I have helped no one come out of the closet.
 

The Mental Agony

As of this writing I have been bombarded by threads, private messages, e-mail, and instant messages by straight folks terrified that they are gay (and a very small number of gay and bisexual folks terrified that they, too, are not their real sexual orientation). My initial assessment of HOCD stands firm: Whatever HOCD tells the sufferer is a lie. I have had the wonderful experience of talking to people who had initially talked to me in HOCD mode but have since gone on medication and undergone behavior therapy; they now tell me that they are clearly heterosexual and don't know what they were thinking before. Yeah, well, I could have told them that. In fact, I did.

The only part of my initial assessment that has changed is my realization that HOCD is far more common in the OCD population than most people think. I don't think most OCD sufferers get it; I know I have never had it (although I could have gotten it and shudder at the thought). Nevertheless, it is sufficiently widespread to warrant more specialists in the field, more media exposure, and more understanding among therapists relatives, friends, and, especially, gay people who give the wrong advice. Before November 2004, I would have given the wrong advice, too.
 

So why do some OCD sufferers get HOCD when others do not? Who knows? Why did I have terrors about earthquakes and research them for close to two years when I never had, say, Harm OCD? Again, who knows? To a large degree, I believe, the mental daggers our OCD sends us are random. To a small degree, I also believe, they have something to do with what we fear most. In Harry Potter language, OCD has the same power as a Dementor: It fills us with our most unhappy thoughts and saps all happiness out of us. It is what a Boggart becomes, a manifestation of our worst fears. Of course, Harry learned to defeat Dementors and Boggarts.

But Why Fear Being Gay?
 

Like any monster, mythical or otherwise, OCD strikes when a person is vulnerable, and it only stands to reason that an OCD sufferer who stresses over the opposite sex for whatever reason (a break up, an abusive partner, no dates, too many poor dates, and so on) might get hit with HOCD. Still, I know OCD folks with poor self-image and terrible track records on dating who have gotten HOCD, and others in the same situation who have not. The random element is also a factor here.
 

Now that we are clear about what HOCD does, we need to talk about how it works once it hits. I am neither a health care professional nor a person with any skill in science; for this reason, my explanation is going to be in simple laymen terms. Imagine a parent whose child has not returned home at the appointed hour. The parent then hears about a fatal accident nearby, and he or she goes into panic mode full of what-ifs and dread. Worry for that child takes over all rational thought, and reason does little to quell the parent's anxiety. Suddenly, the child walks through the door unharmed or calls to apologize for being late. The parent may or may not start yelling or simply hug the child in relief, but his or her fears are immediately put to rest.
 

Not so the OCD sufferer. We are in that very state of panic 24/7, and it continues even after we have proof that our fear is unwarranted. Catastrophic thoughts gets stuck in our malfunctioning brains, and illogical thinking makes us find ways to keep 'proving' the worst and disputing evidence to the contrary. OCD sufferers who fear contamination from walls not cleaned a 'special' way, for example, act illogically--but to them the fear feels real. I know that I was being ludicrous when I spent the better part of my waking hours expecting to die in agony, along with all my loved ones, because of an imagined natural disaster that was on its way. It felt so real at the time; now I cannot imagine what I was thinking.
 

HOCD works the same way: Heterosexual sufferers feel that the gay thoughts are real even though, in their hearts, they know that they are straight. Since HOCD depends on terror and illogic, no amount of reassurance works for long. The sufferer has to let go of the thoughts with a "Yeah, whatever" attitude and, above all, not react to them emotionally. When OCD sufferers freak out, they strengthen the hold OCD has on them. Behavior therapy (whether initiated by professional behavior therapists or the sufferers themselves) is the way out of the OCD trap. Medication, which need not always be permanent, can be a godsend since it speeds up results and helps sufferers control their symptoms.
 

Straight versus Gay

Before such treatment, HOCD (homosexuality anxiety caused by OCD) is all terror and rant. I am now going to type two imaginary rants. The first will be by a straight male who has HOCD. The second will be by an gay male who is in the closet but has no HOCD. Can you see the difference?
 

STRAIGHT MALE HOCD SUFFERER
 

GAY MALE IN THE CLOSET WITH NO HOCD
 

I know that I am gay, but I have only ever gotten hard with girls. This must be because I am in the closet, and I know that I'll suddenly get hard with guys once I come out. But the thought of being with another guy makes me sick. Damn, gay stuff is so disgusting! I'd never want some naked guy to touch me that way. But my mind tells me that this is what I want, and that I'll be O.K. with it once I come out because I am gay. But I'm not gay! But my mind tells me I am. Dammit, why won't my mind shut up? I do all this checking by looking at gay porn, and I still don't know what I am. But I just want to look at hot women instead. I have never been attracted to guys, but I know I am a gay guy. This anxiety is killing me. I can't even hear the word gay without becoming anxious.
 

The second rant is what I would have said many years ago. The first rant is what I hear on the board. When I saw rants like the first one last November, I knew that I was not dealing with gay folks at all.
 

I know that I am gay, and I have only ever gotten hard with guys. I am in the closet because I am afraid people will reject me, yet I have always wanted with everything in me to fall in love with another man who loves me back. That would be so beautiful. I was taught that gay stuff was disgusting, but when I think of being held by a man I get butterflies in my stomach. When I see a guy I like, it just feels right. The only anxiety I feel is over what others think of gays and how I think I'll be treated by straight people in power if they find out about me. I don't feel any anxiety when I think about how lucky gay guys who are out of the closet must be, and I wish I could be like them.

 

OCD Takes Many Forms

 

Homosexual OCD is a demon, and it knows how to deceive sufferers, but if you know what to look for you cannot be deceived. Part of the problem is that HOCD masks sufferers' body signals. The other part is that people wrongly think they can suddenly turn gay, and that, of course, is an impossibility. You cannot suddenly turn gay any more than you can sprout wings. It does not get any more basic than that. HOCD will try to rewrite your past and say that you did not actually feel this or that, but whatever you remember feeling at the time is, well, what you really did feel at the time. You cannot change a past truth, and HOCD always lies.
 

Don't Be Confused by Propaganda

There are many people who, for political or religious reasons, will tell you otherwise. Can you say... propaganda?!! Do they want you to vote for them? Do they want you to disregard your spiritual or non-spiritual truths and accept only theirs? In other words, what are the secret agendas of such political and religious spokespersons? Even my community--the gay community I will defend with my dying breath--is guilty of ridiculous propaganda spread thick among what is otherwise true. That is part of being human. You don't have to believe what someone else says or writes simply because he or she is respectable and learned. If your HOCD clings to someone's propaganda, disbelieve it. More importantly, if your gut feeling (not your OCD feeling!) says something is not so, trust yourself.
 

There are also people who don't know any better and say what they believe because it is all they have ever heard. Such people mean you no harm, but their incorrect words are what we OCD folks latch onto. Those words get stuck in our brains and become our illogical false truths.
 

So now we know something about how HOCD thrives on propaganda and human error. We also know how an HOCD rant differs from an in-the-closet rant. Is there any similarity between HOCD fear and in-the-closet fear? Yes and no.
 

Look Deep Inside

Because society pounds gays with stereotypes--and because many gays fear being rejected, tossed into the streets by parents, ejected from houses of worship and jobs, or being beaten to a pulp--many try to trick themselves into denying their sexual identity. Even I did when I was in the closet. But deep down, gays like me know who we really are. We are simply scared of what people will do to us, and we are scared of losing everyone we love. When, however, we separate our gay thoughts from all of the value judgments and fear with which society brainwashes us, we take great pleasure in our gay identities.
 

On the other hand, straight HOCD folks will never be happy with gay thoughts. Because they know that they are straight; they fight against the gay lies HOCD puts into their heads. Their gay thoughts cause them pain by trying to trick them into thinking they are gay. They never accept that they are gay because, quite frankly, they are not. For this reason, they have never been in the closet.
 

Allow me to rephrase. As you can see, although straight HOCD folks and closeted gay folks both suffer because of fear in their minds, they are nothing alike. Gays in the closet try to trick themselves into thinking they can be straight; straight HOCD folks are tricked by their thoughts (not by themselves!) into fearing they are gay. On a primal level, however, gay people always know that they are gay no matter what tricks society employs. Straight people always know that they are straight no matter what tricks HOCD employs.
 

HOCD's favorite means of trickery is the spike, seeing or hearing something that, in a heartbeat, makes all the HOCD fears escalate. Let me make this clear by giving you an example of my own (non-HOCD) spiking. I used to see a crack in the sidewalk and think about how earthquakes could cause such cracks, how an earthquake could cause cracks in buildings, how an earthquake was coming this very day to crack sidewalks and buildings, how an earthquake would make a building fall on me, how I would be crushed to death, how everyone I cared about would be killed... And all this snowballing from a crack in the sidewalk. That is the way all OCD works; HOCD is no different. Thus, a sufferer sees a man with an earring, and everything snowballs from there. Yet, most men who wear earrings are heterosexual since most men are heterosexual; in addition, male earrings have been fashionable since the 80s. Those last bits of logic are never factored in, though, as HOCD depends on illogic and high anxiety.
 

OCD is an Illness

Remember: OCD is an illness with set symptoms. No matter how smart, how well read, or how emotionally controlled you are, it can still get under your skin and make you act in ways you normally would not. The interesting thing about HOCD is that people who get it act the same way regardless of how comfortable they were with gay friends or how outright homophobic they were before onset.
 

Similarly, no matter how comfortable they were with their sexual orientation before onset, HOCD folks get into a lot of nonsense about what this or that means, and they assume that the most innocent of actions--a pat on the back, perhaps--has cataclysmic repercussions. Something I always say to the straight HOCD folks who write to me: If you want to know what acceptable heterosexual behavior is, observe the heterosexuals without HOCD around you. They pat each other on the back, sometimes put their arms around each other, and are often non-sexually physical in other ways. They are drawn to each other as friends, and the close friends among them have deep but non-sexual emotional bonds. All that falls within the realm of heterosexuality.

Let's push it a little further.
 

Does my lack of sexual desire for women mean I hate them? Not at all. I love my female friends and hug them and hold hands--but I cannot imagine ever having sex with them. I feel actual warmth when I am with them, but it is friendship, not something sexual. It is the same thing when straight guys pat each other on the back, hug, wrestle, or bond in other ways. There is nothing sexual there, but they do feel warmth in friendship and seek each other's company. If these activities were gay, homophobic guys across America would not be doing them.
 

Pushing further...
 

A straight thirtysomething friend of mine is an actor, and he had to play a gay guy in a show. In one scene, he had to French kiss another actor--night after night after night. Did that make him gay? Absolutely not. He derived no pleasure from it; he just did it mechanically, and, as an actor, he used body language to make the audience think he was enjoying it. How did he know what body language to simulate? He asked his gay friends. (Hello!) I had no doubt that he really wanted to be doing that to his wife, not another guy. His wife was in the audience for many performances, and I am sure she knew that her husband was not gay.
 

In another show, my friend played a murderer who enjoyed killing. We all knew that he was simulating his enjoyment, and that he was no killer. Same thing as when he played a gay guy.
 

On Friends, there is an episode where Joey (Matt LeBlanc) and Ross (David Schwimmer) French kiss because of a misunderstanding. I am sure those straight actors simply played their roles and did not feel anything. We the audience got to laugh hysterically at the moment, and no one thought the characters had turned gay.
 

In addition, a number of guys who do gay porn are straight. They do not enjoy having sex with other men at all; rather, they do it for money.
 

Why am I writing all this? Anyone can function biologically. Even I could have vaginal sex with a woman: I would not like it, and I would probably be thinking of a guy the whole time... But, if I had to, I could carry out the motions. Does that make me straight? No way.
 

Do you see what I am going at great lengths to explain?
 

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Deriving pleasure from being intimate with a member of the same sex determines whether or not one is gay. Nothing else does. And clearly, all the hyper-anxiety associated with HOCD is not pleasure.
 

Of course, deriving pleasure from being intimate with a member of the opposite sex determines whether or not one is straight. Some folks think they have to prove the pleasure factor and their heterosexuality as young as possible; they say that if you are a virgin at a certain age, you must be gay. WRONG! People should never associate virginity with any particular sexual orientation. I know gay and straight guys who lost their virginity very late and others who lost it while in their early teens. There are also folks who die straight virgins or gay virgins. Note: they are straight virgins or gay virgins because of what biology made them, not because of sex acts. A person is already heterosexual before he or she has sex for the first time--or even if he or she is a virgin. If you don't believe me, just ask heterosexuals without HOCD.
 

What, then, is the right age for sex? I don't know that there is one. If you want to wait for marriage, you are normal. If you want to wait for the right person or time but not wait for marriage, you are normal. If you cannot wait at all and have it as soon as you can, you are normal. Each of us is different.
 

Now let's push it further still.
 

A different friend who is too straight for words knows that he would never want to have sex with a man and does not find men sexually interesting. However, he has a major foot fetish. In fact, a sexy pair of feet turns him on regardless of whether they belong to men or women. That one raised even my eyebrows at first. But, if you think about it, feet really have no gender. So is he gay or bi if he finds a guy's feet attractive? I'd say no since it is about feet--and he does not like anything on men above the ankles.
 

What of straight bodybuilders who admire other men's bodies? I'd say they are straight if the admiration is non-sexual (which I am sure it is).
 

How Do Gay Men See Women?

I know that I am gay and not bisexual or straight. No question there. Have I ever found women hot? Yes. Have I ever had thoughts about what it would be like with a woman? Yes. Has a woman ever given me an erection? No. Do I want to have sex with a woman I find hot? No.
 

So why do I think Jennifer Anniston is hot? Why can I talk about her with yet another straight friend of mine? For the same reason he can tell me that he thinks Matt Damon is hot. We are human. Our sexual orientations are clear, but that does not mean we cannot look at or even think about the other sex. My friend would never actually do anything with Matt Damon or a picture of him, but he is comfortable enough with his sexuality to talk to me about him. A lot of--not all!--straight guys have had such thoughts, but few will admit to them. It is the same with gays. Believe me, most of us queers would rather cut off our arms than admit that we have had very occasional thoughts about women. However, secure people of all sexual orientations can talk honestly with no fear.
 

Sadly, if the same thought that strikes obviously straight non-HOCD guys like my friend passes through the mind of an obviously straight HOCD guy, that HOCD guy will spike. And there, I believe, lies the origin or all the OH-NO-I-saw-a-guy-and-I-thought-he-was-good-looking-and-I-must-be-gay HOCD fears. If you let the thought freak you out, HOCD will grab hold with vicious glee. So you had a rare thought about someone of the same sex. So what? It does not mean you are gay.
 

Do you see how complicated it gets? For an OCD person, it can be nightmarish. We are full of what ifs and illogical reasoning, and we want absolute truth in a universe where limited humans can never attain it. Fortunately, sexual orientation is fairly clear cut even if an occasional thought runs counter to one's orientation. If, apart from such an occasional thought, the idea of being intimate with the same sex turns you off and fills you with anxiety, there is no way that you could be gay. Period. Go back to rule one if need be.
 

The Bottom Line

I'm gay. I love my same-sex attraction.
 

I'm gay--and you're not.
 

Connect with Others
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Article written by Mark-Ameen Johnson, M.A., for the BrainPhysics website, 8/2005.

 

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Edited February 12, 2015 by GachiMuchi