I’m a teenager and so at the moment, the people I’m attracted to are also teens. But I worry that as I grow up and become an adult, I’ll remain attracted to teenagers (and not necessarily 18 year old teens). I’m petrified of growing up now!

Ever since POCD hit, I've come to a point where I've gotten desensitized on what's right and wrong. I think fiction and porn hasn't helped either. The only thing I worry about now is if I'm attracted to someone below 18 or view sexual content of someone below 18. And I think perhaps this has made me numb to situations that are wrong, even in cases for myself. In the past week, I've seen two posts about people just turning 18 and relationships/sexualization of them. The first post was someone on Twitter talking about this person being a predator. It was a screenshot of a Tiktok where a woman who is 23 said the kid she used to babysit at 13 just turned 18 and if she should ask her out. And to be honest, I felt nothing. I didn't regard it as wrong. My thought was "well, they're both adults now so whatever." The next post I saw today, and I feel like this was life trying to tell me something. I'm 18 and just turned 18 a few months ago. At 17 I realized I was become desensitized and justifying morally wrong things as a teen from porn and stuff, and POCD hit so I decided I wasn't going to be attracted to minors or sexualize them even if we're the same age. But I was thinking about the morality of stuff, like people turning 18 and being an adult and everything. And I was just kind of like, well as long as someone is 18 it doesn't matter and it's okay right? Well, today a KPOP Idol, Han Yujin, literally just turned 18. I was checking the Enhypen group out and the members ages now. Specifically Sunoo and Sunghoon because I had crushes on them but I did the rest of the members too. I did know Han Yujin was 17 before, but I checked his age and it said he was 18. And my first thought was, "oh, it's okay to like him now!" And then I saw he literally just turned 18 today. It made me feel weird, but I was thinking, well he's 18. He's an adult. So it's fine, right? Well, I opened Twitter and a Twitter post called for someone to report an account. I saw that the account in question had posted on Han Yujin's birthday. The post was "Han Yujin is 18 now. It's okay to sexualize him!" Or something along those lines. Something I myself had JUST thought about. The post had 24k likes and a few comments, with people saying it was gross, disgusting, predatory, etc. Apparently the person who made the post about Yujin was 18 though, maybe even only a few months older than Han Yujin. But no one cared and said it was disgusting and predatory/pedo either way. And now I'm sitting here, thinking about myself and my own morality. My morals seem to stop at someone being 18 and that's that. But that doesn't seem very moral, does it? Especially with the posts I saw and what just happened. I have this mindset and I'll still have it when I'm older and basically be a groomer and a pedophile. Everyone else seems to see and understand that dating someone or sexualizing them the moment they turn 18 is grooming, pedophilic, weird, gross, etc. but I don't have the same view and see it as okay. There are many more situations similar to this too. Where I've justified real relationships and fictional ones where someone knew someone as a minor, kid, and even in cases where they raised them. My argument every time is "nothing happened before 18, and they're an adult now." For fiction, I justify it so I can enjoy the fictional content, relationship, and sexual content of them. It just seems like I have a predatory and pedophilic mindset, and I don't think it will change with age.

So, my main thing is that I've been worried about being attracted to and enjoying NSFW stuff of fictional characters. Specifically characters with unknown ages, possibilities of being a minor, an adult in high school, a character who ages up/becomes 18, and then young adult characters who are 18-25. I just wonder if it's pedophilic, creepy, morally wrong to like these characters? And if it'd be weird as I age to continue liking them in those ways or new characters? Like, some examples. I'm attracted to Mark from the show Invincible. But he's 17-19 in each season. I didn't like him in season 1, but when season 2 came out I realized I started feeling attracted to him. But I'm also afraid I will feel that attraction when seeing s1 of him at 17 and stuff. But anyways, I just worry that if I'm like 23+ if it'd be wrong to continue being sexually/romantically attracted to him and fantasizing about him since he's 18/19? Then, I like Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail characters. And most of them don't have canon ages. All you got is looks and maybe some in game context. Some characters have age ranges of like 15-20, 16-18, etc. Or are adults but people say they look like kids. And I am attracted to/like NSFW stuff of some characters like that. I worry that it's wrong to do so, since they could be underaged and might very likely be so? And there's also an anime I watch where a character is 18 but still in high school, and I am definitely attracted to him. I have also been attracted to, fantasized, liked nsfw content of characters who are at first minors but then become 18 or age up to much older. That worries me a lot too because I'm afraid I'll see the underage version (especially if they look more or less the same) and feel attracted or find something sexualizing them and like it/not know. I'm asking this about fictional characters from any media too. So like, video games, anime, manga, etc. I do worry a lot about video games, like more realistic ones. Because they're based off real face models. And voice actors and stuff. Like, I worry if I were older and still attracted to or liking nsfw stuff of a video game character who is like 18 or just turned 18, or has a young voice actor idk that it'd be creepy? I just don't know if it's pedophilic and weird, especially if I was like 21/22+ or way older than these characters and supposed age ranges and still liking them in these ways or being introduced to new characters in these scenarios and feeling sexual/romantic attraction and having fantasies or liking nsfw. Because I think about it in real life, and like, it would be weird to be attracted to/sexually fantasize about someone whose age you don't know, who could very likely be a minor, who is 18/19 but in high school, or you knew them as a teen/kid and watched them grow up, or once they turn 18 you sexualize them (because I have done that with fictional characters), or are just much younger than you in general, right?

I have no idea anymore. I guess this all started with me worrying about whether I was gay, then whether I was a P, then worried about being just attracted to teenagers. After that I started freaking out about not feeling “grown up” enough. Like “I’m an adult wtf is wrong with me for seeing someone who is probably younger and thinking they’re physically attractive. Then I started overthinking not finding older adults (like 30 or 40) very attractive. Like ofc I’m probably not gonna find them attractive, they’re not anywhere close my age. Maybe the desires are half real. Maybe as a 21 yr old young adult I do find older teenagers (16+) somewhat physically attractive. I still think it’d be weird to date one. Maybe that’s the normal reaction I’m supposed to have. If not, please let me know. I just don’t wanna do anything illegal one day and I’m super scared I will. I can’t tell if the fear is my just being afraid of the law though, in which case I might actually just be a bad person. I hate that my brain is just rationalizing thoughts now. I feel like I can’t do the ERP thing of “just accept that the thoughts are there but don’t engage.” Like what? How can I just think a thought that might be so integral to my identity and just ignore it? If it’s all true and I don’t like people my age anymore then I have to know and plan around that, that could change my entire life. I’m rambling, my b.