POCD people, thought you might find this exposure helpful. I am not trying to reassure you and hinder progress, but to give a bit of background to this exposure so that it can be of use. So, I have done a lot of research in scientific journals about female arousal (not so much male but many of the same points will apply). It is a scientific fact that, although women have no desire to mate with apes, they respond with physical arousal signals to images of ape penises. With this in mind, even though at a point in your life you probably would not have considered even the possibility that you were attracted to or turned on by children, now your brain is plagued by the idea; a thought has become stuck. So, let’s bear in mind that humans can have a physical arousal response to apes. Let’s also bear in mind that the humans involved in studies were not people who subjectively found apes attractive or appealing (so no, zoophilia is not relevant). These women did not want to have sex with apes, or have romantic feelings for them. With all of this in mind, try to accept the possibility that a normal person like you could feel a physical arousal response towards a child. Even if you don’t believe that you could, you know that this thought is stuck and needs some help to get out of your head. Now repeat after me: Maybe I can be aroused by children. Maybe not. It does not say anything about me as a person.

Being attracted physically to a teenage girl is really not abnormal. I’m a 25 year old woman and my body doesn’t look any different now to how it looked when I was 15. Okay, yeah, if you know a girl is 15 you obviously shouldn’t date her or have sex with her, but please do not be ashamed of the physical attraction. It is totally normal. Remember Will Ferrell in Blades of Glory? “I see you’re still fat.” “I see you still look like a 15-year-old girl but not hot.”

This is just basically doimg exposures, do not feel ashamed. I would masterbate all the time and i would have wierd thoughts and feelings as i if i jerked off to a kid or i said my younger brothers name out loud. Even though i wojld be watching porn. My POCD convinced me that i actually jerked off to something different and i would have to write it down to tell my self i did not do that see it says it write here. I dont do that any more ita more in my head i tell my self but still i still suffer from time to time even whrn im habing intercourse with my girlfriend i would have thoughts pop up in my head as i where thinking of them and i never was. If aomething like that pops up for me i just usually just focus on her, and feel her skin so it keeps me occupied on that instead of my thoughts and at the same time still playing and being loving with my partner. There are ways to control OCD , I myself have to find diatractions, it works 70/50

@Kato Thank you. I had POCD most of my life, but when I went back to college last September (in 28 now) it kind of changed to hebephilia/ephebophilia themed OCD. I can't stop trying to check how often I'm attracted to teens girls and I keep comparing my level of attraction adult women. It's been very difficult because my OCD is trying to make me pefecriinistic with my sexuality which I know isn't possible but it's difficult to stop the compulsions. I'm scared I'm secretly a Jeffrey Epstein deep down.

@NickC The fact that you’re scared you’re a Jeffrey Epstein deep down, proves that you are not. As a woman (who by the way has experienced sexual violence) I am not judging you at all, and let me be clear - almost all men who like women are able to be attracted at least physically to teenage girls and to women who look young. Women’s bodies have evolved so that they are at a good stage to reproduce from their mid teens to early twenties. It is totally natural for you to look at them and think they look sexy, even though you know that they are emotionally and mentally too young to be involved with you. When I met my current partner I was 21, but the way I looked I could easily have been 16. In spite of that I always had interest from guys a lot older than me and the vast majority of them were not perverts by any means. I left home at age 17 and met loads of guys who were older than me by many years and found me attractive. I never got turned down for looking to young, even though I did look super young. Please don’t beat yourself up about this - you are totally normal. I don’t even see the point in labels existing for people who find girls of the age you’re describing attractive. I guess if someone prefers young girls and abuses them then it is helpful to have a word to classify them & that’s why it exists ...But the fact that you have the capacity to be turned on by young women who are under age doesn’t say anything about you. You don’t date people who are inappropriately young and you’re not any different to any other man in terms of your private thoughts.

@Kato This is such a good comment. In particular it's really important to remember that between personal, private thoughts and actions which aren't acceptable lies CHOICE. Stigma is a b*tch, people like to voice the idea that there are things you can BE which make you unacceptable. I've gotten to the point where I completely reject that, because it's abjectly ridiculous, just as much as hating someone based on their race or gender or height. If you must judge others, it should be by their actions- and it's all the more credit as far as I am concerned to those who are more strongly compelled to unethical things and don't do them. It's normal not only to be attracted to teenage girls but to have impulses towards all sorts of unethical things- theft, aggression, manipulation etc. What's not normal is the way we are so quick to judge ourselves by those impulses and by our own highly private thoughts or victimless actions believing they say something about us, rather than looking at the far more clear evidence to be found in our choices. And even then, unethical actions often have a lot of contributing factors which also don't say much about a person's moral worth, like impulse control, life circumstances and past trauma. Most people are damaged and I can't judge them either. The people who DO judge others for their thoughts are, as far as I'm concerned, projecting their own baggage and shame onto others.

@Kato Thank you again and I'm really sorry you went through the sexual violence you went through. I've experienced sexual trauma as well at a young age, and I think it's partly why we're going through this shitty illness. My first CBT appointment in April can't come soon enough. I'm wishing you a peaceful mind ?

@NickC That’s true, I think it’s maybe made us particularly sensitive to thoughts about sex and made us regulate our thoughts more than other people do. Thank you and I wish you all the best with your recovery.