When I was in my teenage years 17/18/19 I was attracted to older men and the idea of dating older men, I never did but I always wanted too. I even watched porn with older men in it and had a mild "daddy kink", but now that I'm in my early 20s I can see how strange/wrong and predatory that is even if someone is over the legal age of 18. Even now, in my early 20s I'd question why an older man would want to date me. Maybe that's because I developed pocd. But now OCD is making me feel so guilty for fantasizing about being with an older man like that. Like there is something innately wrong with me for wanting to be with an older man. Maybe it is linked to not ever having a present father figure in my life idk, I just feel like a creep for fantasizing about having a relationship like that for so long in my teenage years (for a good 3 or 4 years).

TW: porn mentioned When I was younger around 18-19 or maybe younger, I stumbled across some porn labeled as 'teen'. I don't remember if I watched it or get scared away by 'teen', but I then searched for porn something like '18-teen years old', I wanted to make sure it was legal. Now I'm spiraling that I did it because I wanted to see someone younger. Or what my intentions could possibly be? It happened for once or I cannot remembered searching something similar ever again. I've always preferred bigger more masculine men, but why I did that then? I had active porn addiction since I was 9 or I'm afraid younger, watched some things that I regret watching... And now I'm 23 and don't watch it all for like 3 years, because I found out that it was unethical. When I was little I preferred BDSM porn and everyone was very mature and I did not watched anything questionable with real people, but some weird fictional stuff, but didn't like it. Now that I remember this I'm very confused and don't know how to continue living with that. I'm just done...

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.

18+ TW! Involves sexual content I have learning disabilities which means im always going to be 3-5 years mentally behind from my actual age… when I was 14 I remember finding people saying they work with kids “attractive” and I remember mastu*** over a kid around 5+ but when I was 14 I was either mentally age 11 or 9. So I didn’t know it was wrong, and as soon as I realised I stopped. People say I was young and it’s okay but I remember finding people saying they even walked past a nursery “attractive” but I don’t know if this is even the right word. Maybe cute? Because I find different emotions hard to tell the difference between, so maybe it’s cute rather than attractive. I never ever had intentions to do anything to younger individuals, it was just me finding people saying they worked with them etc attractive… which my ocd now plays on, because my friend mentioned they were working with kids but idk if it was the real me or not but I genuinely felt like I found it attractive and it was giving my so many groinal responses which then made me feel genuinely aroused like I wanted to do things. This plays on my mind because my ocd will always say “but you did/do find stuff like this attractive” but this literally stops me from eating, sleeping or anything. I can’t break from my compultions because what if I do genuinely find it attractive. I don’t think it’s even attractive maybe it’s cute? Like I find it cute… but cuteness can give people feelings down there I guess. I think because if my learning disabilities I found it hard to know the difference between “attraction” and cute so I did stuff over it because it gave me that feeling down there but that could of been cuteness feeling. I just need some support on this.