Every time I watch an explicit video, I obsessively worry about whether or not the person in the video was of legal age or if I unintentionally looked at a minor. This causes me to have intrusive OCD thoughts that I am some kind of horrible pedophile or that the FBI will arrest me. I'm currently experiencing an anxiety spike right now because of it. Can anyone else relate to this? I only want to watch videos of consenting adults, but the need for 100 percent certainty makes it difficult for me to stop questioning it. Because of my religious beliefs, things like pornography are outside of my ethical values anyways, so I really want to break the habit of watching it in any capacity (even if I knew for certain I couldn't accidentally stumble upon a video of a minor), but I struggle with doing that. Does anyone have any tips to stop engaging in lustful behaviors, and how to deal with catastrophic thinking about jail time and being a sick person because I'm paranoid about if the model could be underage?

I looked up Covenant Eyes, but their rates are $15.99 per month. I think I'll have to pass on that one, lol. That's highway robbery! 😂 Thank you for your advice. It's something I honestly do pray about a lot--virtually every day, unless I'm feeling too ashamed about my lusts to pray that night. I'll wait for him to move in my life so I can overcome this, but at the same time, I feel like I'm just weak and need to be more accountable instead of expecting him to fix me without me having to put in the effort. Then I feel like a hypocrite or like I'm lying to God because I pray for forgiveness and say I want to do better, only to repeat the cycle of lust the next day, or a few hours later. It's very frustrating.

I'm glad you were able to overcome your addiction. Congrats! I try not to watch anything too hardcore. I don't watch penetrative stuff, although it will pop up in my recommended search from time to time, and it will bother me to just see the thumbnail there. Honestly, I mostly just stick to filtered sites like YouTube and search for things based on my foot fetish or other kinks (bdsm, roleplay) that wouldn't necessarily involve seeing someone completely nude. My logic is, "Well, It's not like you're really looking at porn, because it's just a foot, which isn't a private part of the body." That doesn't always stop me from coming across weird stuff that makes me feel bad, though, even if I'm not clicking on it. If I'm looking up something kinky like a stepmother or teacher roleplay, I want to find something where the person is speaking directly to me, but if I see there is someone else in the video playing the role of the son or student, I obsessively worry about whether they're actually a kid and if I'm going to go to jail just because I saw the thumbnail. It's such a tormenting cycle. I would love to know what helped you break your addiction to hardcore porn, so I can hopefully apply it to working through my softcore/fetish addiction.

@Aaron R. Yeah, you're pretty much me dude. I've got a foot fetish too and to be honest with you softcore content has been way more arousing than hardcore content has been and I don't feel any motives to go back to porn sites. I also even use YouTube to watch videos based on that type of content. And not everything is considered pornography, although it may vary from person to person. You have nudists that enjoy being free with the natural human body. You have people that have a thing for specific parts of the body like smells, limbs, colors, heck, even the way something feels. It all varies for people. I'm totally with you on the bad stuff you don't want to come across. When I search for explicit content to watch on youtube there are usually several playlists that pop up, which usually doesn't sit well with me. Especially since back in October a playlist with children was found by me. I don't know how the fuck it got there since I searched for 18 year old girl's feet which at the time was my age. I'm 19 now. But somehow, that playlist still popped up. I clicked on it in hopes that it wasn't what I thought it was, and at the last minute I clicked out everything because I didn't even want to see that sick shit. But before I did, I saw comments about people talking about the ages. I also got people debating ages in a video I found with a girl that actually looked my age with the video saying she was 18. I get those catastrophic thoughts too, man. Definitely not alone on this. And I get that you want something specific for each different session. There's times where I want muscular women, black women, tall women, Asian women, indian women, teachers, cheerleaders, college girls, etc. The way I broke out of my hardcore porn addiction was my simple worry of being addicted to it. I don't know if this was OCD or not doing this to me, but I began to frequently worry about the things I could find, the videos themselves, the exploration of people in general, and worried that I had a porn addiction. I came across a lot of articles, mainly YourBrainonPorn and FightTheNewDrug being my top followings. They even talked about celebrities with porn addictions. It just isn't a pretty thing. Addictions are never really good, are they? It's also a thing where I feel safer in youtube and Instagram. I'm more into the softcore content playing up to get more revealing than having it thrown in my face honestly. But that's just me.

@BigGip09 I'll often try to type something like "mature feet" in the hopes of ensuring I won't see someone who is young enough that I question their age. But then I'll get recommended a video of a mature woman with a younger boy, so it still becomes the same worry. I'll occasionally get recommended a video that appears to be a woman putting her feet on a kid, and just seeing that in the thumbnail is always a major trigger for me, even though I don't actually click on it. I feel guilty like it's my fault just for having something like that come up, even if it's not what I was searching for and I can't control what's in the algorithm. I can also relate to seeing a distressing video when I was younger, which caused me guilt for years. I was only around fourteen at the time, so I was still a minor myself, and in retrospect it probably wasn't even that bad. It sounds like you were also a minor too when you saw whatever bothered you. I think we both need to practice a bit more self-love and forgive ourselves for things we were too young to be fully accountable for.

@Aaron R. Once again, pretty much me. I too search mature feet so I don't get any women that look like teens. Teens being included is a huge red flag for me even though I technically am one? I still get very worried about it. On the other hand, I absolutely love older women actually. I've always had a thing for older women, especially when they knew more things about me to the point where they could teach me things. I don't think I'd date anyone much older. Probably sugar mommas if it were to come to that. But yeah, cougars can be very hot for me. Seeing thumbnails like that has happened to me on Instagram and YouTube, yet I don't really worry that much about it because I'm already scrolling by to find something I would like to see in the heat of the moment. But I still feel like it's my fault that I even saw it because if I wasn't looking then it wouldn't have happened? I dunno. I remember the videos that I watched when I was much younger. Most of it was cartoon pornography and it also featured fictional girl characters around my age at the time or a little younger. Now looking back it makes me sick to my stomach that it exists, but for one it's somehow allowed and second, I was really young myself at the time. I was also into sexting at that time which along with porn, I stopped doing. I've been really trying to practice self compassion and mindfulness for these things and while getting them right feels really relieving, feeling like I can't sucks.

Honestly for the most part, I stay away from hentai or anime in general because it's always bound to be sexual. I hear people saying the ages don't matters and only how they are built matters which I can kinda understand because they aren't real and they can be 18 looking like children (which is still weird) or 16 looking like adults. I remember the times I have looked up anime feet which most of the time wasn't terrible but at the same time I remember how people were okay with sexualizing child characters in the mix which I didn't like and left as soon as I saw it. So I like to keep my fantasies in real life as much as possible geared to adult women. And yeah, I remember searching the word loli on a porn site and while I didn't get anything that bad, after finding out what it was after searching, I ended up feeling really fucking terrible. It makes me wonder how do things like lolicon exist? An entire con involving grown adults appreciating children that aren't theirs? It really doesn't sit well with me at all. I agree with the darned if you do/don't think, kinda. You just wanna see something sexy on a different variety but then bad shit comes up anyway. Pretty lame

Yeah I get fears about similar things too. Even though people have said I shouldn't worry at all and I won't go to jail whatsoever. I remind myself that you need intent to be busted for these kind of things anyway. The kind of people that are arrested for this stuff don't care about children and they have these videos stashed on their computers or storage units until they get flagged into their IP. I try not to let masturbating bother me because it's been something I've been doing ever since I first discovered my foot fetish. It's human to do that and even animals do it too. It's not wrong and it's natural. As for internet lusts, that can be tamed. Long as you give yourself breaks, blockers, etc. I'm really glad I found your post tonight. Have a good night. Thanks for the kind words and relatability. I wish you the best!

Likewise!

It's really awesome to hear that we aren't alone in this. Porn is something I definitely don't want to go back to and I'm comfortable with softcore content. Last night I was able to fantasize over a celebrity crush so that made me feel better in the moment

@BigGip09 I hope I get to the point where I can fantasize. I thought I was the only person experiencing this until I downloaded this app. Nice to see im not only one but also its bad that anybody has to experience this

@TechnoRecord Yeah I don't wish this on anybody. Porn really damages people and I wish I could've just learned that so I didn't have to deal with it or be exposed to it. I feel awful about it. I feel like I'm digusting for the videos I watched. But I don't want to do it anymore, and that has to count for something.

Yeah I get what you're saying. I'd much rather have this feeling of guilt than be someone that doesn't feel bad about anything at all. It's human to get these feelings, you know? The world can be pretty fucked up, yeah. Especially being the scenes of porn sites. About wanting to stop porn though: Start off with some blockers you can find in the Google play store or widgets on your computer. It'll be easier to have these sites blocked so you can stop yourself. Masturbating as a whole is something I haven't been able to stop but I feel like I've reduced it. It's so nice knowing I can meet someone that has so much in common with me in terms of OCD