Any ideas for ERP for a fear of having a foot fetish? And having (hopefully unwanted) groinal responses while glancing at women’s feet? I feel trapped.

Truthfully my biggest issue is the fact that I only have intrusive thoughts / weird sensations related to women’s feet. If men’s feet were the ones I was having thoughts about, I don’t think I would mind.

I don’t think this is the issue here. Telling someone with an OCD theme like this that their feelings are expressions of true desire is just not the way to go, and has been proven time and time again to be the case. I’m not talking about ERP here, just OCD as a whole as I’m aware that accepting your thoughts is a really good therapeutic strategy, but agreement is definitely not!

@queen of ruminating same deal. admittedly i'm bi and can't relate, but i get on some level the weirdness/distress of finding anything sexually attractive about the sex you're not attracted to. the point i wanted to make is that fighting the distress is counter-productive. i think we agree more than you realize, lou lou.

@oogenesis I absolutely agree with you there, and I didn’t want to come across as though I thought reassurance was the right way to go - because it isn’t. However, although the content is a lot different, POCD & SOOCD are fundamentally the same, and I doubt you would tell someone with POCD that it’s okay to be attracted to children, as stark as a comparison that is. Of course, there are big differences there, and there is obviously absolutely nothing wrong with sexual diversity (bi, lesbian, gay etc), but it is an obsession. My psychologist told me that he had treat a 21 year old guy who was still in college who had been struck by this OCD dilemma. He was a sports major, and had gone to his gay coach to receive advice because he was besides himself, and did not know what was going on - his coach had told him that he was probably gay, and gave him a well-meaning pep talk that actually set him back MONTHS in recovery. He went to a psychologist who quickly assessed that it did not mirror the normal coming out process, and diagnosed the OCD, and the guy went through ERP and is fine now. That’s why I was so quick to dismiss your approach, but yeah, not everyone understands this theme - it’s super complex in many ways. And yeah, I’m sure we agree on a lot to do with the topic!