NSFW 18+ only please so I was watching p0rn the other day, and because of my ocd i only look at videos of older women, but sometimes my ocd will say “how do you REALLY know they’re not young” and i tried to ignore it last and resist my compulsions time and continued going (as there was truly no question she was an adult, looked it up later and she’s 40, which seems about right). but it feels awful i did that.

sure but it’s also addicting. and it’s also hard to masturbate without porn and well it shouldn’t be done exesicly, it’s not good to repress yourself sexually by not masturbating. especially if your not sexually active

@mitz - I feel a bit similar to this, I have to check every actresses age before I watch something and feel guilty afterwards like it's a checking thing but I also feel I can't tell anymore who looks acceptable and not and I want to stop with porn but I don't get how being single I could get aroused again given trying to imagine anything just leads to intrusive thoughts/images.

Do you not feel like that is an avoidance behaviour? One part of me really wants to but then the other thinks Im just avoiding something and as such exacerbating the issue - also echo the sentiment of being single with OCD it's hard to self-stimulate without it.

@Connor Personally, I could care less if it is an avoidance behavior because I myself genuinely want a life without porn. Whether you do or don't want to associate with it is up to you, but I recommend that you don't. I don't see how it can be avoidance if it is something that can be quite addictive and get worse overtime. Is that not the whole point of avoiding such a thing so that isn't the case?

@mitz I'm not saying don't masturbate. Masturbation is completely normal and we all do it. Even animals do it. But you also don't have to force that activity with an association such as porn. It is addicting yes, but if the material is bothering you, then you can practice not watching it even if you want to masturbate. Whenever I masturbate, I actually choose not to engage with any porn and I don't get any urges saying I want to watch porn.

@Connor See, if you have to constantly keep checking the age of actresses and feel guilty if you don't each time along with wanting to stop watching porn, then you shouldn't have to continue with that. I get that it's hard not to watch that material because it strongly manipulates our dopamine, but it is possible. And worth it. Again, I don't see how avoidance plays an effect with all of that, but if you think doing exposures with porn can work, that's up to you. I'm much better off not even touching that stuff.

@Connor see this is what i did, but the qustion only came into my head after i started the video and i didn’t wanna stop to check so i decided to not check and use my reasonable consideration that she was 18 (she had lots of tattoos and looked older) which is why i feel bad

@mitz i also didn’t check because i know myself and my ocd would have said “but do you really know she was that age when this video was filmed” or something so i decided it wasn’t worth the time and have to live with the “uncertainty”. actually done it before and it felt fine but for some reason this time it felt awful (side note, i wouldn’t do something like that if she actually seemed like she could be under 18, i’d just avoid the video all together if that were the case)

Eh, idk about that. The avoidance statement is debatable but honestly ethical porn isn't really a thing. One way or another any kind of porn can be unethical and you're never sure on how ethical it really is. Now if you want to use porn for ERP, that's something one really has to be careful with

@BigGip09 Whether or not porn is unethical is a values judgment. You can’t really decide that for someone else. There is feminist porn available that doesn’t center the male gaze and that doesn’t exploit the participants. Avoiding porn because of POCD/HOCD etc is absolutely avoidance that feeds anxiety.

@aradams just asking if checking the age when their clearly an adult is a compulsion. because i assumed it was and now i have guilt as if i watched a video not caring about her age when that’s not it at all

@aradams Feminist porn? Okay then. I do agree that this is something that is decided for someone individually, but I don't agree with that trying to stop a porn addiction is avoidance that hurts OCD. Whether OP or not has an addiction that wants to stop I don't know, but if they do, I don't think avoidance has any part in this. If they don't, I guess it is up to them if they find it okay or not to use it to help them.

@mitz It's hard to see what helps you on this situation between accept uncertainty that you don't know their age or the fact that you possibly have an addiction to porn and you're using that to cope with something that's bothering you deep down. If you have that figured out, it'll be easier to get over this hurdle.

@BigGip09 don’t take this as me being defensive as those aren’t my intentions at all but i definitely don’t have an addiction to porn. it could be argued by some i do but the way i see it is it doesn’t take away from my work, school, hobbies etc (unless you count what ocd does with it in which case using porn could actually be a good idea)

@mitz That's totally up to you man. If you aren't addicted and you feel like it isn't affecting your life at all, that's fine. It's like aradams said, values differ for different individuals. Since addiction isn't the problem, it sounds like ocd is making you question things to keep you in a loop of questioning and uncertainty. If you're okay with watching porn, then you can use those situations as exposures so you don't check for their age or try to answer whatever ocd throws at you. I saw a post that looked at intrusive thoughts like this: They aren't your desires, they are quite the opposite: They are irrational thoughts of things you would never want to come up in your life, but ocd makes you think of said things over and over again so that you fixate on them at a hyper amount. Hope that helps.

@BigGip09 yeah it does help! I guess what happened was just a classic case of avoiding compulsions and then feeling bad for that and wanting to do them afterwards or something

@mitz Good stuff man, I'm glad it helps out. Hope you'll have an idea on how to handle it next time it comes up. All the best

@BigGip09 thank you!