How do know if i’m perverted or if my thoughts are normal?

[carmy]

I don’t know how to tell if my sexual thoughts are normal or immoral. I stopped watching porn months ago but still listen to audio porn almost every night and occasionally read porn. It’s not like my thoughts are always sexual all day but masturbating before bed has kind of become a habit. I probably masturbate too much.

I don’t really become attracted to people irl but I become attracted to celebrities and fictional characters. A fan base i’ve joined recently for a band is pretty sexual and I think it has made me question my morality more. Like fans will say really sexual things about real people it just feels wrong. But at the same time I’ll think some of the same things or agree with them. The fans aren’t always sexual and I don’t think they’re bad people but idk how to feel.

Even just feeling attracted to someone in a non sexual way feels wrong to me.

I have OCD and am always checking to see if i’m a bad person or immoral. I’ve been to many therapists but have had selective mutism since I was a kid so it goes nowhere and I always feel worse after sessions. I’ve had sexual intrusive thoughts for as long as I can remember but have never mentioned them to anybody. Meds haven’t helped either.

[Sam W]

Hi Carmy,

It sounds like there's a good chance that this is connected to your OCD diagnosis, which does mean that if there are things you've learned that help you manage intrusive thoughts or other OCD symptoms, they might be able to help you out here. Do you have any tools or techniques that tend to work for you?

Can you also give me a sense of what kind of messages you've gotten about sex and desire growing up, whether that's from friends, parents, a church, internet spaces, etc? I ask because a lot of the fears you express center on what's "moral" or "perverse," which are ideas we generally use other people's input to understand.