Guilt and embarrassment

[allninelives]

Growing up, I (19F) was not naive to sex; I had a solid understanding of it from a biological perspective and I'd watched enough TV and read enough books to have a decent grasp otherwise. Fanfiction, however, was really my only exposure to "smut for the sake of smut." My friends read it and eventually I did as well. And I enjoyed it.

Fanfiction can be really fun and smut is obviously written to evoke sexual feelings, but it's also probably not the best place to learn about so many different things. I read a lot about certain kinks and found them very enjoyable at the time, but now that I've grown and began my own relationship, I have no interest in these things anymore. I still have persisting guilt and shame attached to them, though.

The kinks I read and enjoyed might definitely be a bit weird to the normal person; they're in no way extremely taboo or harmful in any regard, but perhaps a bit unconventional or "gross." And I can't let go of the guilt I feel for having enjoyed them at any point.

I can tell myself logically that I only liked aspects of these kinks or I only liked them at all because they were some of my first exposure to sex in general, but the truth still stands that I liked reading and writing these scenarios much more than other kinks, so I must have felt some level of enjoyment or arousal from them.

I don't feel anything anymore in regards to these kinks. Well, except for the shame. It is safe to say I am very much no longer interested in them. But I can't let my feelings of guilt and embarrassment go.

I have OCD, with causes me to compulsively confess things (I am not asking for help with my mental health as I know this is not the place, I am simply explaining my situation). I feel like my partner will think I'm weird for having once liked these things—we've even made fun of some of these things together—but my OCD also makes me believe that by hiding my past interest in them, I'm lying to him.

I want to be very clear that my partner is lovely and extremely respectful. If I told him I had an interest in something, even if he didn't understand it, he would do his best to support me. The fact is, though, that these kinks aren't current.

I suppose maybe I don't know what I'm asking for. Maybe I'm just looking for someone to tell me that I never liked these things and it was just my brain playing tricks on me. Maybe I just really want to believe that.

[Sam W]

Hi allninelives,

I'm sorry that this is causing you so much distress! I think a helpful starting point would be to try and unpack why having enjoyed reading about these kinks is such a source of shame for you. Do you have a sense of what those feelings of shame are attached to? Is it about having liked something "gross?" Or does the guilt feel like it's stemming from somewhere else?