Scarleteen

tw: fictional abuse, sa discussion

i (14f) am asexual and aromantic, and only experience aesthetic and platonic attraction (maybe physical too idk) towards other people. my main form of sexual feelings come from fetishes. when i think about my main one it makes me want to masturbate, but i don't feel a lot of pleasure doing so and end up feeling worse physically and mentally afterwards. otherwise i feel no sexual desire. my main fetish (not the one i'll describe below, but still pretty dogwater as it involves sexualising pregnant people and or disabled pregnant people) i have known since i was about 5 or 6.

so when i was 13 i liked to listen to vocaloid (its basically a program to make songs, and each voice in the program had its own personification and little backstory) and people in the comments section would make up all these theories about the characters in the songs. there was one character in particular that i really liked reading the theories about. (not going to tell you who, as i don't want any of my friends to see this and realise who i am) and a lot of these theories revolved around the character in question being abused as a child. i immediately felt somewhat of an emotional response, and became obsessed with these theories. i even started to make up my own and tell them to myself at night to calm myself down, basically role playing (idk if thats the right word) myself as the character and imagining how "i" loved "my" abuser, then switching to the pov of the abuser and imagining how "i" can't help but feel attached to the character, but feels disgust (?) as well.

i thought it was because i really enjoyed them from a narrative perspective (because that was playing a part too)... but then i started feeling things...um...down there and realised it was probably a mild fetish of some kind. i say mild bc unlike my main one, it doesn't make me want to masturbate, it just makes me wet and a bit pleasurable. i now realised that i did this sort of thing for several of my interests without knowing (i'll spare you examples )

i also imagined how the character later gets taken in by a loving family and roleplayed both people in that scenario. i don't think it was sexual, though.

and one day i found a fanart of that character getting sa'd. i was horrified, but i couldn't stop thinking about it every night and making up scenarios around that im not 100% sure that this was a fetish, bc i would never want to sa or be sa'd irl and know morally that it's wrong, but still...

i realised this was wrong about a month ago, in late november, and i started worrying that i might be a pedophile because of it. i have never experienced the urge to fuck children irl but I couldn't get it out of my head. i started to constantly monitor if i was aroused or experiencing sexual attraction by consciously mentally checking my vagina. unfortunately, when I checked it, it got wet because my full attention was focused on it, and it became harder to distract myself from the wetness. whenever I tried to distract myself, i felt a lot better but the thoughts always came back. the only way i could stop this was telling my parents everything except my fetishes.. which are kind of the root of the problem so that only worked temporarily.

like i said at the start, im afab and i feel female pretty much all of the time, but lately i've started checking everything about myself multiple times bc im afraid that im trans. i like my body and the way i'm percieved by others, and i dislike he/him being used for me. when i imagine myself as masc i feel like that wouldn't be me anymore. im just afraid that i could be trans in denial and be a guy. ive started mentally referring to myself as a guy even though it makes me feel dysphoria bc im convinced that if i were really cis i wouldn't think about this so much. i panic when i read about the experiences of transmasc people bc i want to be a girl. i think that i worry about this bc i can't accept my sexuality.

how do i accept that i have fetishes while knowing morally that what i did is wrong? i hate myself and i don't feel like i deserve to interact with normal people bc of them. i'm afraid that i might be a pedo or into incest....

any advice helps

Hi there, goodusername.

I'm so sorry that you have been so tormented by the things you are talking about here.

Before anything else, I want to say that while only a licensed mental healthcare provider could provide this diagnosis, what all of this sounds like to me more than your sexuality or gender identity are patterns of intrusive thoughts (as well as some behaviours around them that also are common with OCD), which is a common way that OCD manifests. It's particularly common for intrusive thoughts to be sexual.

Have you ever been able to talk with a therapist about any of this? If not, that is where I would suggest you start, since it is far more likely that this is an issue about mental health than about sexuality.

I do want to add that I don't see anything here that involves you doing something "morally wrong." I'm not sure what action you are talking about at all, because all I am reading here involves only your thoughts or your own body, but again, winding up focused on the idea of doing something morally wrong around just thoughts is another hallmark of intrusive thought. <3

Here's a good page with some information about intrusive thoughts to give you more information if you want it: https://theocdandanxietycenter.com/intrusive-thoughts/

omg tysm for your response!! <3 as for what i was talking about that i thought was morally wrong, i was thinking that having those thoughts, role playing with myself and reacting physically was immoral as i was afraid it could lead to me normalising sa/pedophilia/incest irl. also, i don't think i have ocd as i haven't experienced episodes of intrusive thoughts for this long before, but i did look into some anxiety management resources from the link you gave me and they made me feel a bit better :3

Hi Goodusername,

Don’t worry, this isn’t TMI. In fact, I’m glad you felt comfortable enough to talk about something that is clearly very stressful for you and that the resources were helpful- I hope I will be able to provide some more comfort.

You are far from alone in your experiences — many people explore taboo or scary subjects through fiction, including sexual fantasies. The contents of our imagination are not a straightforward path to normalization, in the same way that video games with violence don’t directly make people violent. Rather, fiction can be a way of grappling with these topics and all their cultural weight.

Let’s consider the character that you were role-playing. From my perspective, the narrative you’ve described seems very understandable. Abuse is frightening, and it can be hard to wrap your mind around. Why do people abuse? How do they justify their actions to themselves? And how is it that many victims care for their abuser despite what they have endured? Taking the perspective of both people here is a way of working though these questions to make sense of a difficult world. Arguably, the fact that you have spent time thinking about what abuse looks like may make it easier to identify when you see it. That is good.

You might be surprised to hear that fantasies of rape and assault are pretty common. There are explanations for why this happens. For one, this is a reality that many people face in their life, so fantasizing about it — making it pleasurable — can be a way of managing fear and taking power back. Regardless of why it happens, we can say for sure that these people don’t want to rape or be raped. Nor is it that they can’t tell the difference between consensual and non-consensual situations. The distinction is clear, they are only exploring the concept in a safe environment.

It’s possible that this explains your apparent physical reaction to the role-playing. But you could also think of these reactions as incidental. As you noted, just paying attention to your genitals can cause them to respond. You could also have been responding to a specific activity in the narrative, rather than the whole context of an abusive relationship. I would caution against thinking of your physical reactions (or even your fantasies) as being a direct indication of what you actually want. They can provide useful clues, but they are not everything.

When you’re worried that you’re doing something wrong, a good rule to remember is that you should measure harm by what happens to real people in the real world. And in the real world, if another person wants to do something with you, and you can do it safely, you are all good. I agree with Heather — everything you’ve discussed involves your own thoughts and your own body. You are not hurting anyone.

Try applying this to the fantasy you have about pregnant people and disabled pregnant people. You’ve framed it in very negative terms, but I can’t see how this causes any harm. Beyond the fact that people in these groups can be sexual if they want, just thinking about them in a sexual manner doesn’t hurt them. It isn’t good to push your interest on people in inappropriate contexts, but that is not what you are doing.

I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been feeling the need to isolate yourself over all this. It is good that you’ve reached out despite that to talk about how you’re feeling. If there is anything you’ll take from reply, I hope it will be that you haven’t done anything wrong. You are not a pedophile, or any other kind of bad person.

You might notice that neither Heather nor I have used the word fetish to describe any of your experiences yet. I understand why you’re using the term — people often use it in a similar way to the word ‘kink’, to describe activities that seem unusual or taboo in some way. I don’t want to further a sense that something is wrong with you or your experiences by using a word like this. There isn’t. But also, ‘fetish’ technically refers to an object that a person needs to achieve sexual release, which isn’t an accurate description in your case.

im convinced that if i were really cis i wouldn't think about this so much.

You know, when people are trans, the thought of being a different gender can be scary, but is ultimately positive. This doesn’t seem true for you. You feel female, you like your body, you like the way you are perceived by others. You dislike he/him pronouns being used for you, thinking of yourself as a guy makes you feel dysphoric, and you feel that a masc you wouldn’t even be you anymore. This looks like solid evidence that you’re a girl.

What if there is another explanation for why you’ve been thinking about this a lot? Maybe it isn’t because you’re trans — it could be because you’re trying to resolve a contradiction between how you feel and how you think you should feel. It sounds like you’re struggling to trust your own answers, so you keep asking the question.

Would you like to talk some more about why you feel you can’t accept your sexuality?

I do just want to pop in here and say that I still think a therapist evaluation would be wise, and I personally am not comfortable ruling out an anxiety disorder at the root of this. Not having had intrusive thoughts for this long before doesn't rule that out, especially since you're only just around the age where anxiety disorders tend to emerge.

Is an evaluation like that something you are open to? If so, do you need help accessing that kind of help?