[tldr & base situation/questions: i made private suggestive art centered on myself but implying my partner without asking, and on top of that included the aspect of me being on the receiving end of a kink that i wasn't sure he reciprocated at the time, implying his inclusion in it. i'm concerned about the consent/ethical aspects of this situation even though the art was private and not shared + there might've been prior context that led me to thinking i could do this, but i regret the situation nonetheless and will not repeat it without proper permission. wondering if i should disclose this to him or not, or whether i should move on privately. also wondering how proper accountability can be taken.]
full post, word salad and all below - if you want further context. pardon its messiness:
once again - considering my post history regarding ocd-related patterns, i will disclose that i do have severe ocd and it could be impacting the scale in which i am worrying about this which i am completely aware of. however, i'm not really concerned about the aspect of getting absolute reassurance of whether i am or am not tainted or horrible for this or anything at the moment, just moreso concerned with the aspect of how to handle this and how to move forward - and maybe some other worries that i can detail on top of that.
essentiallyyyy i've been in a relationship for a while. he's very great to me and i get along with him well - we've had bumps in the road lately very much caused by my ocd but overall he does make me happy and i care for him and love him deeply. and that love has resulted in intimacy, kink, etc. things of that nature that you'd typically expect. he's my first ever actual romantic partner beyond just a situationship and also the first person i've ever engaged sexually with (albeit long distance). i've been learning a lot about myself and have made mistakes along the way that i own up to and have been forgiven+ moved on from by both sides, but there's one thing that's particularly unresolved that has bubbled back up in my mind lately, and has me wondering about the ethics of it all - but more importantly, how i can move forward with this - because i know it's really up to me how i handle it, but i've refused to really talk it out with anyone - including him - just yet, not only because i fear how people will perceive me for this but also because i don't want to potentially make a major relationship mistake and do something i can't take back. so i kind of want some further guidance beyond just google, and maybe just to see if i'm not nuts for what i did or anything? because i know it's likely not "as bad" (in quotations because i feel it's as bad even if logically it is not) as an interpersonal thing that happens during sex or sexual discussion, but i do still feel like it's... questionable. and bad. lol.
essentially a few months ago, back in february, i made suggestive art of myself on my tablet that implied him directly within a speech bubble (and also with my intent as i drew it for sure), and also one entirely non-sexual panel (that only vaguely tied in with the suggestive aspect) that did visually depict him. these were sonas that reflected ourselves, but considering how close they were to us in appearance, i kind of consider them more depictions of us rather than just sonas in retrospect. this suggestive art does include a kink that i was into but was unsure if he was into at the time - and although it was art of myself on the receiving end of it, the direct sexual implication of him in the speech bubble and the fact that i was ABSOLUTELY thinking of him as i drew it makes me feel as if i included him in something that i didn't even for sure know that he'd be into/okay with at the time, and the fact that i didn't even ask him before i drew this, makes me feel utterly disgusted with myself and horribly guilty. and i can't even separate this as a "well, i was [age] and stupid back then" moment because this happened mere months ago, and the me of february is virtually indistinguishable from the me of today pretty much. i feel as if i've violated his consent by not asking him if i could do this, and even worse so i feel as if i did something just as wrong as that by putting in the kink aspect as well - almost to the point where i feel like direct sexual art would've been easier for me to forgive myself for as silly as that is to say.
i do want to clarify that i've never posted the art. i only saved it to my art software and my photo album purely because i hold the habit of saving all my previous works to log my progress as an artist - and after drawing it that one time i never intentionally purposefully looked back on it to my memory (only time i'd look at it was when it'd show up automatically due to a saving error or something iirc). i never shared it with him, with our friends, online, any of that - i believe i intended it as a private expression to vent out fantasies in my head - and virtually i know its impact is that of a fantasy considering nobody knows about it, but the fact that it's one i drew onto paper (or in this case, a screen) makes it feel all the more real to me as something terrible i have done.
i will say: we did, back in january, have some discussion about making sonas of ourselves. i wanted to make one to try and alleviate my deep sexual shame that i held for years (kind of expressing this to him as a random thought as per usual), and he said "i should make a sona so we can draw each other in perverted scenarios" or something along those lines as a response, and i suppose i took that as some sort of green light at the time for me to be able to do this. i did draw my sona for him a few times in suggestive manners + drew his in completely nonsexual ways a couple times before the february artwork... but i fully acknowledge now that me taking him saying that should not have been an "i consent to you drawing freaky stuff Whenever You Want! and its fine if you include that thing you arent even confident im into as well btw!"
and the kink itself, he did indulge in once before i drew it as well. but the complicated situation is - and once again i know you guys aren't qualified for mental health stuff i am merely adding this for context - my bf is some form of plural (did/osdd/etc), and that first indulgence wasn't necessarily with him ("him" being the host) but with a different alter. and afterward the alter went out of front and he (host) came back and read over it all and didn't seem to mind all too much and i apologized for getting too carried away with that whole thing (i will emphasize the alter was fine with it in the moment and i know that for certain) but he said "man, i don't care as long as i'm not on the receiving end of that kink" (to paraphrase). but still i shouldn't have taken that as permission to draw what i did and especially shouldn't have considering the fact that even after all that, and after i drew that, i still approached him with a lot of uncertainty regarding the kink in the sense that i wanted to treat it with fragility and care during future indulgences (which, even the host did end up indulging in it with me - but that was after the art was made and thus kind of irrelevant) which tells me that even as i drew it i was uncertain of whether i should have in some way, but still ended up doing it. which was stupid of me and i do regret deeply.
he's had a complicated experience with the kink in the past as well due to some previous relationship-related stuff as well, and has been uncomfortable with it in the past due to that whole thing - which i knew damn well at the time but for some reason i just don't recall that coming across my mind during the time i drew that. which is no excuse and if anything i should have been more mindful, but maybe i took the "i don't care as long as i'm not on the receiving end" message as "well, this is different".
overall i have felt terrible about this on and off for a good few weeks. yes, i worry deeply about my own morality - but not in the sense that "i am a terrible person fundamentally for this". i know that i can do good and i know that very well. if anything this was the only time i ever drew anything that suggestive of our sonas and - before the realization that bubbled up recently, back when i only saw this as an embarrassing moment - decided never to draw anything like that again. moreso my worries lie in whether this is forgivable, whether this is catastrophic, etc. - and whether i can atone and how i can take proper accountability for this.
the guilt has brought me to tears on multiple occasions and a lot of circumstances of "my life would be over if people learned about this", "if my new friends found out about what i did before i met them, they'd think i'm a creep.", "my old friends would never see me the same again if they learned about this", "if i bring this up to my boyfriend i'm at a very real risk of hurting or damaging him with what i have done, and even if he is fine with it and doesn't care that i did this - i fear the perceived objectivity of the fact that i didn't ask and wasn't mindful of the kink aspect may nullify his feelings' abilities to soothe me or make me feel any better about this", type thinking. it's way tougher when i really want to get into a career that's very public and very out there, and would cause me to be a public figure. i know this is very ocd-type catastrophic thinking, but god it's horrible when it feels this real.
i'm wondering whether i should tell him that i did this or not? whether this is even worth telling him, or if it's even as much of an issue as my mind thinks it is? i mean, if i did do something wrong here that i need to take accountability for, i am absolutely willing to take all the accountability that i can and i want to figure out how i can. and i want to figure out what the right course of action is... and whatnot. i have seen that people have done this before, mostly on reddit articles/posts - and the responses to whether it's wrong are generally mixed between "lol i'd LOVE it if my partner did that!" to "...dude that's creepy" so i can tell the situation is extremely... nuanced and gray.
pardon me for this absolute word-salad. i don't want to proofread it too heavily because i know if i do my ocd will make me scrutinize every tiny detail lol. but overall i'm very very stuck - despite the fact that i was able to hold out on compulsions for AN ENTIRE WEEK when this obsession started (which i'm very proud of myself for) this is still eating away at me - partially in an ocd sense but also in the sense that i really. really want to figure out where to go from here. i know i can't change the past and my only option is to push for a better future for myself, but i'm just a little stuck on how. and also stuck on whether i'm being too mean to myself or not for this.
thank you for your time if you read this ^_^ i am. in the wringer for sure... i do feel a lot of remorse for what i did - especially because it's so uncharacteristic of myself to be so careless and i have no clue what happened there - but still.
if any clarification is needed do feel free to ask ... i do realize that this is very long so i wouldn't blame you one bit.
