TOCD has made me reconsider my sexual orientation

CW: potential triggers for HOCD/SO-OCD

I hope this doesn’t trigger anyone, but TOCD has made me really consider my relationship with myself and with women, and I think I’m straighter than I thought.

I’ve been fantasising about hot men since I was a teenager but I’d never felt a strong desire to go on a date with one. I considered that I could be gay since I primarily thought about men instead of women, but one thing that didn’t make sense about it was that before puberty started I consistently had crushes on girls. I can’t remember ever having a crush on another boy before I hit puberty, when by all accounts I’ve read gay people tend to have crushes on the same gender from pretty early on. I finally came out as gay 2 years ago, when I was 29. I’d never been on a date in my life (I’ve been on a grand total of two since then) and to this day I’ve never had sex. Then TOCD hit for the first time about a year ago and lasted a few days, then mostly faded into the background until it really flared up five months ago, and I’ve been dealing with it most days since then, and it’s forced me to deal with some questions.

One thing that you often see trans people talk about is that before their egg cracked they mistook their desire to be the opposite sex for an attraction (e.g. trans women thought they were strongly attracted to women but really wanted to be them). The thing is, I think I might have the opposite: I may have mistaken my desire to be other men for an attraction. One reassurance that I used when TOCD set in is that I can’t remember ever being jealous of a woman except for things like her talent or her money. Well, as I’ve been going through ERP, I’ve had to strongly consider whether I’m more attracted to women than I thought.

I’ve always been very insecure with myself - I don’t know if I have full-blown BDD but aside from being overweight there are lots of little things I don’t like about my body, thinking my hands are too small, that my chin isn’t strong enough, that my mouth is too narrow, that my voice isn’t deep enough, that my muscle insertions aren’t great. Beyond that, I’ve always been very insecure about my neurodivergence, my personality, and my amount of talent in things I care about (e.g. I have a good voice but not a great one). I’ve always felt a lot of admiration for other men who are hotter, more talented, more confident, more successful, more at-ease, etc., and I think it was easier for me to believe that I was attracted to them than to admit I wanted to be them.

Once TOCD set in and I began to seriously consider how I see myself and how I see men and women, it started to make sense that I really do think that women are attractive. That’s when it clicked for me that I’ve been fantasising about being a hot/successful/confident/talented man but not really about having sex with one, and in fact when I tried to imagine having sex with one it just felt weird. I don’t think I’m fully straight because I can imagine being with a man romantically, but it doesn’t feel wrong to say that I’m closer to it than I thought.

As bad as TOCD is, I’ve found that it’s helping me understand myself and what I want for my life in ways that I don’t know I would have considered otherwise.