POCD - Am I Pedo/sexual deviant?

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I actually just signed up today - Hooray! Anyway, I'm a 24 year old female. I live a very normal life, apart from the fact I am pretty riddled with OCD/anxiety..

Here's a brief.

I've had OCD since I was a child. The themes have always changed. From checking, tapping, counting, harming, lying, suicide and the immense fear that the people I love might die.

Anyway.. I was about 21 when the OCD theme of Pedophilia hit me hard and heavy out of nowhere. I woke up one night from a very bizarre dream where I was engaging in sexual activity with a whole bunch of people - one of those people included was a minor. I woke up feeling disgusted with myself - but in my dream I felt as I actually enjoyed what was happening even though I was trying to push myself away. The dream is what initially sparked the POCD fears (if that's what I really have.) Eventually, the POCD died a natural death..

Now, fast forward a couple of years, it's back. I had another similar dream and this time woke up in a world of worry.. But I'm so much worse now.

The thing that makes me question whether this is POCD or I'm actually a pedo/sexual deviant..
Is that when I was growing up, I, like many other people, watched pornography. I never watched anything illegal, heck, I wouldn't even know where to find it. But that's besides the point.
Average vanilla sex turned me on.. but I found that pretty much anything could turn me on and strangely enough, the more bizarre, or 'out there' something was, the more it appealed to me. I pretty much dabbled in sorts of bizarre role-playing porn, but strangely, one of the things I enjoyed the most was watching porn that involved people that had a considerably large age-gap between them. I'm talking much older (and unattractive) men who would sleep with girls around my age. From memory, it was never played out as rape, or molestation, or anything extreme (from memory)... just something about the age-gap, and the fact it was kind of different. I used to watch a little of that fake-incest stuff as well. But I was always safe in the knowledge that this was all fantasy and kink. (Please note: in real life I would never consider actually engaging in this sort of sexual behavior.)

Now, however, my OCD mind has taken all this porn stuff into account, and is using it against me. As if all of these "fantasies" are signs of a much BIGGER problem, at that the whole older/younger porn thing sounds so BORDERLINE pedophile..That, coupled with my 2 bad dreams.. AND the random groinal responses whenever I hear of something shockingly inappropriate - hence the question, "Am I a pedophile/sexual deviant?"

The other thing is, I have always known that I am attracted to guys. Since I was a kid, I never had to question it. I developed feelings for guys, dated guys, started relationships with guys. All of my romantic energy and desires have always been fueled towards men around my own age or a few years older. The confusing thing is, I don't understand all of these strange sexual kinks I have and more importantly, why they don't really involve men I find attractive?

The groinal response is the worst part, definitely. The very inappropriate things I hear about in the media, things that contain a shock value, are what bring on the groinal response. Ever since the bad dream I had, I've attached meaning to it... and now it's as if I'm trapped. I'm getting intrusive thoughts of family members. When only last year, my OCD was centered around "what if I badly hurt them?"... now it's whether or not I'm attracted to the children in my family.

I don't really understand what's going on. One therapist online just told me to accept the fact I'm just a very kinky person, and my personal CBT therapist who I've seen about 6 times now, told me the porn I watched is no self-reflection of who I am.. and yet, here I am.. drowning in a web of information. With some sites on the internet pointing my symptoms out to be paraphilia, or sexual deviance and other sites pointing to POCD.

I feel like I can't move on with my life properly until I hear other people who have been in the same situation as me. Maybe it is reassurance.. I don't know. But I feel like I don't know who I am anymore and it's ruining my life and making me question everything.

Hope there's someone out there that can offer some advice.

Thanks.

Can someone please reply?

Thanks

I don't think you're a pedo. I think you're very likely POCD. I say this as someone who hopefully has HOCD but I also feel like its real though I don't want to be. If you wanted to act on it you would have by now, surely? Also a dream is a dream is a dream and means nothing of your waking desires or orientation or if you're a pedo or not. I don't even have sexual dreams where activity occurs in the dream with people so I don't know what that's like for most people. I have also watched the fake-incest stuff too in the past and I would never do that in real life. To be honest, you need to be _very_ careful where you read online about anything of the sort. Many people will be out there to give you the answer you don't want to hear etc etc when it in all likelihood isn't true.

You're not a sexual deviant or pedophile. As jdd said, dreams are dreams and dreams are often weird. During a dream everything feels normal and can feel good and enoyable but that doesn't mean you like it in real life, in dreams everything seems to be a little bit messed up. And you woke up feeling disgusted, so that only shows that you don't like it.
About the porn thing: I think it's normal to be turned on be turned on by taboo stuff. Maybe that's the reason why it turns people on: because it's seen as forbidden and everything forbidden is more interesting.