Online comments triggering POCD and Moral Scrupulosity.

First posting here. Thank you to anyone who answers.

For backstory, I am someone who really likes anime and video games. I always have and likely always will. I am a married male, 34. I have a great wife, a wonderful daughter, and another on the way. I have always wanted to be a good family man. I want to be a good man in general. But lately my moral Scrupulosity OCD has taken off like a rocket.

Now, I also have a relatively high libido and a powerful imagination. These two things often combine. I find myself aroused by various scenarios, some of which would be considered taboo. I like R34, especially of characters that I like from series or games. I dislike l0li and sh0ta stuff, but I have enjoyed NSFW fanart of many characters, some from series set in highschool.

Never used to bother me until I was harassed about it online. I have struggled with POCD in the past, and being called a pedo or folks comparing anime drawings of (fully developed) characters CP has made me want to die. I feel like I don’t deserve to be a happy man, to be a father or loving husband. All because of cartoons. The person harassing me kept going on about how being a good person isn’t about just actions, it’s about how you think and what you fantasize about too. This was obviously triggering to someone diagnosed with OCD. I just want to love and accept myself.

I struggle with self esteem and this really effected me. I’ve been struggling now for a few days. I hope this message is okay. I am looking for help.

Hello, and welcome!

SadKnight wrote:The person harassing me

Sounds almost as if they have a bit of a problem themselves, if you ask me. I would have thought a little pushing of the age-play boundaries was the norm, rather than the exception, within anime etc.

SadKnight wrote:kept going on about how being a good person isn’t about just actions, it’s about how you think and what you fantasize about too.

Now that sounds like a person with POCD. Not saying they have OCD, but that sounds like a person who is either by-the-book religious, or someone who has to reassure themselves. Personally, I have better things to worry about than the odd taboo fantasy that goes on only within the confines of my skull with no real-world implications whatsoever. What goes on in my head- and stays in my head- affects no one but ME. And, having OCD including harm-OCD themes, I have to judge myself by what I do, not by what I think. To an extent, anyway. I can only agree with that person's statement to a certain degree. Who can be a perfectly good person in their own skull all the time? Give me a break.

I've mostly always been able to keep POCD at bay by reminding myself that I would never condone CP or bad-touching a kid. If a sexual thought is too disturbing for me by pushing age-taboo too much (or certain other taboos, for that matter), then I put the brakes on it and back off that line of thought/fantasy/anime imagery. But that comes with not obsessing over it, and that comes with not beating myself up over it, either. I just stop it. And remind myself I'm not a pedo, and go on with my day. Otherwise I'd find myself like a lot of folks that get POCD find themselves in. For me, I know I don't want to do anything with a kid or teenager. I know I'm not going to. Nor am I going to indirectly support such behaviour via illicit photographs. Don't think much of folks that do do that. Well there's my proof I'm not a pedo, and that's good enough for me. I go by what I do in the real world, what my real-world attitudes are. I suggest everyone with POCD needs to cultivate a similar attitude. That's what works for me to keep the OCD monster away from that particular theme, anyway. It's what I had to do with my intrusive harm thoughts.

Thank you for the response. I greatly appreciate it!

It just really effects me when someone calls NSFW fanart CP or something like that. In my mind I always age up the character if they are canonically younger than 18, and the artists I support explicitly state they draw them as 18+, but I also know that fundamentally it’s all imaginary. None of that is real. With real people you can’t just decide they are older now. And stylized drawings are far different from actual teenagers. But still, it worries me. I just like the hot schoolgirl aesthetic that some of them have. To me anime characters are so outlandish for the most part that I don’t care what age they are. Some 16 yo CEO who is also a deadly assassin? Suuuuuure. It’s just silly to me.

But I worry. I worry that I am tacitly supporting something bad. But I also can’t deny that my strange attraction is life long and I don’t see it going away. I don’t like lolicon or anything like that, just sexy or handsome characters. I never used to worry about their arbitrary number but now I can’t stop debating in my head if I can still be a good person, or if I am worthy of love or self-respect. I want to love me very badly. But I’m worried I am broken.