I'm terrified I did something bad

Hi everyone. I wish I didn't need to come back here but now I'm obsessing over something I did quite a few months ago. Around the start of 2019 I remember searching this fanfiction site for erotica and read a couple. But now I'm freaking out a bit because even though I used the filter to just search for those ranked 'Explicit' (as in suitable only for adults, according to the website itself) I'm really scared that some of the erotica I read and even masturbated to might have still been written by someone underage. Because of how this fanfiction site operates, anyone can just post their stories online without fuss and despite the ranking system I'm still paranoid that some minors might have written sexual things I posted them up under the 'Explicit' tag regardless. I freaked out so much that I actually started searching the authors online (using their online pseudonyms) to see if I could find their ages somewhere and reassure myself and while most of the erotica I read were thankfully written by adults, there's a particular erotica I remember reading that I'm really scared about because I remember the language and plot used wasn't as sophisticated as some others I read. I know this doesn't necessarily mean anything - lots of adult authors I've read before still use simplistic language and plot lines - but now I'm super scared that it was written by a minor and I didn't know. I searched them up but still couldn't find their age and now I'm doubly scared because now I'm also paranoid that me searching them up - even just using the online pseudonyms I got from the site itself - might make it look like I'm trying to stalk them or something. I don't know what to do and I can't seem to get this fear to go away and even though I know I did it only for the purpose of reassuring myself I wish I'd never searched them up online because now I'm scared people might see my search history and think I'm a stalker. And this is ON TOP of the FIRST fear I had that I might have read erotica written by minors. Please help, I'm really scared. What do I do?

-- Thu Jan 02, 2020 8:43 pm --

Edit: sorry, I meant rating system, not ranking system.

I feel very strongly you are being overly obsessive here. Ultimately coming across something sexual or adult written by a minor is something that almost everyone on the internet is exposed to - truthfully, even here on Psychforums, some of the threads in Remorse are written by kids of 15/16/17...

The issue is primarily one of abuse and exploitation and in such a case as accidentally coming across adult fanfic written by a minor, neither abuse nor exploitation has occurred. You're not seeking it out so really there is nothing to feel bad about here in my view. Of course, I would be interested to hear from others, but I'm confident most will feel the same in this specific case

-Sprock

You havent ruined anyone's life. you havent ruined the author's life as well.