About Sexual Thoughts OCD
Sexual Thoughts OCD, is a subtype of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) where individuals experience intrusive, unwanted, and distressing sexual thoughts or images. These thoughts are typically not aligned with the person’s values, desires, or sexual orientation, and the person may feel extreme anxiety, guilt, or disgust because of them. These intrusive sexual thoughts often feel highly taboo or inappropriate, and people with this form of OCD are usually horrified by them. Individuals with sexual thoughts OCD experience repetitive, disturbing thoughts related to sex or sexual acts that are unwanted and out of character. These thoughts can be about sexual acts involving strangers, family members, or children, thoughts about engaging in inappropriate sexual behaviors or imagining themselves performing sexual acts that they find morally or ethically unacceptable among others. These thoughts are intrusive and cause significant distress because they conflict with the person’s core values, sexual preferences, and identity. The person may fear that just having these thoughts means they might act on them, even though they have no actual desire to do so. The fear of “losing control” and actually carrying out the imagined actions is a central concern.
In response to the anxiety caused by intrusive sexual thoughts, individuals may engage in compulsions to reduce the anxiety or prevent harm. These compulsions might include mental rituals such as mentally “undoing” the thought by thinking of something else or trying to neutralize it, avoidance of sexual situations, intimate relationships, or specific people or places that might trigger the intrusive thoughts reassurance-seeking from loved ones or therapists, or checking behaviors such as constantly rethinking the situation to confirm that they would never act on the thoughts or trying to justify that they are “safe” and “normal.”
