Dave321

Hi. Have been worried I have early onset dementia. I am 37. I keep forgetting peoples names. People I interact with semi regularly I will forget their names and it wont come to me until maybe a couple of hours later. Also I have trouble explaining myself and struggle to remember things I just studied. My mind feels like a sieve. I see ads on tv talking about dementia and I am now worried I have it. My granny got it. I am scared I have so many things wrong with me lately. HIV, skin cancer, diabetes are some of my current worries along with HOCD.

Honestly every gay person I have ever seen and every straight person I know conforms to the digit ratio of their orientation. There are universities all ove rthe world studying it and linking digit ratio to lots of things and the papers are in respected scientific literature. I think I am just prejudiced and a coward and cant admit to myself I was born gay and that these groinals are attraction and arousal. I think it might be internalised homophobia. I hope its ocd. As for the hiv I havent slept properly the last 4 nights and have a very bad throat, slight temperature and now the lymph nodes left of my groin hurt. I am doomed.

I am feeling anxious because I just flicked through the channels and the gay rugby player with hiv is doing a documentary and its making me uncomfortable with regards 2 things I am worried about. Firstly he has the gay finger ratio the same as me so I must be born gay. I am the same as him. Everyone tells me this finger ratio thing is nonsense yet EVERY gay man I see has it and EVERY lesbian I see has the male ratio. How can it be nonsense?? Secondly talking about hiv is scaring me right now as I am worried I may have it even though logically its probably unlikely. I have a bad cold at the moment with very sore throat and swollen lymph nodes in my neck and that can be a symptom 2 to 6 weeks after infection. I am calm but anxious if that makes sense.

I am really worried about HIV now as well as being gay. I slept with a girl 28 days ago and now I have developed the flu. I have a really bad sore throat and this might be a sign of acute HIV infection which occurs 2-6 weeks after infection. Acute HIV infection symptoms are flu like symptoms and cant be differentiated from flu. Also I had 2 groinal responses since my last post. I got a youtube video recommendation when I logged into youtube and it was some topless guy and I got a nervous tingling and tightening arousal type feeling in my groin. Then yesterday I had to sit beside a gay guy I know for 30 mins and I kept getting tingling sensation scrotum and groin. My life is turning out 180 degrees the opposite of what I want. Nothing good happens to me. All my hopes and dreams for life are shattered. I have to live out this horrible life.

@Ashley: Well it is something that crosses my mind immediately afterwards ever since I started sleeping/fooling around with women. Age 20 I thought I had gotten hiv from a girl who was a virgin. I waited 3 months and had a test. Same thing age 21. This latest girl is foreign so I am scared she has hiv. I have always beeen a bit of a hypochondriac. The rugby players case scares em because I am scared I am like him. Living a straight life as a fraud then having to admit to yourself you are gay and then getting hiv. I dont wan this to be my life script but its all out of my hands as DSKEA says if I'm gay I'm gay and cant change it. I dont care if I never do anything gay I just dont want to live with the thoughts and groinals. I also hate the fact I might be a fraud and have mislead people. I dont see a point in going to therapy if this is what they will do. ie get me to accept it.

Thanks DKSEA and Angst for contributing. @Ashley it was because you mentioned accepting it and learning to calm down before you explaining what it means and why its happening. I am scared that therapists would get me to calm down by not analysing it etc. and then tell me I'm gay when I can take the news better. I am currently quite anxious at the moment. I was watching the news and the gay rugby player Gareth Thomas has announced he is HIV positive. Now I'm scared I am HIV positive from some sexual activity I have had with my last 2 girlfriends. 6 yrs ago I had unprotected sex with her. And my latest girlfriend I am worried I touched my penis with her vaginal fluid on my hand when putting on a condom. This was only last month.

Is this some method to get me to accept I'm gay??

I realise I will probably have them for life Ashley but when they happen they freak me out. They freak me out less than they did say 10 years ago but they still freak me out and they ruin the rest of the day as I am convinced Im gay. I do feel a bit better the next morning like its a clean slate again until the next groinal. I have groinals whenever I see something like a topless man, good looking guy or something that reminds me of homosexuality. This response happens 90% of the time when I see something like that. This means they happen once a day (or more) or I might go a number of days without one depending if nothing pops up on tv, facebook, in real life etc. The last time I had therapy 8-10 yrs ago I had to carry around a picture of a topless man and look at it 10 times a day. It didnt work. I developed tolerance to that picture only but would still get groinals to other things in real life or different pics, guys on tv etc.. And having no libido for women is really disturbing. I wonder ''it cant just be a coincidence''

I never want to do anything with a guy. I'm scared I will choose to in future or scared I will at some point. I dont want groinals even if I never act on it.

I don't understand your post. Are you saying I might be gay and homophobic? I wonder if I am gay and homophobic myself. I feel nervous and get groinals consistently around men tespecially gay guys or good looking guys and have no libido for women anymore (if I even had libido for women in the 1st place. I am so confused ) Kids can tell if someone is ''different''. I think they spotted that in me and then I grew up affected by the bullying and didnt want to be gay and so wanted to be straighter than straight. I did masturbate about girls only and found it really nice. Did I just have strong hormones as a teen and could get off to anything back then as a result?? Maybe I just didnt know who I was back then?? Maybe I masturbated to women out of heteronormative society and didnt know any better? Maybe I did it out of choice instead of nature?? I think it was natural but maybe it wasn't and I hadn't ''found myself''? Gay marriage is legal here but I am in my late 30's now and grew up in the 90's and schools and society was much more homophobic then. Maybe I am a product of that society and I have internalised homophobia? I dont know how to convice myself it is ocd if it is. It just doesnt seem like it is. I feel like I am a fraud and lying to myself and will be laughed at if I do come out later in life as gay for being a liar and misleading everyone. There are nitty gritty details of my groinals/arousals that I could go into but suffice to say they feel like I am genuinely highly aroused and then this awful shame/depression/anxiety comes over me and shuts it down. I dont even know if its a groinal or not.

Thanks Ashley. I really think I am a fraud though. I feel like my gut instinct is telling me I am gay and that I was born gay and never copped on until my 20's and that I only found thoughts of women arousing as a teenager because my hormones were going crazy. Is it ocd if I get a groinal response only in specific scenarios though? Like seeing a topless man who has a good body or standing next to a good looking guy?? I had two very strong groinal responses the last few days standing next to a good looking guy and also going on facebook and seeing some pic of a tanned topless man. I feel like I am hoping its ocd and trying to fool myself and others its ocd by saying things that make it sound like ocd. Maybe I should be saying when I see topless men I get aroused rather than saying its a groinal response. Maybe I should be saying I used to find women arousing but now only find men arousing. Maybe thats the truth? :(

This is a serious genuine question: I got bullied in school age 12 and was called gay and other derogatory names that gay people get called. This was 25 yrs ago. Since then I have always been self conscious that maybe I'm gay. As a teenager I always made sure to try to appear straight and not gay. I masturbated only about women and I genuinely enjoyed it. I never masturbated about men and it never occurred to me to try. I got great orgasms masturbating about women. In my 20's I had trouble with erections with girls and failed attempts at sex. Went to urologists etc. 2 out of 3 urologists said something was wrong down there. One of them didn't think anything was wrong. This is when the thought of being gay hit me hard. 12 yrs later here I am. Anyway I dont get full proper erections at any time. I have sex with women when I take a pill but cant really without one. The thought occurs to me frequently that maybe it would work if I was with a man. To test I tried masturbating about men many times to see if it gets me a proper erection. It doesn't but the thought persists ''yeah but if you were actually WITH a man it would work'' and this cycle continues. Sex with women is a bit 'meh' to be honest. The orgasm dull. I no longer feel the adrenaline rush and excitement I used to get masturbating about women as a teen. Anyway a few days ago I was mucking around with my mates and one of my mates pretended to be gay for a second just having a laugh and put his hand down near my lower stomach while I was sitting down. I felt anxiety but also this kind of lightening bolt sensation in my body like sexual excitement even though it was unwanted. It was a really strong sensation. I am terrified it means I am gay and that this is the fireworks that I am supposed to be feeling when being intimate with someone. I am also hoping its just some sort of hyper vigilance anxiety and anticipation response. I have constant doubts I have nothing wrong with my penis and that I would get strong erections without pills if I kissed or was intimate with men. I got down yesterday and checked gay porn for about 5 mins to test and got no erection. My question is this especially to gay forum members is would I get hard masturbating about men if I was gay or am I repressing it somehow? Is this lightening bolt sensation my true attractions coming out? Is sex mediocre normal even for straight or gay people or does it mean I am not being fulfilled because I am not doing it with the right gender? Also I am very self conscious. I hate seeing photos of myself or hearing my voice etc.

Thank you Ashley. I still dont think there is enough general information on sexual based ocd with all the nitty gritty details. Like explanations of the Groinal response is very vague for example. I have read pretty much everything on ''hocd'' online.

I dont go checking my groin but I get almost instant groinal arousal type scary intense feelings when I see say a male swimmer in speedos. Is that normal for ocd? I know people get groinals AFTER they start checking and scrutising their groin. My groinals happen before I even have a chance to think. Also I read other HOCD people saying they get intrusive images frequently and during masturbation and sex especially. I dont get those. Does that mean I dont have ocd?

Even if I don't act on it I do not want to have thoughts of men in that way or sensations in my groin every time I see one. That would be torture. I do not want the thoughts or feelings in my own head/body. I want to get with girls and feel genuine about doing it not thinking I am a fraud and living a lie. I want to have a sex drive for women again. p.s. I have never seen a gay person that doesn't have the designated finger ratio that you would expect them to have. I doubt some of the studies because if you stop a person on the street for a hand scan and ask them their sexual orientation I am sure a lot of them would say 'straight' as they might not feel comfortable disclosing that info to a stranger.