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Did my childhood interest in rugby/dance as a kid mean I’ve always been gay and missed the signs?.Did my noticing that man/woman just now mean I’m gay?.Looking at pornography, not because of enjoyment but because it is an opportunity to check one’s responses to men vs.Spending time in anxious rumination about one’s reaction to members of the same or opposite sex, looking for proof that one is gay/straight.An urgent need to decide whether one is gay or straight.Checking one’s response to opposite- or same-sex images of attractive people.Construing any positive reaction to a member of the same sex as evidence of being gay.Preoccupation with one’s level of arousal toward either sex.Reviewing your day or week to feel sure that at no time did you feel attracted to someone of your own sex.Diminished attraction to the opposite sex.Difficulty setting aside thoughts about your sexual orientation.The core symptoms of HOCD are intrusive thoughts about being gay. Everything written here can be applied to a gay person with obsessions about being straight just swap the words “gay” and “straight.” The Warning Signs of HOCD For simplicity’s sake, this article describes the experience of a straight person with obsessions about being gay. Note: HOCD can affect people of any sexual orientation. HOCD has been around for a long time and, to those in the know, is an established and well-understood sub-type of OCD. Others mistakenly interpret it as an early part of the coming out process. For this reason, many people misunderstand it to be “repressed” homosexuality. HOCD is poorly understood outside of the OCD community. These can indeed be symptoms of OCD, but for some people, OCD can look completely different. If you ask most people what OCD is, their answers will likely involve a preoccupation with order, being excessively neat, or washing your hands. Therapists who specialize in OCD are typically familiar with HOCD, but most other therapists are not. One factor that perhaps makes HOCD more torturous than other types of OCD is its relative obscurity. This a large number for such an infrequently discussed phenomenon! It’s similar to the numbers estimated for Americans living with multiple sclerosis, and more than the number of people living in Cincinnati, Ohio. So a reasonable estimate of the number of Americans suffering from sexual orientation-themed OCD would be 315,000. Of those 3.95 million, estimates are that 8% of them have sexual orientation obsessions. OCD, the broader category in which HOCD falls, affects 1.2% of Americans - approximately 3.95 million people. HOCD affects less than 1% of the population. It’s also known as SO-OCD (sexual orientation) or “gay OCD.” It is a variant of OCD, and can have a profound impact on the lives of those living with it. HOCD is the abbreviation for homosexual obsessive-compulsive disorder.