The Definitive Cure For HOCD

By a college student with too much time

Introduction to Sexuality:
The human brain is the most fascinating and adaptable processor of information that has
ever existed. Its ability to physically change itself based upon our thought patterns and
environment are outstanding, and the general public’s misunderstanding of our most complex
and useful organ is in my opinion a tragedy.
The human brain is an extremely pliable organ, with the ability to constantly adapt to our
needs and provide us with the tools we need to survive. During different stages of our life, the
brain is much more pliable than others. I’m sure that you are familiar with the phenomenon that
we can learn languages easier when we are younger than older, and that we can learn to play
instruments faster at a young age in general. Many constructs of our brain and personality
operate under this distinction of younger is better. Sexuality is no different.
Although science does not have a complete consensus of what determines human
sexuality, we know for almost certain that the parts of the brain that control it are fixed before we
are born. While minor changes may occur throughout our lifetime, the consensus is that is an
entirely fixed trait, thus explaining the near 100 percent failure rate of misguided “conversion
therapy” attempts.
From MRI scans of the brains of self-reported heterosexuals and homosexuals,
researchers have discovered that the hypothalamus and amygdala structures of the brain in
homosexuals closely represent the structures in the brains of heterosexuals in the opposite sex. In
other words, self-reported homosexual men have “feminine” structures and self-reported
homosexual women have “masculine” structures.
In the previous paragraph I made an important consideration, to include the phrase “self-
reported” before each reference of a sexuality. The reason I did this is because binary sexualities
are proven to be a societal invention, rather than a scientific reality.
In the early 20th century, Dr. Alfred Kinsey created a wealth of research on the hotly
debated topic of sexuality. At the time, anti-communism and anti-homosexuality were very
prevalent attitudes, and many scientists sought out to understand this phenomenon. Scientists
were skeptical that sexuality was truly a binary scientific phenomenon, as there are very few true
binary phenomena in nature. For example, one might have blue eyes, but that doesn’t mean they
don’t have even miniscule amounts of other pigments in their eyes. Kinsey compiled data from
across the US and found that rather than sexuality truly being a binary construct, it exists on a
continuum, as all other genetic traits do.
Kinsey used the data he compiled to create the famous Kinsey Scale, a scale from 0 to 6
describing one’s sexual attractions. Kinsey believed that sexuality followed a bell curve along
this graph, where the ends of the spectrum were far rarer than the center. Below is an illustration
of the graph, with the group that Kinsey hypothesized was most genetically common, bisexuals
circled in yellow

For much of the 20th century, people avoided placing themselves as anything but 0 or 6
on this scale, even though psychology widely supported the idea. The idea that one could be
anything but heterosexual or homosexual was frightening to a society that had come to despise
all expressions of homosexuality.
It wasn’t until the advent of advanced metrics that could physiologically measure arousal
did the field of sexuality studies truly advance. For much of the 2010s, there has been an
increased discussion on the politics and improved attitude around homosexual expression. The
driving force behind these discussions are medical studies that have used arousal measurements
that explicitly proven that even those who identify as 0 have responsiveness to the same
sex, while those who identify as 6 have responsiveness to the opposite sex.
The confirmation of Kinsey’s theoretical framework shocked the world of medical
science and politics, while confirmed the long-held belief among psychologists that sexuality is
not binary.
But it does not stop there, even more recent long-term studies have found that those who
previously measured as more heterosexual, later in life measured closer to the bisexual side.
Also, those who measured as closer to homosexual also measured closer to bisexual later in life.
This confirmed another belief long held by psychologists, sexual fluidity. Thus, our perception of
our own sexuality appears to not be entirely fixed, thus leading to a plot of points along the
sexuality normal curve for a single individual!

Introduction to Psychology:
As human beings, our brains help us learn a lot of tasks subconsciously. As infants, we learned to
walk, and it was a difficult process, but eventually over time, our brains reshaped themselves and
we learned how to walk without even thinking about it. When we first learned mathematics,
learning to add even small numbers was difficult, but now most of us can look at 2+2 and
instantly think 4 without even performing any conscious cognition. This is what is known in
psychology as a heuristic, and it is one of the most fundamental reasons that humans were able to
survive for as long as they have. We have the innate ability to store information in a part of the
brain where we don’t even have to think to recall it. This underlies the phenomenon of nostalgia.
As we encounter stimuli that are associated with a strong memory, our brain automatically
recalls a series of events, even though we did not consciously choose to recall those events.
In psychology, the framework for creating heuristics, which are essentially our beliefs about
ourselves and the environment, occur largely without us even consciously aware of it.
Psychologists have presented the following model for how our brain perceives the world.

Starting at the bottom, a stimulus occurs, followed by attention, which is our conscious choice to
acknowledge the stimulus’ existence. Next is perception, which is simply the method that the
stimulus reaches our brain, either through our sense of sight, smell or touch. At this stage, our
brain immediately reacts to the stimulus and creates a feeling if the stimulus is strong, such as the
sight of an attractive person, or the poor smell of a coworker. If the stimulus is strong, our body
will take over and create physiological arousal or stress responses. If the stimulus is neutral, then
our thought processes will decide how we react to a stimulus. Following perception and thought
processes, also known as cognition, are the decisions and behaviors that we make as a result of
our feelings, be they innate feelings or learned feelings.

HOCD:
Across many different internet forums, many individuals have reported symptoms that have
come to be collectively known as Homosexuality Obsessive compulsive disorder. Common
experiences of its sufferers are constant rumination over sexuality, loss of attraction to opposite
sex, increased anxiety around the same sex, gronial responses to same sex stimuli and excessive
anxiety and depression. In response to the prevalence of this cognitive disorder, many
psychologists have created online programs that claim that this disease falls under the category
of obsessive-compulsive disorder. In their defense, the description of the disease does appear
similar to those of OCD, constant rumination, excessive anxiety, feeling things that seem counter
to one’s previous experiences. However, very few if any of the psychologists who attempt to
treat this population experience it.
The treatment of OCD involves halting our stimulus response process at the attention
stage. The treatment encourages sufferers to not attend to their needs to compulsively act. This
treatment is very helpful at extinguishing OCD symptoms that truly arise from biological OCD
resultant from chemical imbalances and abnormal brain structures. By halting response at
attention, OCD sufferers essentially extinguish the fire before walking through it, rather than
self-immolating constantly and creating anxiety.
Although HOCD symptoms closely resemble the symptoms of OCD, for 99 percent of
the internet sufferers of HOCD, chemical imbalances and abnormal brain structure did not create
the symptoms. Rather, the natural process of creating heuristics, combined with societal pressure
created the symptoms. Thus, the treatment for this cognitive disorder must be focused at the
thought processes stage of the stimuli response cycle rather than the attention stage, because
heuristics and societal pressure create thought processes rather than actual innate feelings
resultant of sexuality or aversion to bad smelling stimuli. In true OCD sufferers, a crooked
painting on a wall or a poorly parked car evoke innate negative emotional responses, rather than
cognitively created negative responses. For an OCD sufferer, seeing a crooked painting on a wall
invokes the same part of the brain to get away as a normal brain responds to a bad smell.

HOCD Formation:
Many of us discovered who we were primarily attracted to at a young age when our
brains were very pliable and open to new heuristics, as we were repeatedly exposed to stimuli
that was attractive to us, we subconsciously created beliefs that we were either heterosexual or
homosexual. Many of us, although not likely to admit it even to themselves, were attracted to
both boys and girls to some degree as small children. However, we were taught by society at our
age that you were either gay or straight, and being gay held heavy negative social repercussions,
so during our heuristic formation phase, we largely ignored any same sex attraction that we
experienced, and only focused on heterosexual attraction. This process most likely occurred
without us knowing, as the human brain is instinctively designed to avoid behavior and decisions
that make us socially different, as for much of humanity social acceptance was a necessary
element of survival as we lived in small nomadic tribes. And thus, we lived our lives, focusing
on our attraction to the opposite sex, acquiring crushes, developing sexual feelings, and
exploring those feelings with our preferred member of the opposite sex. However, all this time
we repressed a biological element of ourselves, the same sex attraction that we genetically
developed. Many of the sufferers of HOCD first felt its effects when faced with a particularly
strong same sex stimuli that caused a sexual response. Upon this response, the individuals felt
terror, as one of the most core heuristics that defined their decisions and behavior was just
broken. Many people who suffer HOCD are not outwardly homophobic in any way, as is in the
case of a repressed homosexual. Rather, they accepted homosexual individuals, as they didn’t
hate them because they represented something in themselves, they wished to repress as the
repressed homophobe does. Thus, when these symptoms arose, the psychological community
was confused, how could all these people who aren’t even homophobic suddenly feel this way?
The quick explanation was OCD, and this has led many internet sufferers of HOCD to
attempt to self-medicate using methods that OCD would respond to. In some ways, avoiding
giving attention to same sex stimulus does work in relieving HOCD symptoms, but it is only
temporary. By doing this, one essentially enters the denial that a repressed homophobe lives in,
which creates depressed mood, and thus decreased natural attraction for the opposite sex. To
truly defeat the symptoms of HOCD, one must extinguish it at the thought processes stage of
stimuli response.

The Cure:
For the past decade, therapists have been trending towards new methods of treating
cognitive disorders. Rather than give patients a pill or form of meditation to essentially ignore
their problems, modern psychotherapy encourages radically accepting one’s problems. This is
what is known in the psychotherapy field as A.C.T, or Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
This new age therapy has been used to solve all sorts of cognitive errors that people make in their
lives that cause them stress, such as worrying if people don’t like them, or afraid of social
situations. In therapy for these conditions, the therapist will suggest that the patient just accept
their fears, in the above cases, accept the possibilities that people don’t like them, or that
something bad might happen in a social situation and its still ok. By breaking down a patient’s
negative heuristics about a certain situation, they are able to live free and rewarding lives again.
In applying these concepts to HOCD, there are a few major heuristics that you must
adopt. The first one is that it is ok for me to be attracted to members of the same sex, the second
one is that it is ok for me to fantasize about members of the same sex, and the third is that it is ok
for me to fall in love and enter into a relationship with a member of the same sex.
Although adopting these heuristics might appear frightening to the HOCD sufferer, they
are the only way to regain one’s heterosexual feelings. It is likely that for an extended period,
HOCD sufferers have feared that they were entirely gay, a 6 on the Kinsey scale if you will. The
longer the HOCD sufferer has spent believing they could only be attracted to the opposite sex,
the more difficult it will be to implement these new heuristics.
Thus, this is the treatment, if a you notice that you feel something while looking at a
member of the same sex, repeat the above 3 heuristics in your head. Often, we have spent so long
believing that we are only capable of feeling attraction to the opposite sex, that more radical
measures are required to implement these new heuristics. In my case, I am 20 years old, and have
held this heuristic for a long time, thus for me it was hard to implement these heuristics. Thus, I
had to implement radical procedures to cause my brain to adopt them. The treatment for those
who have held this belief for a long time, and are usually over the age of 12, is to masturbate to a
gay fantasy, legitimately try to enjoy it, and then go on with your normal day. By doing this, you
emphasize to your brain that same sex feelings are not a threat and something to create anxiety
about. After this stage, one should graduate to gay porn and masturbation. The patient should
make a concerted effort to enjoy the experience and finish, and once again, go right about their
day without thinking you did anything wrong. This will further reinforce to your brain that same
sex behavior is nothing to fear.
If the treatment plan, I just described to you seems irrational and against
everything you have read about HOCD on forums, well then guess what, you are a rational
human being. The treatment for an irrational cognitive disorder such as HOCD is often as
irrational as the disorder itself, but it works. In my case, I only had to do that stuff for a few days
and my attraction to girls returned in full force. Also, my desire to check out men drastically
decreased. Ultimately, the goal is just to be comfortable with whoever you are, not who society
wants you to be, so if you discover that you must keep doing my treatment for longer, then
congratulations you are closer to a six on the Kinsey scale! This does not make you any less of a
person, nor does it make you any less capable to maintain a heterosexual relationship, all it
shows is that you have a slight preference for the same sex.