OCD Except Its Actually OCD

Panic sets in, and you’re flooded with unwanted, repugnant, intrusive thoughts and images about having sex with this person.

You ask yourself, “What does this mean?”

What if it means I am a pervert? A pedophile? A monster? What if I am lying to myself and my partner about my sexual orientation? What if I am bad? What if I lose control one day and do something awful?

You begin to peel back from the things you once enjoyed, from people you love, desperately trying to keep a lid on everything. What started as a meaningless spasm has turned your life into a nightmare.

Many such OCD sufferers also experience unwanted genital sensations that activate a cascade of “what if” questions, over-interpretations, and compulsive monitoring. In the OCD community, this sensation is referred to as the groinal response.

It’s a mismatch between our real desires and our body’s response. However, just like any intrusive thought that a person may have, a groinal response is not confirmation that your fears are real. 

//Why does this happen?

[Every surface of your skin and organs] are all wired to neurons or nerves that send sensory information to your brain. These signals are live at all times, even when you don’t notice them. Attention is what drives sensation most of the time. Focus on your hands, feet, or shoulders for a few seconds, and you’ll become aware of a low-grade tingle that is always present, constantly firing. Focus on your genitals, and you’ll notice the same. In other words, there is always a sensation in your genitals waiting to be detected.

The genitals are super densely represented in the nervous system. They are like 24/7 signal stations firing haptic data to your brain. You are more likely to feel meaningless sensations there than other body parts, like the top of your head.

Not all genital sensation is sexual. [Some genital] nerves go to the somatosensory cortex, which processes neutral touch sensation. Others go to the deep center of your brain (the limbic system) which processes pleasure and displeasure, excitement and fear. These two regions communicate both when you are turned on and when you are not. Therefore, it is very common to experience sensation (somatosensory cortex) without sexual arousal, depending on how your limbic system interacts with the sensory cortex.

According to some estimates, there is only a 10 to 50 percent concordance between sensation in the genitals and actual sexual pleasure. This means that 50 to 90 percent of the time, any tingling, moving, flushing, or hardening down there is non-sexual, be it neutral or fear-based.

Anxiety is a form of arousal, and all forms of arousal make your blood flow. Sexual arousal and fear arousal have many of the same bodily symptoms.

6. Arousal drives attention to the source of danger. But what happens when the threat is the groinal response?

Fear (and excitement) cause a narrowing of attention. Some people call this tunnel vision. It is very difficult to think about anything other than the perceived threat when you are afraid. So, if fear-arousal causes a groinal response, they are unlikely to notice it.

But what happens when the threat is the groinal response? Where is your attention going to go in triggering situations? That’s right. It goes directly to the groin and the anxious-arousal symptoms that may be occurring there. Before you know it, you quickly get caught in a loop of increased anxiety, → increased fear-arousal, → increased attention → increased sensation.

// What can you do instead?

Accept the groinal response as normal. Cease compulsive checking and analyzing of the region. Learn how to do body scan meditations (this will help you reverse your attention bias). Practice exposure and response prevention (ERP) by going into everyday situations that you are now avoiding without performing rituals (i.e., no checking, analyzing, reassurance-seeking, etc.).