Shame

[A.Fiend1983]

Whaddya know...it's me being confused again! Tonight, after seeing an image of a topless woman, and various gifs online of lesbian kisses, I wanted to go further. I've never considered watching actual porn, and I just visited a site for the stuff for some wild reason. After seeing the thumbnails/gifs of all the various lesbian videos in front of me, I panicked. It was nothing super graphic but it was definitely not appropriate either, and I feel horrible about it. I knew my mom would be very weirded out and upset, and I just feel very shameful about what I've done, despite doing barley anything.

[Sam W]

Hi A.Fiend1983,

I'm sorry it left you feeling weird! If it helps, there's nothing inherently bad or shameful about being curious about sexual media. In fact, a lot of people have their first contact with it the way you did; they were curious about a certain sexual thing and wanted to see what they could find.

Do you have a sense of why you're feeling such intense shame around it? Is it just knowing how your mom would react if she found out? Or are there other things making you feel that way too?

[A.Fiend1983]

Its mainly how my mother would feel, but also the fact that I've always been the one to never really be invested in sexual media, but over these past few months, usually at night, I wonder and have my various thoughts. I know that porn is totally fake and not a real representation of sex, so I'm not sure what made me want to go further than just the pictures and gifs I seeked out often.

[Sam W]

Do you feel like it was mainly curiosity as to what was out there that made you look for it? Or were you looking for something to help you fantasize or masturbate? To be clear, there's nothing wrong with the answer being one, both, or none of those things; most people dip their toe into sexual media at some point, even if they then decide that it's not something they're interested in consuming.

[A.Fiend1983]

It was mainly to see what was really out there, so out of curiosity I suppose, and after seeing the general idea of the videos that had been thrown in my face, I knew I didn't want to see it.

[Sam W]

That's a pretty common reason that people end up looking at porn, especially when they're young, and curiosity in and of itself isn't something to be ashamed of. Plus, this experience also taught you what types of sexual media you aren't interested in seeing, which is pretty useful information to have, y'know?