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Tests

SO-OCD test

Six questions about what happens after the doubt turns up: what you check, what you go back over, who you ask. None of them ask who you are attracted to, and none of them are trying to find out. Nothing you answer leaves this browser, and there is no score at the end.

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Do you check your own reaction to someone, to see how you respond?

Watching for what your body does, then reading it.

Your answers stay in this browser. There is no account here, and nothing carrying them is ever sent anywhere.

What is this actually called?

Sexual orientation OCD is not a diagnosis, and it is not a question about who you are. The Yale-Brown symptom checklist groups it under sexual obsessions, which it lists beside the aggressive and religious ones. The theme here is the doubt and what gets done about it. Whatever the answer would be, it is the checking that keeps the question open.

Why the questions never ask what you are afraid of

Because writing the fear out is the compulsion. Spelling out the worst version, then reading it back to see how it lands, is the same move as asking somebody to tell you it is fine, and it buys the same few minutes.

The published measures agree, which surprises most people. The OCI-R has eighteen items and not one of them asks what a thought is about: they ask whether you check more than you need to, whether you wash longer than you meant to, whether unwanted thoughts are hard to be rid of. The Yale-Brown checklist lists “checking that did not harm others” and “asking for reassurance over and over” as compulsions in their own right.

So the loop is what these questions ask about. The theme is only the door it came in through, which is why the answer here is a description rather than a verdict.

Questions people ask about this

Does this test tell me my sexual orientation?
No, and it is not built to. Nothing here asks who you are attracted to, and no set of questions on a web page could answer that. What it asks about is the checking, and the checking is the part that can change.
Is SO-OCD a real diagnosis?
It is not a diagnosis of its own. The Yale-Brown symptom checklist groups these under sexual obsessions, alongside the aggressive and religious themes, and lists the checking and the asking beside them as compulsions. Which theme somebody gets does not change what helps.
Is this test a diagnosis?
No, and it is not built to be one. It asks what you do after the thought and hands that back to you in plain words. A clinician can assess and diagnose; nothing on a web page can.
Why is there no score?
Because a number is something to come back and check, and checking is the move this is describing. Retaking a quiz to see whether the figure moved is the loop, not a measure of it.
Do my answers get sent anywhere?
No. They stay in the browser while you answer, and there is no account and no email box on this page. If you carry them into the free check, they travel in your own browser's storage and nowhere else.

Other tests, and the whole loop

Themes overlap, and most people recognise more than one. These ask the same six questions in the shape each theme takes:

If the theme is not the useful question, the free check asks about the loop itself, and how to stop reassurance seeking is the guide with the method in it.

And if none of the checking here is anything anybody could see you do, pure O is the page on why that does not mean there are no compulsions.

What these questions are shaped after

If you want help with the practice rather than another test.

Maybe is short lessons that show you how the loop works, and a coach alongside you at the moment the urge to check is loudest. It stays with you while you practise letting a question stand, for as long as that takes. If you are struggling right now, here is who to contact.