Question: Hello,

I suffer from a severe form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), a psychiatric condition in which obsessive thoughts bring the sufferer great fear and uncertainty about a dreaded outcome he feels he has to prevent.

My fear is related to seminal fluids. It often happens that when I wake up in the morning after nocturnal emissions during the sleep, being in a hurry I don't wipe the semen off very thoroughly and sometimes a bit of it remains in my underwear and on my hands. The obsessive thought which causes me a great deal of pain could be summed up like this : "A slight amount of semen remained on my hands, with which I touch objects on which I could leave some of it. Then a woman could touch it and accidentally get it to her genitals if she goes to the bathroom for instance right after touching that object. I might therefore get her pregnant".

Unfortunately, since my condition is extremely severe and treatement resistant, my psychiatrist tells me that I have to do a lot of exposure, that is : to voluntarily get myself to face the dreaded situations without doing any reassuring compulsions which usually help me avoid the feared outcome. The compulsions would be in this case thouroughly washing my hands with soap every time I touch semen, checking all the places in the house where semen could have remained and cleaning them, and avoiding to touch objects which women might touch afterwards. Going through all those compulsions is a nightmare.

Yet, my psychiatrist doesn't provide me any information about the irrationality of my thought. He only tells me my tought is absurd and asks me to expose myself but he doesn't provide any proof to show me the irrationality of my thought.

So I was wondering : is there any medical explanation you could give me which could help me understand that my fear is groundless ?

Because my disease is so severe that it makes me believe that there is a very real risk that I might somehow get someone pregnant this way, and I need at least a bit of medical objective information to make my uncertainty more bearable.

In other words : is there any genuine risk if I do the exposure exercices, that is, if I leave some amount of semen on my hands and on the objects without trying to wash it ? Can an undesired pregnancy occur for a woman by touching these objects ?

For instance, if I shake a woman's hand or if I touch some of her things and leave some traces of remaining semen, am I at risk of indirectly getting her pregnant ? Of course, I would never leave huge amounts of semen on my hands and then go touch people, but there is often a feeling of something remaining and since my psychiatrist asks me to expose myself precisely by not trying to wipe it off I feel like I am putting woman at risk because I can't have any critical insight on my fear and have a glimpse at its irrationality...

Your answer would mean a lot to me, it would help me find a bit of peace. Would you be kind enough to give me a detalied explanation which could help my rational mind understand that there is no actual risk ?

Thank you very much !