It's less that it's appealing to him now and more that he's desperate. Getting urges and having nowhere "normal" (read: that he's used to) to redirect them. He's quit creeping on students, deleted all his pictures of them, and since he can't go back on his word, he's resorting to doing anything that symbolically comes close to what use to sate his thirst. Think of it like a desperate alcoholic drinking mouthwash because it has alcohol in it.