I think I was a perpetrator of COCSA and I don't know how to move forward

[wheely.tractor]

I think I was a perpetrator of COCSA and I don't know how to move forward.

I was finally able to uncover the full memory of what I did and I've been struggling with guilt and disgust in myself. When I was 7-9 years old I found what was essentially porn. I watched it regularly till I was around ten, I didn't know what any of it was but I got curious and seeing the acts I thought to try them. This is where, regrettably, my little brother came in. He is 3 years younger than me (so at the time 8 years old) and we used to share a room. From what I remembered I just kinda asked if we could kiss, he agreed but the more i think about it the more i know that he didn't understand why the act was wrong. The kissing continued for what I assume was a week or two (I don't remember how long the kisses kept going.). I lose most of my memory of the kissing there but it got worse, I was ,again, ten and developing, I can only think of one instance of this but I asked my brother to grope my chest, I wasn't exactly sure what I expected back then but he did it with out question (again he definitely didn't understand). It happened and nothing ever came from it.

I feel guilty for what I did and feel so dumb for subjecting my brother to these acts, I don't know how to continue. I want to apologize but with his age Im scared he wont understand and just override it. Not only that I just don't want him to live with trauma. I just don't know what to do and I really need advice to go forward, I want my brother to be okay and I want to be able to help him if anything starts to affect him.

[Sam W]

Hi wheely.tractor,

I'm sorry you're carrying so much guilt around this, and I hope that we're able to help you put some of it into perspective.

From what you're describing, this sounds far, far more like the kind of sexual exploration and curiosity that we know is a common part of children's sexual development. I say that because you asked to engage in these things after encountering depictions of them in porn, and your reason for trying them with him was curiosity and imitation of what you saw without the context of what those physical actions actually meant. You also only did a few times, and it does not sound like you coerced or threatened him into doing it.

All of that is very different from COCSA, which involves threat or coercion; in other words, like any assault, it involves deciding that their desires override another persons expressed consent (or lack thereof). Does that help make sense of things at all?

[wheely.tractor]

I thank you for this response, it does help me ease some of the guilt and I can say with a full heart that why I did wasn't my proudest moment, I do understand that it was out of curiosity and back the I was just generally stupid and picking up the subtext or having any sort of comprehension when it came to what I saw.

With that out of the way I do still want to apologize to my brother as he was the person I did this with, I love him full heartily and I know he's a good kid and has always been. So when I bring this topic up how should I? I want him to have the final decision of whether or not he would forgive me with whatever consequences might fall.
Again I want to thank you for helping me, I feel a bit less guilty but again I want to mend and help my brother if I have caused any damage to him, he does not deserve to hurt for my stupidity back then.

[Sam W]

I'm glad my response was helpful! I do want to add that you weren't being "stupid" or anything like that; you were a kid yourself, trying to make sense of a piece of media you really did not have the needed context for.

With that conversation with your brother, I think one starting place might be to ask yourself what you're hoping will come of it, especially since it sounds like he may not remember the incident at all? Too, how is your relationship with him otherwise? Are you two close? Does he seem to trust you and feel safe with you?

[wheely.tractor]

I again thank you for this response, it really helped me out things into perspective and made me think for a while. What I want to know when I bring this up to my brother just boils down to if he is okay. I just want to know that if what I did affected him in any sort of way. I want to be there to help him if anything happens.

From what I've seen he doesn't remember anything at all, our relationship has always been good, we talk and sometimes play games with each other along with out little sister. We do usually have our sibling fights but we can get over those quickly. Though I will say that we don't interact as much as I am quite lazy and get out of bed late, I also really like being alone so I usually don't go out of my way to play with him. But when I have everything was always okay, we could talk and play games. He does seem to trust me as he has talked to me about things that bother him and things he's feeling, one time he cried in my arms because he was just stressed about school, I tried to comfort him the best I could but I'm not the smartest when it comes to comforting people.

[Willa]

Hi Wheely.tracor,

It makes sense that you have this worry and want to care for someone you love. From your response, it seems like he already seems comfortable coming to you when he is struggling and needs help. Circling back to Sam's question about what you hope to gain from the possible conversation, sometimes before we open conversations like these we have to think about who will benefit most from it. We want to confront things we may feel guilty or shameful and helping someone can be a way to ease these feelings, which is a normal response in a lot of ways. Reaching out to talk here in the way you are doing is a great way to start the journey of processing these experiences yourself first.

An important thing to consider is whether the conversation will be productive for your brother, especially as it seems like something he does not remember and has not inhibited his ability to trust and be close to you. Does that make sense?