moving on from experiencing cocsa from church friend

[ls2verice]

It's been hard to move on from cocsa I experienced because I feel like I was responsible and harmed others!

Basically what happened is that I was over at my church friends house with my cousins. this church friend has a younger brother. she had asked me if I wanted to have sex. she was chasing my cousin around (jokingly) to have "sex" too. while I had seen porn before and I knew how to masturbate at the time, I never knew about it past a few pics that showed genitals/semen I saw online. so I didn't know about penetration, oral, etc.

I agreed out of pure curiosity and at first we thought of doing it somewhere privately like in the closet, but we could not see so she then led me to her bed and started humping me. confused by this I just ignored it and then tried to masturbate bc I didn't think the humping felt like anything. I then told her I think we should stop and she agreed but she didn't stop really stop until later (may have been 1 minute, 10 idk, my time is very skewed, it just wasn't fast enough for me). there were two other little children in the room, my younger cousin and her younger brother. one even asked to join to which I immediately objected. I just thought it was gross because they were too young. I think I said the "I think we should stop" after they said that or before, idk. I didn't even process that they were watching us I think I was just stuck in what was happening. As soon as she got off of me I told my cousin (other one, not the one in the room when it happened) that we did it.

after that I felt weird and scared that the adults were going to find out. I remember she later teased me and claimed she had it recorded and that her parents might look at it. she'd also randomly bring it up because she knew I hated being reminded about what happened. I've always seen that memory as gross and was angry with myself for not rejecting her and how it might have effected my younger cousin and her brother. it was only recently when I talked to a helpline that they classified it as cocsa. It's hard to see myself as a victim because I exposed the other two children to that and they didn't deserve it, I sometimes have thoughts that I am technically a perpetrator to them. this church friend was also 3 years younger so I feel like ultimately I had the most responsibility.

how do I get over these feelings?

[Jacob]

Hi ls2verice,

I'm sorry this younger friend didn't stop when you asked, that they teased/mocked you over it afterwards and that the whole experience left such a bitter taste, especially as there were other kids in the room.

I think one thing that could be helpful for you, is to move away from the idea of there being a sharp binary divide, in situations like this, especially when it comes to your role (and knowing that you have a history of ruminating on these things), between being a victim or a perpetrator. It doesn't sound like that framework is helping you understand these memories.

The fact is, that age-alone doesn't make someone an abuser, and youth-alone doesn't make someone a victim. I don't even know if COCSA is a useful term for you either: that's a broad term that is meant to summarize a broad range of experiences, not for the purpose of deciding who is good and who is bad, especially not on an individual level, but intended instead to be useful in research, and policy writing. The situation you described has more detail to it that this term or any generalization could possibly capture. Your life is about details, not about generalizations.

I'm hearing that you were uncomfortable, you were curious, you communicated, she was curious, she communicated, but she also imposed her idea of what should happen next, and was also slow to react to your request to stop, which was hurtful, and she proceeded to tease and mock you later, which was also hurtful. You were uncomfortable with the fact that your younger relatives were in the room, and in hindsight, you would have liked to have reacted differently or to have declined the initial offer altogether.

None of that says if you're good or bad, it's just what happened as far as you remember.

If we call you a "victim" or if we call you a "perpetrator" of what went on, that doesn't really make a difference to any of those facts does it? So why would we need to use either of those words other than to find new ways to feel bad?

It sounds like you all could have benefited from a bit more knowledge from adults in your lives about what sex actually is, what kind of touching is appropriate, what consent looks like, your friend especially could have done with learning more about bullying and sexual teasing. It also sounds like it was an early experience where you learnt what you don't like and you gained some knowledge of how you'd rather deal with similar situations when they next occurred.

It sounds like the overall experience was quite hurtful, and continues to be upsetting, but to maybe avoid spiraling into self-blame are you able to see some of the positives in how you reacted to what happened, during and since, and maybe some of the positive things they say about you?