Child Sexual Play, or Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse?
by Andrea Blundell
Haunted by memories of a sexual incident when you were a kid? But tell yourself you are overreacting, as it was with another child? Yes, child sexual play can be normal. But it can also veer into assault or child-on-child sexual abuse.
What is normal child sexual behaviour?
Children are curious about their bodies from toddlers. It’s entirely normal for young children to explore themselves with touching, rubbing, and pulling, particularly between the ages of two to six.
Until young children are taught that masturbation is to be done in private, that they should respect other people’s body privacy, and that they should not touch other people’s private parts, other normal behaviours can include:
- showing their genitals to other children
- trying to see adults or other children naked
- looking at or touching a sibling or friend’s genitals.
From there, child sexual behaviours can become less child sexual play and more a cause for concern, as seen in the chart below put out by the American Academy of Pediatrics:
As the chart shows, body exploration becomes a worry if a child:
- is mimicking adult sexual acts
- won’t stop their sexual behaviours
- is upsetting others.
Further than that, and it can become child-on-child sexual abuse.
Child-on-child sexual abuse (COCSA)
Child-on-child sexual abuse (COCSA) means that a child or adolescent involves a prepubescent child in a sexual act that:
- is deliberate
- is non consensual
- or is consensual, but the child doesn’t know the nature of what is happening
- is not equal, either mentally, physically, or in age
- involves coercion either mentally, physically, or both.
On their website, the NHS here in the UK clearly admit that “around a third of child sexual abuse is carried out by other, usually older, children or young people.”
And yet the Office for National Statistics, in their 2019 report on child sexual abuse in England and Wales, don’t even mention it.
By: Bill Bradford
This shows how sadly underreported and discussed child-on-child sexual abuse is. Adults can brush off a child’s report of such abuse as ‘kids being kids’, or not report it for fear of what would happen to the children involved.
Is or isn’t my memory an abuse memory?
It depends on what happened.
- Was it a close friend or sibling? Someone you often explored life and play with?
- Were you similar in size, age, and knowledge?
- Were you exploring bodies and things got out of hand? Was it things like dirty jokes, looking at private parts, or humping?
- Were you both unsure of what you were doing but were gathering information?
- Was it a one off? Just a few times? Or stopped when you said no?
- Did you mostly just feel worried you’d get into trouble?
It was likely normalised sexual behaviour over abuse.
On the other hand:
- Was it a child you didn’t know too well or often play with?
- Or were they older and bigger than you, or at a higher developmental level?
- Did they seem to know a lot of things you didn’t? Do things no other kids you knew did? And seemed sure of what they were doing?
- Were things done without asking, or did the other child keep going when you said stop?
- Did it cause you pain or discomfort?
- Afterwards did you feel sad, guilty, ashamed, or afraid?
- Did it happen several times, or did they keep trying to get you to do things?
- Did they tell you they would do bad things if you told? Or otherwise blackmail you to do things again or not tell?
- Did the other child or adolescent seem angry either before, during, or after?
It’s likely you suffered child-on-child sexual abuse.
Symptoms of child on child sexual abuse
Child on child sexual abuse can leave you with the same symptoms as if you suffered abuse by an adult. This can include:
- anxiety and depression
- constant illness
- deep feelings of shame and guilt
- emotional dysregulation
- foggy thinking
- identity issues
- low self-esteem
- promiscuity
- difficult relationships
- trust issues
- restlessness
- suicidal thinking
- complex PTSD.
[For more about symptoms of sexual abuse, see our article on “How to Tell You Were Abused as a Child’.]
Abuse that follows abuse
Note that children who were abused by children can then go on to be abused again by an adult, or to experience assault or abuse when an adolescent or adult themselves. This can mean the memory of the child-on-child abuse is overlooked or brushed aside.
A review identifying rates and effects of sexual re-victimisation among people who experienced child sexual abuse showed that if you were abused as a kid, you have up to three times a greater risk of being revictimised when older.
Why do children abuse children?
It is a learned behaviour. They are generally (but not all) children who have lived through neglect and abuse themselves, either abuse by an adult or another child or adolescent. This might be non-contact abuse, such as being forced to look at porn or watch adults having sex.
In some cases, they will have ‘normalised’ the abuse they have lived through and not realise what they are doing to another child is wrong. And they don’t realise that it’s harming them as much as the other child.
It’s also true that children who abuse other children need help as much as the children they hurt.
This is not to say that as an adult who realises they experienced child on child sexual abuse, you should brush it off as ‘he or she didn’t know what they were doing’. If it was an upsetting experience for you, it is important to take it seriously.
It is also not to say that all children who are abused go on to abuse other children, or even to say that the majority do.
Dealing with memories of child on child sexual abuse
It can be very confusing to have memories of child on child sexual abuse, particularly if it was a sibling.
An exploratory study talking to over forty survivors of sibling incest found that survivors often convinced themselves it was consensual, or even changed the story to make themselves the instigator.
If you believe you were abused by another child, it doesn’t matter if your memories are confusing or uncertain. It’s advisable to take the same steps as navigating any other kind of sexual abuse (see our article ‘What to Do Now if you Think You Were Abused‘).
Can therapy help me?
If there was one thing seeking support is fairly essential for, it’s navigating child sexual abuse, regardless if the perpetrator was a child, adolescent, or adult. Abuse hits us at the core of who we are. Trying to untangle it can release deep feelings of shame, anxiety, and fear.
And talking about it to the wrong person can leave us feeling traumatised all over again, if we perceive their response to be a judgement or rejection. Or, worse, a denial of our experience.
It’s important to find support from someone who understands. This could mean first sharing with a trusted friend who always believes in you. But it’s advisable to then seek a support group, or the support of a counsellor or psychotherapist who can create a safe space for you to process your experiences and emotions.
Need help processing child sexual abuse? We connect you with top London therapists for abuse survivors at our central offices or online. Or use our online booking platform to source affordable UK-wide registered therapists and online counselling now.
Still have a question about child-on-child sexual abuse? Or have a survivor story you want to inspire other readers with? Use the comment box below. All comments moderated.
Child play and physical exploration is natural. Children experiment with each others bodies cooperatively. I just feel a lot of people are in denial this happens naturally. Maybe because child abusers use this behaviour as a justification for their crimes and that children should not have sexual curiosities. But they do and its innocent. I`m not referring to toddlers as such because at that age they don’t really have a complete understanding of sexuality, its not conscious actions.
Every instance of sexual encounter when I was a child it was initiated by females a year or two older. I was about 9 or 10 which I consider being a child. I am male and one would expect it more likely to happen naturally from the opposite sex. I recognise in adult life it was child sex play. Well, its not really sex. Its experimentation, exploration play. I never felt intimidated or coerced although it was introduced to me, rather than having the inclination myself. I didn’t really get much excitement from it but it wasn’t a negative experience. Before that age I had no interest in girls or sex, it sort of just happened. Girls chased boys, wanted to kiss the boys! I just liked the attention and kisses. Then they wanted to come around for tea and get you alone to play doctors and nurses. But in a loving family, parents cuddle, they kiss, its natural. Mine did. So I guess the girls just copy mummy and I imagine maybe are coming into puberty too. Some girls seemed more advanced than others though. I don’t have any guilt or shame because I didn’t feel the need to resist it. I`m not wanting hurt people sexually or force anyone as an adult to do unnatural things and see it as natural aspect of growing up.
I believe people develop at different stages during puberty, get sexual urges naturally and I don`t think its uncommon where 12 year old girls or boys have an early puberty and are capable of wanting sex. My ex girlfriend (57) says she had menstruation at 10 and puberty at 11. Obviously, laws are in place to prevent the complications of this. However, its the hormones which dictate actions, not the law. Many who are young adolescents actually discover sex naturally, enjoy it and continue, whatever their age or risks. In my experiences, females are just as eager to have sexual encounters as males, even as young girls it seems.
Above the age of say 9, I believe a child has cognative ability to reconise right from wrong but they might not report it. Obviously people with learning difficulties it may be much older into adulthood. I`d certainly say from my experiences as a child that below the ages of 9 then any mimicking of sexual acts or verbal sexuality then there is probably some external influence. You’re not particularly aware of sex below that age. It may not particularly mean any sinister goings on. Maybe there are older siblings around and picked up from them, accidentally witnessed parents having sex or access to the internet unsupervised. Print was very much the media when I was young and old enough to show an interest, we often found porn magazines dumped in woodlands and read them but now it is instant access online. Of course it could also mean abuse from another child or adult.
Hi there Keke, as you’ll see in the article, we agree that child exploration is normal, it just depends on what it is and how it happens, the article makes the important boundaries clear. The one thing we’d challenge here is any implication a 9 year-old should ‘know’ if something is right or wrong and therefore choose to stop it or report. Some children are bought up without any healthy talk about their bodies, are forced via religion to think of their body as ‘bad’, and can have no idea they have a right to set boundaries. Or feel so much shame after they blame themselves. And then there is coercion and manipulation. Anyone coercing any child or even any adult for that matter into sexual activity with manipulation is out of line and in the case of children are breaking the law. Many children and again adults don’t know how to recognise or navigate manipulation. Best, HT.