I have a memory of briefly kissing my infant sibling on the lips once when I was very young (5), out of curiosity, before immediately stopping. This memory is causing me significant daily distress because of how guilty I feel. Is this considered COCSA?

Thank you for trusting us with this. To help you make sense of this, it's important to understand what distinguishes normal childhood curiosity from COCSA. COCSA generally involves repeated behavior, coercion, force, or intent to engage sexually. What you're describing does not sound like it reflects those elements. When children around five years old explore physical contact in ways like a brief kiss, it often is a normal part of curiosity about the world and what affection looks like, rather than a deliberate or harmful act. At that age, children naturally experiment with gestures they see around them without the awareness or intent that adults associate with them later on. This kind of fleeting, self-corrected behavior is widely recognized by child development experts as falling within the range of age-appropriate exploration rather than harmful sexual behavior.

It makes complete sense that this memory and the guilt you feel have been weighing on you. It is very common to look back with an adult perspective and worry that something was wrong or that you had bad intentions as a child. The important thing to remember is that you were very young and children simply don't have the adult understanding of intimacy or the capacity for harmful intention that might apply in cases of actual abuse. This can lead to a lot of confusion and shame when recalling it in adulthood, even though it does not fit the patterns of harm we see in child-on-child sexual abuse.

The guilt you are feeling, while very real and valid as an emotional experience, does not seem proportionate to what actually happened. It might be worth gently asking whether that guilt is serving you or harming you at this point. Carrying adult-level shame for a single, momentary childhood behavior that you stopped on your own can become its own kind of wound. Reminding yourself that you were a child engaging in a fleeting moment of curiosity without a deeper motive can be an important step toward letting yourself heal. Thank you for trusting us with this.