When I was 12-14, I had a girlfriend who was about 1.5 years older. She exposed me to sexual content and pressured me into online sexual roleplaying. She was being groomed herself at the time. What would this experience be classified as? Is it COCSA? I have PTSD from it, but I've been told the age gap wasn't large enough to be considered grooming.

Answer

Thank you for trusting us with this. I want to start by emphasizing that only you can decide how to label what happened to you - no one else can define your experiences or tell you how to feel about them. What you're describing could certainly align with COCSA (Child-on-Child Sexual Abuse) as you mentioned, however, whether you choose to use this term or others to describe your experience is entirely your decision.

The situation you described - being pressured into sexual content and roleplaying online between ages 12-14 by an older peer - was clearly traumatic, as evidenced by your PTSD. While your girlfriend was also a minor and was herself being groomed, this doesn't diminish the impact her actions had on you. Sometimes when young people are being abused, they may reenact harmful behaviors with others, creating complex layers of trauma.

Whether or not you choose to use the term "grooming" to describe your experience, what matters is that you experienced pressure and coercion during a vulnerable time in your life, and those experiences have left lasting effects. The presence of manipulation and sexual pressure at such a young age can be traumatic regardless of how others might try to categorize or minimize it.

Your feelings, trauma responses, and PTSD are completely valid. You were not at fault for what happened, and you deserve support in healing from these experiences. If you haven't already, working with a trauma-informed therapist who specializes in these experiences could provide valuable support in processing everything in a safe environment, whenever you feel ready to take that step. I hope this helps. Thank you again for reaching out to us. You are not alone.