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female
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anonymous
writes: This feels like a really stupid question, but I need to know what people make of it to put my mind at ease. When I was about 10 years old my next door neighbour used to babysit me. He was around 15 at the time, and he always used to play this 'game' where he would trap my hands in his shorts. He would grab my hands and put them down his pants and make me touch around his genitals. At the time this seemed really not normal to me, but I doubted that it was sexual as his family were always very close, and maybe this really was some kind of game he played with his siblings? He's at university at the moment, but sometimes he'll come home and he always seems a little awkward around me (maybe I'm just being paranoid). I just wanna know if this was some kind of sexual abuse or whether I'm just overreacting, because it's been bugging me for 5 years and I can't tell anyone in case it was all innocent in his eyes, and I don't want to falsly accuse him of anything.
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female
reader, Bev Conolly  +, writes (19 January 2006):
 I don't think it's a silly question, but the answer is Yes, he did. The reason I say so is that he used his position of authority (babysitter) and his superior strength and age to intimidate you into touching his penis, when you had no desire to and weren't old enough to make an informed choice. He also did it when no one else was around, because he instinctively knew he was doing wrong.
To be fair to him, I'm sure that like most 15-year-old males, he had truly majestic quantities of testosterone coursing through his system at the time, and wasn't thinking clearly. However, he will have realised that what he was doing was reprehensible, then chose to do it anyway.
What happens next is really up to you. Yes, he's guilty of molesting you, so no wonder he feels uncomfortable seeing you.
I think you should speak to an adult about what happened, so you can explore how you feel about it now and decide what, if anything, you want to do about it. Maybe you can speak to a school counsellor, or someone else who can listen without automatically wanting to punish this guy, because you don't sound like you necessarily want redress at this stage.
The point is that you're still affected by this abuse five years later, so it still bothers you.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (19 January 2006): maybe talk to a councilor about it , sounds like he was to me but maybe because he was young himself maybe he did realise what he was doing could be betrayed that way and maybe it was all inoccent at the time and its not till now that he understands what this may mean and feels akward around you. but i think you should talk about this abit more in depth to someone , like a professional that has delt with this sorta thing b4 might be able to help you understand whats going on. good luck.
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