[Merope]

I'm struggling to understand whether what happened to me when I was a kid was abuse or something else. Am I making a big deal out of nothing?

My parents and I don't really get along BUT there is a lot of love there. I know they love me and I love them and I also know that they wouldn't intentionally hurt me.

That being said, when I was a pre-teen and young teen, my stepdad used to sometimes watch me get changed (especially when we were on holiday). He would take photos of me putting on my trousers in the hotel room and take photos of me on the beach (he also took photos (rather sexual in nature) of other women who were chilling on the beach).

Sometimes my parents would ask me to lift my top up and show them my chest. Once when I was about 10, they asked me to lift my top up for a male friend of theirs with the promise that he'll give me "a fiver" if I did it. I don't think they got anything "sexual" out of it...I genuinely think they did it for a laugh, but it still made me feel uncomfortable. If I were to confront them about it now, they'd say "don't you know what a joke is?!"

It never became a physical thing and I don't think it had the intention of being sexual, which is why I'm unsure whether to term it "sexual abuse". It seems like a bit of a grey area and I'm struggling to get my head around it. In particular, I find it hard to marry the idea of loving/caring parents (though terribly flawed in their parenting) with those actions.

[Rive1976]

In my opinion its covert sexual abuse. What your stepdad did taking pics and watching you undress.

[Amyjay]

I agree with Dnester.
I think if you talked with your parents about this now they would probably continue to say you can't take a joke and were overreacting. I presume that because that is what I think people who don't care about trampling over the boundaries of other people would say, and from what you've said I think their behavior fits into that group.
I also think if you were to poll a group of people and ask if what they did was "normal and acceptable behavior" for parents, the vast majority of people would say "No it is not."
I really don't think what they did was okay at all. I doubt they would ever agree with you if you talked about it with them. I hope you can have firm boundaries with them now that you are no longer a vulnerable child and not let them treat you so poorly anymore.

Edited to add: even extremely abusive parents can be loving and caring some of the time. It's hard to figure out. I think more parents are generally good people, but some have glaring blind spots. Sometimes even caring, loving and apparently "good" parents can cause great harm. Them asking you to lift up your top to show your chest to someone else may well have "just been a joke" - to them. They may have "reasoned" that no-one was touching you and you hadn't developed yet so no harm would be done.
But they were wrong, weren't they? It felt wrong to you at the time and it has felt wrong to you ever since. Their "joke" has caused a lot of harm.

No, it wasn't okay.

[theKow]

Nothing covert about the abuse. They crossed a line.

I have gone through something similar in that when I was abused, I didn't recognize it as abuse. It was just something that happened. As I got older and compared my life to others the abuse was there staring back at me.

I had to sort through the feelings and the facts. Slowly the dissonance in my mind dissolved. It wasn't normal. My parents and those around me were wrong, or blind, or willingly ignorant. They failed me.

The feeling it was 'normal' still lingers from time-to-time. Like, "it wasn't that big a deal" type of thing. But it was. It is. And trying to see the abuse through the eyes of that 8 or 10 year-old doesn't work. You rarely can see it within the mindset of a child.

That's why adults are supposed to watch out for us. Not feed off us.

[Bill3]

I find it hard to marry the idea of loving/caring parents (though terribly flawed in their parenting) with those actions.

Me too.

What you described them to be doing is abuse.

Your stepfather's behavior was horrible.

With regard to showing your chest: It isn't funny for parents to humiliate a child, ever. It is emotional abuse.