Ask Me Help Desk - How to confront boyfriend on porn... found on accident?

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Originally Posted by Oliver2011

She also needs to be very careful in dealing with the information she has.Viewing kiddie porn is illegal. She has viewed it and not reported it. Not reporting it could also come under fire.

Yes, however, this puts her in an awkward position. This is the person she cares about. She doesn't want to see something bad happen to him, not to mention, she doesn't know for sure the age of these girls. I mean that's a pretty serious accusation without KNOWING the facts.

Her best bet is to be honest with him.

Explain that you happened to stumble across the porn and that it isn't the porn you are concerned with, it is the type of porn.

As others stated, these girls could be older than what they appear to be.

All of this rests on the ability of the OP to determine whether these are children or women that just look like children. The majority of the time, I would say most people can tell the difference between a pre-pubescent child and a teenager. I would believe that an 18-19 year old might look 14, 13, 12, but not 8. And if she can't tell and he says it's not (which he will say whether he's innocent or guilty), what does she do? I personally would be concerned by my partner masturbating to women that look like they could be small children, regardless of whether they actually are. There is porn designed to appeal to pedophiles (as mentioned earlier by dontknownuthin) where the women are made to look like children. If you're partner is turned on by that, shouldn't that be worrisome?

What about the skinny runway models who look like kids, to me any way. Some being 40? This isn't something to assume and take actions over. This is where getting facts through communicating is needed.

Many models are very young. Some of the biggest names started when they were 14, 16, etc. While I might mistake a 40 year old model for being in her 30's or even 20's, I can't think of any that I would mistake for being children under 10. And my point about the communication is that whether he's innocent or guilty, he will say the same thing - that they are not children. Maybe he'll be able to summon up proof that these images are of women not girls, but if she determines it's impossible to tell what they are, she'll have to consider the situation differently.

You know, this whole situation is a great example of why the age for adult performers ought to be bumped up to 21.

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Originally Posted by smoothy

Exactly...people into that would know full well the legal ramnifications and would not be that casual about it.

It happens all the time. People regularly get busted for having porn, including child porn, on their computers and typically it's on the home computer. I've even read of school administrators and people like that having this stuff on their computers at work. I've known of several situations in the workplace where people were fired for having various types of porn on their work computers, even knowing that there were policies in place and that their computer was not private. Some people are compulsive with porn use and they do ultimately get caught because the compulsion is more important to them than anything else.

The point I believe is being made by Talaniman and I have been pointing out is some people are better at judging ages at a casual glance than others are. Meaning some people are really bad at it... and people who want to see something that isn't there is going to see what they want to see.

Your eyes can be deceived by your own brain... Hollywood relys on how easy it is with every single movie they make... or TV show they produce.

But does the OP really want to see this? If anything, she seems to be wanting just the opposite and was relieved when it was suggested that they may only look like children, not actually be children. Her bias should be operating the other way because she has a lot to lose if she wrongly accuses him.

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Originally Posted by dontknownuthin

It happens all the time. People regularly get busted for having porn, including child porn, on their computers and typically it's on the home computer. I've even read of school administrators and people like that having this stuff on their computers at work. I've known of several situations in the workplace where people were fired for having various types of porn on their work computers, even knowing that there were policies in place and that their computer was not private. Some people are compulsive with porn use and they do ultimately get caught because the compulsion is more important to them than anything else.

I disagree that pedophiles leave it open for everyone to see without any access controls.

Just because authorities found something on a machine... doesn't mean it didn't take them two months of work to break the encryption on it first to find it.

Or that the person that had it even knew it was illegal. After all what's the difference between a nude 17 and 18 year old a month or so apart in age? Besides time in jail? Many 17 year olds have already graduated while some 18 year olds are still in high school. I was already well into my first year of College before I turned 18.

I've personally known 20something year old women that looked far younger than some 15 year olds I've known. I've even oogled over two very well developed and shapely neighbors out sunbathing in their bikinis... everyone that visited me thought they were sisters... come to find out later that the one was 15 and the other was her mother... when I got invited to her birthday party by her parents... the day she turned 16... a year after I moved in there.

I was the only person invited... and they were wealthy and well connected... not looking for a free ride (they tried to set me up with her).. Nope, it wasn't the one I married.

And there was nothing worong with that in that culture... (Europe not a third world country).

Most of what passes for news today is nothing different than you would read in the National Enquirer... or any of those types of periodicals.

You do remember it was them that were attacked for slurs against John Edwards... long before it actually came out that it was true.

Knowing a few things about computer forensics and other things like data recovery helps too.

You could literally buy a refurbished computer that was formated and a fresh operating system on it... and have kiddie porn recovered from the hard drive from a previous owner that you didn't even see on the drive... yes its possible... very, very possible.

Files are not really deleted when you delete them... they in many cases can even be recovered after a drive is wiped and reformatted and a new OS installed.

Scarey isn't it... but its also true.

There is also something called stegonography

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steganography yeah... its never so simple and cut and dry as you wish it was.

Again - all a real stretch. She found kiddie porn on her boyfriend's computer of girls she estimates to be 8 to 9 years old. She can do as some suggest here and pretend they are young looking older teens of legal age, and pretend that it's not a problem. And she can bring her baby daughter into the relationship and into the home with someone she suspect to be involved in a felony involving the sexual exploitation of children. Personally, I think excuses can be made for anything but this is what you call a smoking gun. I wonder what thinking is behind giving someone the benefit of the doubt when the potential abuse and exploitation of children is involved. To protect herself legally, since she also lives in the home and also has use of the computer, she needs to report this herself. To protect her child from a potential threat, she needs to stop living with this person. If he's innocent and the children are shown to be 18 or 19, there will be no criminal consequences for him. There's still the question why he's attracted to girls who look like children. And there's still the question of why he's lying about his use of porn. And there's still the question of why, if it's his computer and she came across this information so easily, he didn't find it and delete it before, given that it's his computer. And there's still the question of why, if he accidentally came across these pictures, that they are downloaded and saved to the hard drive. Let her protect herself and her soon to be daughter as a first priority. She can certainly tell him she came across the information and give him a chance to delete it all if she doesn't want to get him in trouble. Then again she remains at legal risk if she doesn't report it because, as you've pointed out, what's deleted isn't really gone. And when the person creating and distributing these photos is inevitably caught, it will be determined who downloaded them as well. Remain in a home where a felony is being committed and you are asking to be implicated in the whole mess.

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Originally Posted by dontknownuthin

Again - all a real stretch. She found kiddie porn on her boyfriend's computer of girls she estimates to be 8 to 9 years old. She can do as some suggest here and pretend they are young looking older teens of legal age, and pretend that it's not a problem. And she can bring her baby daughter into the relationship and into the home with someone she suspect to be involved in a felony involving the sexual exploitation of children. Personally, I think excuses can be made for anything but this is what you call a smoking gun. I wonder what thinking is behind giving someone the benefit of the doubt when the potential abuse and exploitation of children is involved. To protect herself legally, since she also lives in the home and also has use of the computer, she needs to report this herself. To protect her child from a potential threat, she needs to stop living with this person. If he's innocent and the children are shown to be 18 or 19, there will be no criminal consequences for him. There's still the question why he's attracted to girls who look like children. And there's still the question of why he's lying about his use of porn. And there's still the question of why, if it's his computer and she came across this information so easily, he didn't find it and delete it before, given that it's his computer. And there's still the question of why, if he accidentally came across these pictures, that they are downloaded and saved to the hard drive. Let her protect herself and her soon to be daughter as a first priority. She can certainly tell him she came across the information and give him a chance to delete it all if she doesn't want to get him in trouble. Then again she remains at legal risk if she doesn't report it because, as you've pointed out, what's deleted isn't really gone. And when the person creating and distributing these photos is inevitably caught, it will be determined who downloaded them as well. Remain in a home where a felony is being committed and you are asking to be implicated in the whole mess.

First off... if he watches porn or not is his business alone and nobody has any right at all to say otherwise... he's an adult... not a child and she's not his mommy... or his superiour.

If she reports him and it causes him any trouble and it turns out it really WASN'T kiddie porn... I hope he makes her life a living hell... because you know what they say about payback... because it would have been an open attempt to destroy his reputation and life... and that opens her up it all sorts of action... civil and criminal if she's wrong.

You know that thing about actions having consequences.

Personally I see some people jumping to conclusions that would be screaming the loudest if such accusations were ever as casually made at them.

Personally I think THOSE people have control issues and they themselves think no man should ever cast his eyes on another female, because they don't think they should ever face their own problems.

Might be a stretch in your mind... but I've been working in the field for enough of the last 30 years... I know exactly what can happen, what has happened... what can be hidden how its hidden and what processes can be used to recover data... as well as how you can make sure nobody can ever recover it... ever.

Incidentally I have the capacity to recover data from machines that have been reformatted at home... and federal agencies have capabilities that are a quantum leap beyond that.

And there have been cases in just the last year or two where people have purchased supposedly NEW computers that have had porn of various types on them...

And that's not speaking machines that are clearly used when acquired... or refurbished...

And that's if their machine isn't affected my malware when someone remotely accesses their machine and stores it there for various reasons... all keeping it essentially untraceable back to the person doing it... and that's not at all a stretch because there are millions of machines worldwide that various aspects of that type of thing are happening to every day... most of their owners are completely oblivious its happening... because most people don't go pouring through every file and directory on their machine frequently. And a lot of people have no software to prevent such malware... or detect it.

But then... hes a only a man... he's not entitled to any benefit of the doubt or , being assumed innocent until proven guilty because whatever SHE decides to think at any time is all that matters... I mean he's not entitled to any rights at all is he...

And Incidentally... if some woman falsely accused me of such a thing and she was pregnant with my baby... I would throw her out and spend the next 18 or 19 year fighting to get FULL custody of the child... because I couldn't trust her to turn my back on her or leave her with any of my property. She wouldn't get a first warning... she would be gone the first time it happened... there are some things I could not tolerate... first is cheating.. the second is being stabbed in the back.

Not to mention.....making false accusations against someone can result in both civil and criminal penalties. So you better be damned sure BEFORE you make them.

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it not only hurts and worries me that he lied, but also that throughout these some several hundred saved photos of naked women, some seem to be young girls as young as what appears to be pre pubescent, like around 7 or 9.

Get the facts before you act, just in case the mistake is YOURS. If she isn't certain, then how can we be? I hope the OP comes back with facts.

She's not going to be charged with any criminal charges for advising the authorities that there appear to be photos which are child pornography on the computer. If they prove not to be children, nothing more will come of it. It is not frivolous if she reasonably believes them to be children. If he can demonstrate that they were not downloaded while he has been in possession of the computer, again, nothing will come of it.

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Originally Posted by dontknownuthin

She's not going to be charged with any criminal charges for advising the authorities that there appear to be photos which are child pornography on the computer. If they prove not to be children, nothing more will come of it. It is not frivolous if she reasonably believes them to be children. If he can demonstrate that they were not downloaded while he has been in possession of the computer, again, nothing will come of it.

What's the all fired hurry to rush into such an extreme reaction? If they prove not to be as she assumes she has put her whole family and future at risk, and for what a misunderstanding? Its easy to say nothing will come of it after the authorities are brought in, except if he is inocent such actions will likely destroy them as a new family. That's a rather harsh suggestion given we don't know what appears to be what.

Give them time to work it out and see what happens my GOSH! At least wait for the OP to hopefully return.

I agree with Tal.

OP hasn't been back with any updates. We should at least wait to see was has happened, if anything at all.

- And a few words about the pain caused by snooping. I note OP wasn't snooping, just went through (apparently) all the photos on the computer.

Has OP asked HIM what the photos are about? If under-age is his "thing" I'd rather ask and find out 100% than not know.

And, yes, fighting child pornography in NY now has its own task force. When the Police arrest one person they take that computer and find ALL the people who have shared the site - and then they get arrested, too.

It's a domino effect.

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Originally Posted by dontknownuthin

She's not going to be charged with any criminal charges for advising the authorities that there appear to be photos which are child pornography on the computer. If they prove not to be children, nothing more will come of it. It is not frivolous if she reasonably believes them to be children. If he can demonstrate that they were not downloaded while he has been in possession of the computer, again, nothing will come of it.

Lets see YOU try it and have it turn out otherwise... Those legal fess you would be facing wouldn't quite so imaginary then...

Better yet... lets have someone report YOU for child abuse... but then what harm is there in that anyway... after all if you aren't doing anything its not going to cause you any problems or expense now would it? And YOU would not be able to sue them or get them charged for making false accusations could you?

Why would it be any different if its turned around making YOU the victim of a false report... after all... nobody has proven he has broken any laws yet.

Funny how some women assume the guy is ALWAYS guilty until proven innocent... but if they get accused of smacking around their kids the same women will argue THEY are innocent until proven guilty... a bit of hypocrisy going on there.

Because they believe things are ALWAYS as they appear at first glance... unless of course they are at the receiving end of something that might look bad at first glance...

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Originally Posted by talaniman

Whats the all fired hurry to rush into such an extreme reaction? If they prove not to be as she assumes she has put her whole family and future at risk, and for what a misunderstanding?? Its easy to say nothing will come of it after the authorities are brought in, except if he is inocent such actions will likely destroy them as a new family. Thats a rather harsh suggestion given we don't know what appears to be what.

Give them time to work it out and see what happens my GOSH! At least wait for the OP to hopefully return.

That's because unlike us, they can read tarot cards, tea leaves and chicken entrails... and unlike us... they have a working crystal ball.

Why the extreme? Because if she is correct and 8 or 9 year old girls are photographed naked, they need to be rescued from the abusive life they are living. You're all about protecting an adult man - I'm all about protecting little girls.

If is not a fact. We don't know do we? You see all porn as exploitive, therefore wrong. Is that why you throw caution to the wind and act on the worst case scenerio?

What gets me is that she said they look like "pre pubescent" girls, like 7-9 years old. Not young teens (of course looking at young teens is wrong and illegal too). It's quite hard for an 18 year old (or anyone) who's gone through puberty to look pre pubescent 7-9 years old! There's still a big difference in a young skinny teen that's flat chested and completely shaved, and a pre pubescent girl.

Also like other people have already said, if they are made to look 7-9 little girls, that is still very disturbing for her b/f to be attracted to that. And that's REALLY hard for an 18 year old to pull off! Pulling off to look 13-14, sure. Under 10, and haven't gone through puberty? I don't think so.

I hope the OP comes back to update us. After all these responses maybe she's taken a closer look at the pictures. Does she still think they are that young? If it were me and I was certain about it, I'd leave him immediately.

I see news of these arrests all the time. One was even a state delegate in nearby MD and he just recently got out of prison after a two or three year term in the state pen. I often wonder if the people arrested and jailed (don't remember ever seeing any news about anybody found not guilty but maybe some were) were victims of some crazy circumstances, and even if they were- what evidence could they come up with that would trump the police finding illegal pictures on their computer? From what I have read, they often find illegal pictures on computers while searching for evidence of other types of wrongdoing and even if they find nothing to supoprt their original case, they make the illegal porn charge.
I am under the impression that even if the computer is destroyed or suspicious material is deleted, it might be found on a server somewhere? I don't know- I'm asking.
Looking at possible options:
1. Ask him, and he admits he has a problem. Get rid of him.
He takes his computer with him but if he ever gets caught there might a record of "mjf" having looked at it too(?).
2. Same as 1 above but she reports it and hopes she doesn't get charged too.
One can go through all the possible options but there don't seem to be any that have a very predictable outcome. And if it is a misunderstanding or some kind of snafu, one life or more could be destroyed.
I don't like to constantly tell folks to go to lawyers because it can get expensive and/or complex fast, but if this were my daughter I would tell her to go see an attorney who defends clients in these types of cases before taking any other step.
If the recommendation is to notify authorities, have the attorney go with you when it is reported.
That's all I've got. This is about the biggest no-win predicament I have ever seen here. Or maybe, this isn't as unusual as it appears, and the experienced attorney knows a way to deal with it with the least damage to "mjf".