agonyaunt | Dear Abby: Photo Of Naked Stepsister Is No Longer A Laughing Matter

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Dear Abby: Photo Of Naked Stepsister Is No Longer A Laughing Matter

DEAR ABBY: I don't like my stepsister, and when she stays with us, I'm forced to share a room with her. The last time she was here I got so mad at her I pretended to send a text message on my cell and secretly took a picture of her as she got out of the shower. I knew it was wrong, but it seemed funny at the time.

I sent it to my boyfriend because he doesn't like her either, even though he thinks she has a hot body. I thought it would be a joke just between us, but he sent it to some of his friends, and now it's making the rounds. Luckily, she goes to a different school, so nobody has recognized her, but I'm scared someone will. I'd give anything to take back what I did. What should I do? -- SCARED STEPSISTER

DEAR SCARED STEPSISTER: You should be scared. What you did was shameful and dangerous. Not only was it an invasion of privacy, it is also a crime -- distribution of a pornographic image of a minor. Now that photo is on the internet, you will not be able to take it back.

Pray that no one in your family finds out, or you may be grounded, like, forever, and your boyfriend will be history. If the news does get back to your family, prepare yourself for a punishment like no other.

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Okay, let's get this out of the way: what LW did was vile, awful, and they should feel bad about it.

That said, Abby's advice is terrible. First, your stepsister has a right not to be blindsided when (not if; when) someone connects her to the picture. And second, you'd be better off just getting it over with than sweating it out for years to come. At least if you come forward, you have honesty and contrition on your side.

And also BREAK UP WITH YOUR BOYFRIEND, NOW, HE IS NOT SAFE AND ENCOURAGES THE WORST IN YOU.

Yes, yes, yes.

I wanted to say that. Kudos!

THIS.

This is a thing that people have faced criminal charges for. Sticking her head in the sand and hoping it goes away is spectacularly bad advice.

Ok, I know that it's a common desire to have bad things just disappear and go away, whether we caused them or not. But why do we keep perpetuating the belief that this is the best thing to actually do? Ok, there have been one or two times where I did a bad thing and it was undiscovered or quietly forgotten, but I can't say that having them lingering in the recesses of my psyche has been a great thing. Far far better would be to own up to it, face the fact that you did something shitty, and maybe learn from it and be a better person. People get pissed when you do something shitty. People get pissed enough to shut you out of their lives forever and advise others to do so as well when you do something shitty, hide the fact and hope that it goes away, and then get discovered.

And Abby should damned well know that.

"or you may be grounded, like, forever"

*eyerolling, like, forever*

Her boyfriend SHOULD be history; he's made a bad situation much worse. The LW needs to dump his ass and talk to her parents about what she did, and what he did, and what to do next.

Depending on how old she and the BF and the step sister are, and where they live, either LW or boyfriend could be preparing to go to jail. And to live with a record of having committed the kind of crime that dogs you for the rest of your life. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. (One of the things that is really dreadful about USian criminal justice ("justice") and sexual crimes is how uneven it is; most go entirely unpunished and uncontrolled, except a few are completely disproportionate so an 18-year-old sleeping with a 16-year-old whose parents disapprove, or a 17-year-old doing what LW did, are suddenly sex crimes tried as an adult).

This is terrible advice if only because it's not actually practical for LW. Yes, parents and stepsister need to know what happened. And yes, boyfriend needs to be dumped. But parents also need to know so they can talk to a fucking lawyer, both to protect step sister if the pictures get spread further, and to protect LW from pedophilic images laws.

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