analog

Today, any picture that is taken of you should be assumed to be immediately available on the internet. So, if you don't want nudes of yourself out there, don't allow them to be taken. I know you want to trust boyfriends and such, but unfortunately that's just not realistic anymore. If you truly believe that your trust is unbreakable, you take the risk of letting them be taken and later on finding out that the trust left with the breakup.

mixedmedia

She asked him to delete them. What's to debate? It makes no difference what anyone else feels about it. Either you do the right thing or you are a lying putz. Yes, it truly is your choice in the end. What's more, you know it isn't right. Otherwise you wouldn't be bringing the question here soliciting for apologists. Pffft.

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PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

drewpy

worst day ever was when I gave an 8mm cassette to an ex ... I thought I would get it back, never did. deleted a bunch of stills too. Wish I still had them. after sharing that intimacy, and all the fond memories that go along with it, my visually orient brain would sure appreciate the actual reminders of the sweetness that was shared. I wouldn't trade those memories for anything.

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analog

I missed that part. If she asked you to delete them, you don't really own them, and you should do right and delete them.

mixedmedia

To me this says she doesn't want him to have them. End of story. One cannot keep them without being a, well, a putz.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

highthief

I suppose the difference is that what you describe is an illegal act, being a Peeping Tom and that the potential for interaction exists, both with the person beeing viewed and the public.

If it's just you, a photo, and 4 walls, I see no difference between that and thinking about an old lover while masturbating. And I'd argue that the majority of people do that at some point. So we're most of perverts, I guess.

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ASU2003

Would I need to delete every picture that I have of her because I might fantasize about her, or imagine what she looks like naked under her clothes?

Prince

Interesting thread. Actually had to think about this one.

I agree that the 'right' thing to do would be to delete them. I don't know whether I would or not, right off the bat.

However, by the time I would get in another relationship, I would. I wouldn't want my wife to have naked pictures of an ex lying around, so I can't really expect myself to get away with that either.

If the relationship didn't end horribly and she was a sweet person, and it was an all-around good relationship, I'd probably keep them for a while, so long as I was single. Not to beat off to (that would seem weird somehow), but as something to use to cling on to the memories with in an unhealthy fashion.

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Dilbert1234567

just a quick thought, let her encrypt them for you, that way, if you ever get back together, she can unlock them and they are not lost.

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Sultana

So if she's really nice, and mature enough to end the relationship gracefully, you'd not do what she specificially asked you to do?!?

Would you guys also make a copy of her house key when she asked for it back, because you really like to hang out there when she's not around?

Edited to add:
I don't think it would hurt to ask her to clarify what she wants, and if she's just concerned that the photos would end up in distribution, offer her some alternatives and tell her why. If things are as good between you as you say, maybe she'll trust you and relent.

Heh, do guys ever ask for compromising photos to be deleted after a break-up?

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jusolson00

I actually thought more people would have thought like this.. however it seems that about half of you are on one side of the issue while the rest of us reside in that hazy gray area. To me I agree that the pictures hold sentimital value and I value those memories just as much or even more so as the ones of us on vaction, with family, ect... I also find it extremely interesting to those who look at this with the attitude that keeping them is "perverted" and comparing it to looking at her through her window, or making a copy of her house key. Now while i respect their opionion I can only hope they respect mine. I do not keep them soley for the purpose to beat off too, I can easily close my eyes and remember our times together. I don't need the photos for that. My idea for this post was to explore the ideas of knowing what to do (In this case I think most can agree that if she askes you delete them that the "right" thing to do would be to delete them) and fighting that inner most desire to hold on them, even if she doesnt understand why. They say that being in love makes you do crazy and illogical things. Well maybe this is one of them. Its easy to say on the outside to forget and move on, which is happening, but the world doesnt work that black and white.
Does this then mean that I'm going to have to delete her pictures of her at the lake in a sexy as hell red bikini??!!? say it isnt so...

Infinite_Loser

I say keep the photos. What she doesn't know can't hurt her.

(Just so long as the photos don't end up on the internet.)

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mixedmedia

That's all well and good, but I don't believe your sense of sentimentality about these pictures outweighs her wish to have them deleted.

There was once a time when honesty and character counted for something.

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Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats. - Diane Arbus
PESSIMISM, n. A philosophy forced upon the convictions of the observer by the disheartening prevalence of the optimist with his scarecrow hope and his unsightly smile. - Ambrose Bierce

Dilbert1234567

that just makes me sad.

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pig

i'm not sure i fully understand your point with this thread julosen. are you trying to validate the decision or point of view that not deleting the photos is understandable, or simply to acknowledge that it can be difficult to do? i think there are a lot of things you might not want to do when you end a relationship, but you still have to do them. to me, its part and parcel of ending the relationship. frankly, i remember in situations like this....i didn't want the pictures any more. the relationship was over. that's just my point of view, so perhaps its not worth going into within the context of this thread.

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Infinite_Loser

Why does it make you sad? If a woman gave me nude pictures of herself while we were dating then I don't see why she should care if I have them or not after the ensuing break-up. She gave them to me, so they're mine to do with as I please. If she was that concerned with the pictures, then she shouldn't have given them to me in the first place.

That's the way I see it.

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serlindsipity

well i hope that you tell every girl this when any girl offers you photos becuase 90% of them would hear this and immediately change their mind. Gifts like that do have an expiration on them and the date is set to "if and when we break up". Why? Becuase if you two could not manage a relationship then you obviously dont deserve soemthing like that either.

As for corcern of the pictures - we're always concerned. They are gifts that can be turned into blackmail in the blink of the eye.

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Gilda

I'd delete them if asked, out of respect for the relationship we once shared.

There are pictures of me out there that I'd prefer never came to light, but there's little I can do about that now.

Yep. When you delete something, the computer marks that area of the hard disc as available. The file stays there, intact, until the computer overwrites that space, which may take a very long time.

Over time, it becomes harder and harder to recover as it gets overwritten. Defragmenting will accelerate this process somewhat, and reformatting does a more thorough, though not perfect job if done only once. Whenever we get rid of an old computer, we reformat the hard drive twice before anyone else gets it to prevent anyone getting our personal information.

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pig

word. my guess is that its not an implicit understanding that the pictures will remain with you, regardless of the relationship. people are obviously different, as evidenced by responses in this thread. however, if the discussion of how this situation was to be handled didn't occur before the relationship ended...i just really can't see myself asking my ex if i can keep nude pics of her after the relationship is over. the whole point of breaking up is to move on...why would she want you hanging on to something that intimate. as i said, i might make her a copy and give it to her, as memory of her youth or whatnot. i'd just keep the memories for myself.

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Dilbert1234567

it makes me sad that if a woman who you at one point loved and cared about asked you to get rid of a private object that the 2 of you created as a couple, that you would not just refuse, but down right lie about it.

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Rinndalir

I agree that deleting permenantly (fileshredding) is the right thing to do. It would be tough. I have several gigs of homemade pictures and movies of my wife, if we were to ever split it would be very hard to let go. But if that's what she wants it would be the right thing.

Now, are you a horrible person if you lie and keep them anyway, probably not. Long as you're not an asshole and send them to your friends or post them on the internet anyway. But you would be lying, and you'd have to live with that.

paulskinback

Keep 'em, look at 'em every now and then. Sometimes you'll feel bitter, sometimes you'll think "good memories" but you never know when you might need them for blackmail.

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Dilbert1234567

for anyone that needs to clean the slack space on a windows box, the cipher command has a nice utility built in. delete any file you want gone, then open the run command from the start menu and type "cipher /w:c:" where c is the drive you want wiped, it will do 3 passes, and make it all nice and clean.

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yosho

just keep them, their your photos you can do with them what you want.

though out of respect, don't leak them on the internet and make sure the files are encrypted.

And finally, when you are ready to let go like when you find someone new, you can perhaps delete them as your own little moving on ceremony.

until then, I don't see any harm in keeping the pictures, it's not really hurting anyone.

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Dilbert1234567

if she asked you to delete them, you should comply with her wishes. I don't see where the confusion is here.

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highthief

I'm not sure where your confusion is.

I doubt you've done everything ever asked of you, have you?

Other people have a different world view, and it is one that hurts no one.

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World's King

So what if you never dated the girl? She just sent them to you to tease you?

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Rinndalir

Hmmm. Guess if she asks you to delete them, you should, regardless. If not, fair game.

And again, if you don't, and just keep them to yourself, are you a horrible human being - I'd say no. Not over that. You're not hurting anyone. But you are lying if you said you would and then don't do it. If you can live with that, even if no one ever finds out, well that's your decision to make not mine.

Dilbert1234567

for things as important as privacy i do. all photos of people who have asked me to delete them have been deleted, nude or not.

some of you guys make me sick.



and to World's King, if she asked me to delete them, they'd be gone.

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surferlove007

I dunno...I'm in my first relationship where we take nude pics therefore I wouldn't know how to respond. I think you should respect her and delete them and be done with it. Probably just clean cut everything and move on. Plain and Simple. Up time to get my laundry!

highthief

As ever, another fine, well reasoned contribution from you towards having a meaningful discussion.

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SAM821

what a great question... Personally, I do have some "private" photos of ex's, I also keep/have photos of all the girls I have been "intimate" with... I rarely look at them, but I do have them stored away in a "hidden" folder... maybe one day I will delete them, but it is nice to go back to that folder once in a blue moon and think back at some fun times... thats about all

yosho

if she's ur ex, you don't HAVE to listen to her, that's why breakups exist.

If you want to respect her wishes and delete them, that's perfectly fine and dandy, if you want to keep them for urself as memories, I really don't see the harm in that.

I don't see how the decision HAS to be one way or the other...either decision seems perfectly fine and normal to me, I don't see the 'horribleness' of it all.

There are things that are truely horrible in this world, keeping nude pictures of ur ex for memories sake is not one of them.

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point

My ex broke up with me just last month. I'm still trying to get over it and I'm going crazy.

Out of respect for her and mainly because I was still in love with her, I deleted them from my computer. But the pics were also in my email account because she had sent them to me. Those I couldn't bear to delete myself so I gave her my password and allowed her to delete them.

skaterpunk

It is a rough time... You did what would be considered honorable-but I don't know if I could bring myself to the same situation. If she is never going to see the computer again, and you promised not to leak them out to the net then I figure there would be no harm in keeping them, provided it will not in cause you to over obsess over her. The memories I have are some of the most important things I posess...

As far as this topic and pics of my ex gf goes, she was a dancer and wanted to be a pinup model. It wasn't really hard to get photos but when we broke up (because of her cheating on me with one of her ex's she was still in love with) I couldn't bear to look at her in that manner any more. So I deleted my personal pictures.
The memories of the friendship we shared still remain, and we will chat from time to time. We are just friends now, and it isn't too bad. I stayed mature about it all. I had my time to be upset and with time it passed. I could never go back to looking at her like that... I just don't want to.


I am still haunted by the one I fell in love with. It was mostly my fault that the breakup occured: young, stupid, noncommitted. I pay for it, I feel, every day.

So I can only hope your situation ended amicably, because if it didn't you will continue to drive yourself crazy until you are able to make your peace with her. In the end, if you are not meant to be together again you will find solace in her finding happiness. It will not be a fixall to the situation, but if you can just see that she is where she is good it will make your days easier.

Until then, you will need to find something to displace your mind. Catching up on old times and going back to those grass roots days where you were happy , before her, can get you over it.

This time is critical, mentally. Some people find getting new hobbies, like working out, martial arts, writing etc to displace that time you used to spend with her is quite therapuetic.

I wish ya the best with it.

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waltert

this thread has some interesting polarity to it, one side condemning the other as horrible, nasty people.

I've known people who have kept things from their past relationships for years...

personally if my gf and I broke up, I'd probably keep my private pictures of her until I am ready to delete them....honestly, I probably wont even be able to look at them...and will just keep them until I start dating another girl seriously.

they sure as hell arent going on the internet or out on public display.

if that makes me a bad person, well then I guess I'll have to live with it.

james t kirk

Funny story:

When I was in University - oh say late 1980's - long before digital cameras, I was dating an incredibly beautiful woman. We decided to take poloroid photos of each other in the buff.

I think I had about 3 or 4 or her in the nude, a couple of grainy penetration shots, and she had about 3 of my dick (which she put in her locker down at McMaster -discretely behind a poster.

Anyhoo, I had showed her where I hid the photos of us in the event that I was killed by a bus.

One time, we had one of those temporary break ups. One of the first things she said to me was, "I want the photos back". I said sure, but I want my dick pics back too.

I remember she stormed off and I got to thinking that she would make an end run around me and head up to my parent's house. I called my sister and told her a half truth - "If she shows up at the house, don't let her in".

Well she showed up all right, not 5 minutes after I called and told my unsuspecting FATHER that she was there to pick up a book from my room.

Of course he let her in, I'd been dating her for 2 years by that point. She made a bee-line for the hiding spot, picked up her task, and hit the road.

I'll give her credit where credit was due.

We ended up getting back together, but the photos went up in smoke.

It was good in that I am sure that given the nature of our eventual break up (brutal) that I would have done something really stupid with those photos that I would surely regret now.

It was bad because I lost something that I can not recapture. I think I was 20 and she was 19 when we took those photos. We were young, beautiful, and sexual innocents. So much has happened to me since then. I wish I could take a look at those photos now from time to time. I loved her so much it wasn't funny.

Like the guy said, all I get is the memories.