Getting rid of pornographic stuff on the computer

[Yahoi]

Hi,

I lived for some years in Europe and I had a girlfriend there. Before my convertion we used to take photos of ourselfs naked and everything got stored together with all other photos of my time abroad (travelling, work… the immoral photos were mixed with the good ones). I transfered all the photos to my computer. After my convertion and after breaking with my girlfriend I was always afraid and never opened the folder with the photos of my yesrs in Europe, because I was afraid of seeing photos of my girlfriend.

After coming back to my homeland some relatives came to visit me. There was a high probability that they would be interested in seeing my photos. I was afraid they could see something immoral.

So I prayed and then took my computer and opened the folder. And I started to scroll down the folder very carefully and with my eyes almost closed and as soon as I noticed that there was an immoral photos there I just pressed the delete button.

Now I am thinking with myself if I have commited sin. It was I very hard situation for me. It was really disgusting and I wish I could have avoided it.

It was the best idead I hat at the moment. I did not want to delete everything because I had more than 3000 files there and just about 90 were immoral. I also can not lie to my relatives and I also could not have said “Sorry, but I can not show you the photos because there are photos of myself naked in the folder.” and even if I had told then that I do not want to show then the photos, they would have probably thought that there is something immoral that I do not want to show.

 

[Irishmom2]

If you deleted them, that’s a good thing. Feeling bad about having to see them to delete them is also a good thing. It shows that you see it was wrong.

If you haven’t been to confession in the past for how you were while living in Europe, then do go soon. If you still feel badly despite having gone in the past perhaps speaking to your priest would help you.

 

[DignumEtJustum]

I’ve been told that feeling bad about past sins does provide some form of grace. I would think that seeing those pictures is not something you’ve not seen before nor didn’t know is something you had to deal with. I wouldn’t personally worry about it but subtly bring it up at your next confession if it bothers you enough that it still comes to mind then.

 

[Yahoi]

Thank you people. I was really afraid of a scandal with my relatives, so opening the folder and carefully deleting every single immoral photo in order to save the good ones was the best option I have found. I will bring it to the next confession to have full peace of conscience.

 

[lilypadrees]

It’s always good to delete photos of that type. Even better would have been not taking nude photos at all since deleting the photos still doesn’t delete the record of them from your hard drive.

My advice is to put the photos you want to keep on a flash drive and then take your computer in for a complete cleaning and have your programs reinstalled so you can start fresh.

And yes, go to Confession about all of this.

 

[runningdude]

Viewing nudity is not inherently sinful. Sometimes circumstances make it impossible to avoid.

Anything immoral was done years ago. It was immoral, in no small part, because it could lead you into temptation years later. Deleting the content after brief review is an OK solution to an imperfect situation.

 

[BoomBoomMancini]

If you were worried about looking at them in order to delete them, don’t. There’s no sin there.

Your intent matters. You werent looking at them for sexual gratification, you were looking at them so you could identify which pictures to delete.

 

[Roguish]

Don’t forget to empty your “Recycle Bin”, the trash can on your computer’s desktop. You can empty it without opening it, by right-clicking it and choosing “Empty Recycle Bin” (on Windows anyway). If you don’t do this, those pictures will still be on your computer even though you’ve deleted them from the folder where you kept them.

 

[goout]

There is no requirement to show photos to others.
In my experience, it is difficult to erase tracks. Our life seems to be an open book at times, and despite our best efforts to hide ourselves “what is hidden comes into the light”.
I can recall looking through my girlfriends scrap book years ago and seeing a couple of pictures that were not immoral as such, but that communicated a relationship she did not really want me to know about. It’s not hard to connect dots.
And your relatives don’t have an absolute right to know everything.

What you might do is copy select good photos out of that folder onto a stick or cloud storage, and just completely delete this old folder.
And then you can have peace.

 

[Canvas]

excellent point. Intent is required for sin.

Getting rid of pornography isn’t a sin. Years ago, to get rid of your porn, you probably would have been exposed to pictures in magazines—or personal pics you might have taken yourself. Unless you put on a blindfold or something, you would be at risk for seeing explicit images.

 

[TheLittleLady]

Not only delete them, use a program that “shreds” the items you have deleted.