Condemnation is easy on this one. But what I desperately need help with is support.

[known]

I've been on MN for over 2 years and post every day. But for obvious reasons I want to stay anonymous. I completely agree that I have no right to ban condemnatory comments from this thread, but I can plea. I know what my brother has done is wrong. And I could join in with the best of them at condemning him. So I haven't come here for help with that. I've come here because I love him and want to support him. But I am going to find that incredibly hard. MN has supported me through a really crap year, and I have faith that there are people out there who can support me with this. If you do want to condemn my brother you are welcome - but please start a new thread!

Basically he is being investigated by the police for downloading porn - pre pubescent boys. He was advised by the police not to tell his family, but he has, admits he has a problem and is already receiving counselling. Because of this I believe him when he says that he has never even had the urge to actually do anything - he only looks.

I love him. We are very close. My instinct is to ignore the crime and love my brother. But it is hard to do - especially as I provide his only nieces and nephews. Please please please support me in loving and supporting the person I love - my brother. Let me offload, this is going to be a tough time for the family.

Just because someone does something wrong doesn't mean you should stop loving them and caring about them. There must be some kind of support network for relatives somewhere - can you talk to his counsellor?

thank you - I hadn't thought of that. My parents could do with that too.

Hate the sin not the sinner. I really feel sorry for you, your world must be totally torn, I hope you get through this horrible time. ((()))

i once read an article by sex advice guru dan savage. in it he said that there were two types of paedophiles. the obviously bad ones who did actual acts. and the 'good' ones. these he described as people who were attracted to kids in a sexual way, but did not act on their desires/feelings.

it seems that perhaps your brother fits into this second category. internet porn is a funnyone. because it just doesnt seem real at aall. even i have seen internet porn, and i find it all gynacological. disgusting. simply dont see what people find attractive aboutit. id never choose to look at it in rl. but i have managed to stumble accross it on the net.
my advice? well, i think the police were correct in telling him not to tell anyone. however he has told you, the mother of his only nephews. i presume he wants your forgiveness? well, continue to love him. but do let him know that he was well on the way to crossing over from the side of the good ones to the bad ones. because even if net porn doesnt seem like rl, it is photographic evidence of it.
hth

So sorry for you and the rest of your brother's family. Agree professional help would be very useful for you to get through this and deal with all the conflicting emotions. Your brother is extremely lucky to have you, and I hope that you get the help you need to look after yourself while you are trying to care for him and those around you.

I am sure no-one would be so crass as to bring their own personal feelings about what your brother has done into this thread, when you so obviously need the support and sympathy of everyone around you.

I feel really sorry for you and your family, I cant imagen finding my brother has done something like this, I hope you and your family get the support you need and that your brother gets treatment.

in this article i read, dan savage was being asked for advice by a teacher trainee who was attracted to boys. dan's advice? stay clear of any job that brought him into contact with kids. because there would end up being one special kid who would cause him to fall into the abyss. he didnt condemn him. just told him to help himself avoid a situation in which he ended up abusing a child.

He's still your brother and the brother you have loved for all your lives. This doesn't take that away from him.

It's good that he's getting counselling as he's probably more keen than anyone to try to work out what's going on and why he has been driven to do it.

I agree with franny that he's lucky to have sister like you who's there for him. It's testament to you that he felt able to tell you and it must be a great relief for him. Tough on you though!

The internet is an odd thing (as we mn-ers know!). It's not like real life. You can be drawn into a world of your own at the keyboard as if RL doesn't exist.

Also, without access to the internet, the feelings which drew your brother into this would probably still have existed in some form within him, but he wouldn't have been able to pursue them or fan the flames as it were.

I don't know what the counsellor would say but I'd wonder if this 'interest' of his may well stem from unresolved feelings he had at a time when he was that age. We're very uptight as a society and many subjects aren't aired in a healthy way so can linger and come out in less healthy and less controlled ways.

How sad that he was told by the police not to tell anyone. So glad that he has.

Good luck with it known and of course you love your brother.

We can mistake the internet for our own private thoughts in a way. If your brother had had these thoughts and they'd remained in his head that would be so different. It would be none of our business. I'm sure many of us have at times included something deemed as 'unhealthy' or 'abusive' in our private fantasies but usually they remain inside our heads. All he has done is called up images which are in his head (whether he wants them to be or not) and been found out.

agree spidermama

that's very interesting, spidermama - there was a similar case that I spoke about with him - about 3 years ago, and he said exactly the same. I do feel cross now that I didn't pick up the hint and give him the support he needed then. But I guess you can think anything with hindsight.

Excellent post spidermama - this is so very true. Known, if only your brother had kept his fantasies in his head - sometimes I think the internet should never allow such things to be accessed as it does, but maybe if it weren't for the www then your brother would have found another medium? Sadly, it's too easy imo.

I'm glad he's got you for support, he is very lucky.

known, you have my sympathies. And hard as it is for you to know, surely it would have been worse for you not to know.

I do think it is possible for people to have innapropriate feelings, and not act on them. And hopefully the counselling will help him control his feelings, or perhaps even reduce or eliminate them.

You're being a very very good sister to him.

I am not for one moment condemning your brother - this same issue has recently torn through a family which have been friends of our family for many many years and the person guilty of the crime was the same age as me.

However, I just want to step in for a moment and say that I am very very worried about spidermama's post.

This is not a harmless just having thoughts in his head crime! The children involved are real children who have had their childhoods torn from them and abused in often horrific ways!

I agree with one of the other posters who has said, hate the crime not the criminal.

I know you love your brother and I am glad he shared this with you and is getting help. He will need your support to get through all this (prison sentences are quite stiff in this area, and the time in prison is not great for peodohpiles) and I hope you find the strength to see him through it

I am not for one moment condemning your brother - this same issue has recently torn through a family which have been friends of our family for many many years and the person guilty of the crime was the same age as me.

However, I just want to step in for a moment and say that I am very very worried about spidermama's post.

This is not a harmless just having thoughts in his head crime! The children involved are real children who have had their childhoods torn from them and abused in often horrific ways!

I agree with one of the other posters who has said, hate the crime not the criminal.

I know you love your brother and I am glad he shared this with you and is getting help. He will need your support to get through all this (prison sentences are quite stiff in this area, and the time in prison is not great for peodohpiles) and I hope you find the strength to see him through it

I am not for one moment condemning your brother - this same issue has recently torn through a family which have been friends of our family for many many years and the person guilty of the crime was the same age as me.

However, I just want to step in for a moment and say that I am very very worried about spidermama's post.

This is not a harmless just having thoughts in his head crime! The children involved are real children who have had their childhoods torn from them and abused in often horrific ways!

I agree with one of the other posters who has said, hate the crime not the criminal.

I know you love your brother and I am glad he shared this with you and is getting help. He will need your support to get through all this (prison sentences are quite stiff in this area, and the time in prison is not great for peodohpiles) and I hope you find the strength to see him through it

Oops sorry - computer playing up!

I am sure posts justifying what Known's brother has done are reassuring for her, but we do then get into the territory of discussing the morality of the whole thing - which Known has specifically asked us not to. You can't say "Oh well what he has done is not so bad," and then object if someone comes along and suggests he should be strung up.

Just wondered how the rest of your family are taking it, Known, and your partner, if you have one?

I dont think spidermama for one minute was playing down the effect this might have on the children.

Enid it was the 'all that he has done...' bit that concerned me. It does sound so innocuous put like that, but in reality we know that it is not!

I'm not trying to underplay the affect this sort of material may have on its subjects, but I don't think the people who view it should be confused with the people who put it there to begin with. There's an enormous leap in levels of responsibility here.

Also I worry that if we roundly condemn people who browse, (and probably most of them are never caught) thereby putting them in the same catergory as those who perpetrate, we're in danger of self-perpetuating.

I think we as a society really need to confront this behaviour with a more open mind and in a less fearful and reactionary way. Condemning it outright, will only serve to drive it underground and make everyone involved feel outside of society. They're not outside of society. They're part of it and we all need to take responsibility if there is to be any way out of this.

To invert John Major's famous bit of public speaking I think we need to understand more and condemn less.

I think this is for the good of everyone. the perpetrators, browsers, subjects and those who sit and judge.

I disagree totally SM, but since known has asked us not to debate the moral rights and wronge here I won't

I think it is possible to have absolute abhorance for the crime yet compassion for the criminal - and so I do very much hope as I wrote earlier, that Known continues to support her brother and try to help him through this.

agree totally with spidermama