So I know the title of this is extremely crazy and may come off shocking to many people but I promise you it gets way worse than that. The reason I am posting this here is because I need to know if I am taking this too far or if I am justified in my actions.
I grew up in church and I actually am still a Christian and believe in my faith despite the things I am about to tell you all and the trauma that I’ve experienced within the church growing up til this day. I don’t judge or condemn people for making mistakes or living certain lifestyles because I myself am not a perfect person and have been through the gutters with my life and personal decisions.
I haven’t been to church in a few months because I actually feel uncomfortable going to churches in my area due to for whatever odd reason, grown men in these churches getting my phone number as a act of service or fellowship, to later then try to secretly hook up with me and do things with me inappropriately. I am also a guy. So this shocks me even more coming from the churches within my community. Im not exactly sure why this has been happening these past few years but it’s been quite a few times. But just recently there was this pastor who’s church I did not go to but somehow found my social media account and started following me which I didn’t think anything of it right like my Instagram is an public profile so people randomly follow me all the time. But then this pastor starts dm me and at first he is just confessing things to me like how he struggles with specific things and issues which again this is normal to me because first of all I relate and secondly I talk to people all the time about life struggles and if they are in church spiritual struggles.
All of a sudden he starts using the disappearing messages format and starts asking me extremely weird questions and asking me not to expose him. He started offering to pay me money to receive nude photos of myself and he was offering quite a lot of money if I kept quite about it. I was extremely uncomfortable over this situation because it was just insane to me and I felt violated for him even trying to hit on me like this and make moves on me. But at the time my brother had passed away and I had to help pay for his funeral and my company shut down over the holidays so I wasn’t able to work and I was a whole month behind on rent and hardly had any food and late on my car payments as well, so I was actually really desperate for money. So instead of actually sending this man real photos of myself I came up with a better idea and searched random photos on google and basically scammed this pastor into sending me money for nude photos that were not even mine. This continues for a while but then it takes a wild turn and he offers me money to meet up with me and do stuff. I am extremely uncomfortable at this point and want to expose him because mind you hes leading a congregation. AITA for allowing it?
NTA. Grift away.
If this is true, and it wouldn’t surprise me with the stories that have come out about religious figures in the last few years, then I would ask yourself do you want to get into sex work and if you do, do you want it to be with a person who could destroy you as people would believe them over you if you had a falling out.
I would suggest that you cut contact with him and not take him up on his offer.
If you want, screenshot his messages for your protection.
See this is the thing, I never would want to do something like that to myself but like I said in the post at the time I was desperate for money because I’ve been homeless before and I don’t want to end up like that again, and at the time it just seemed like a perfect opportunity to make free money by scamming this pastor, but it’s like I also feel really bad for even entertaining the idea of it and then also scamming on top of it. I told my family about it though and they even said sometimes you got to do what you got to do. I have screenshotted the messages and he still contacts me til this day but now that I’m caught up financially I stopped entertaining it for money. That’s why I was wondering here like am I a asshole for even allowing this to happen in the first place
This.
There’s a few questions at play here:
1. Is it immoral for the pastor to offer you money for nude photographs?
2. Is it immoral for you accept that offer?
3. Is it immoral for you then defraud him, by sending him photographs of others?
4. Is it immoral for him to then ask to pay you for sex?
5. Would it be immoral for you to accept?
In order:
1. It may be against the rules of his church, but it is not immoral for him to offer you money for nodes, as long as you’re an adult, and you can choose to say no. It may be gross, but it’s not immoral. I think. Feels super icky though.
2. It’s not immoral for you to accept that offer.
3. It is immoral for you to pass images of others off as images of yourself. It’s disrespectful to those others, and disrespectful to the person who you’re lying to in your sale. At this point you’re basically defrauding a sketchy pervy pastor. His sketchiness doesn’t make that okay.
4. Is it immoral for him to pay you for sex? I don’t know. I don’t think prostitution is inherently immoral. Assuming it’s not, propositioning someone probably isn’t either.
5. Would it be immoral for you to accept? No. If he’s allowed to offer to pay you did sex, you’re allowed to accept.
This is weird, because although my gut says that this pastor is a gross sleazeball trying to exploit you, it doesn’t appear that he’s done anything strictly immoral…
YTA. Although his behaviour is obviously inappropriate and sleazy, you basically scammed him out of money. You have never refused his advances or let him know the attention is unwanted. You come off just as bad as him while wanting to ruin the life of a man you used.
YTA
If you’re selling nudes, sell nudes, don’t steal them.
There’s nothing specifically wrong about consenting adults exchanging money for pictures, unless you’re using other people’s pictures without their permission.
The religious aspect doesn’t seem relevant other than to paint someone as a hypocrite.
See this is also a interesting comment because I won’t deny the fact that what I did was wrong youknow. But like prostitution is illegal as well and he was trying to pay to do physical things with me in real life not just send nudes. And I agree it’s not even the religious aspect of it but like this man is trying to buy my body lol that’s why I’m like okay am I an asshole for taking advantage of that? But I take accountability and I don’t deny the fact that I am a asshole for stealing photos off google which btw I did crop and edit so that way nobody’s face was in it, but either way I completely understand what your saying but just needed to clarify with people and what yall think haha
This sub isn’t called “is it illegal”.
You asked if you were the Ahole.
INFO: How old are you? Do you identify as bi or gay?
NTA – scam the fucker
INFO: how are grown men getting your number to even ask for these kinds of things? You make it sound like this is frequent occurrence. If someone is distributing your number for solicitation, then you should probably address that first. If it’s you distributing your number, and then it turns sexual without your consent, then you have two options: block the person or stop distributing your number.
As far as the scamming goes, idk if it’s ahole territory, but it’s certainly unethical. If you want to stop because you’re uncomfortable, just stop and block him. If you decide to continue, I’d be very very careful because there may be laws that govern that sort of thing where you live and you might be risking getting into serious trouble.
Regardless, it sounds like you are having trouble being firm and setting boundaries. If you are uncomfortable with these guys soliciting you for sexual content, you need to be clear that you are uncomfortable and then disengage. By entertaining their requests, it just encourages their creepy behavior.
NTA…yet.
If you expose him **after** you’ve benefited, yes, YWBTA.
You benefited by scamming someone who was doing nothing illegal (assuming you’re of age).
What you did is actually probably illegal – idk.
You used this person and now you want to expose them, and yourself because you better tell everything, because you’re about to get caught.
If you don’t want to meet up, just don’t meet up. You don’t want to send nudes, just don’t send nudes.