Wes: Last week, we responded to a letter posing a multilayered ethical dilemma about a teen receiving an unsolicited nude pic from his friend. Worse, the shot was clearly his friend’s girlfriend.

I noted that in previous columns we portended doom for any teen caught with images that constituted child porn, proving the sad fact that Double Take is not always perfect in our predictions. Today, this situation is incredibly common. In fact, I think it is the rare teen with unusually reserved friends, who will not come into contact with explicit images of a peer.

A third of all child pornography in existence today is created by teens for exchange with each other. Resolving the dilemma isn’t easy, but it’s not as scary or irreconcilable as the writer proposed.

Double Take columnists Gabe Magee and Dr. Wes Crenshaw

Recently, the Lawrence school district hosted a law enforcement event that, among other things, warned kids that their Xboxes were subject to search and seizure if any device they possessed was found to contain an explicit photo of a minor.

One middle schooler I see (who released me to share this) said, “It was like good cop/bad cop on TV, except the good cop never showed up.” That early teen wasn’t greatly impacted by this lecture. When it comes to this issue, tactics of fear and coercion will work to shape teen thinking exactly as well as scary STD lectures, videos of bloody bodies in drunk driving accidents, and equating marijuana with all other drugs, have in the past. That’s why 21 states have made statutory changes to decriminalize consensual release among peers just as they have over the years for real world sexual encounters.

What we really need in cases like this are laws that allow prosecution of nonconsensual release — what the friend did to his unsuspecting girlfriend by sharing the picture. Such behavior is exploitative, and anyone who distributes any minor or adult picture without consent should be prosecuted.

As with all matters sexual, consent is everything.

Gabe: If this happened to me instead of someone else, how would I approach it? It’s a simple answer, though it may seem like a horribly wrong one. I would delete the photo immediately. If I understand last week’s letter and the law, there is no criminal case and therefore the deletion of the photo does not count as destruction of evidence. And you definitely do want to destroy it.

Anyone caught with explicit photos of minors might well be prosecuted. But that would require a search of the phone, which requires a warrant. So if I were in this situation, I would make sure to completely and entirely delete all traces of the photo. This goes deeper than simply pressing the little trash can icon on the upper corner of the screen. I might wipe my phone and then restore it from the cloud, or go to the phone store and ask (discretely) for them to delete some unwanted images completely.

Since there is no criminal case, I would be in no legal danger for destroying evidence and better off ridding myself of it. I am not mandated to report this crime any more than I am required to report someone for shoplifting. However, in the extremely unlikely case that the police get a warrant to search my phone, I want to make sure they see that I did everything in my power to delete this material quickly and thoroughly.

This isn’t some legal mumbo jumbo. Doing the right thing will not get you in trouble. You shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer for something as small as this, but that does not mean that you should not take it seriously. And beyond the legalities, this whole matter should call into question your relationship with your friend and test your loyalty to his girlfriend.

— Wes Crenshaw, Ph.D., ABPP, is author of “I Always Want to Be Where I’m Not: Successful Living with ADD & ADHD.” Learn about his writing and practice at dr-wes.com. Gabe Magee is a Bishop Seabury Academy senior. Send your confidential 200-word question to ask@dr-wes.com. Double Take opinions and advice are not a substitute for psychological services.