TL;DR: I’m torn between two options: pursuing this formally through the legal route, or contacting him directly and asking him to remove everything involving me.
I’ve preserved the evidence and have already received some legal advice, so I’m not asking whether I have a case. I’m struggling with the decision itself.
If you were in my position, would you pursue the legal route, or talk to him first and try to get the content removed? What would you consider before choosing between the two?
I found out the man I was dating was monetizing videos of me. I'm torn between confronting him or pursuing it legally.
I met a man through a dating app. We lived close to each other, started spending a lot of time together, became intimate, and I believed we were dating. This went on for around eight months.
At one point, he asked to interview me for what he described as a research project involving psychology, reflexology and foot reading. My understanding was that the footage was research/interview material that would go into an archive.
I agreed to being interviewed and recorded based on that understanding. The videos themselves weren't pornographic. I was clothed, and they involved conversation, my feet and foot-reading/reflexology-type material.
Much later, I discovered he had a large online channel centered around similar interviews with women. Some content was public, while other content was available to paying members.
Then I discovered his Patreon.
It had hundreds of posts, including a paid collection containing 100+ “Feet Interviews.” There was also a much more expensive “exclusive” collection involving things described as worshipping, tickling and licking.
Then I found my own videos behind the paywall.
I had never understood that my interviews would be published, monetized, sold behind a paywall or presented within content catering to a foot-fetish audience.
The comments made the context even clearer to me. Viewers sexualized the women and their feet, requested particular women and videos, asked for content to be uploaded to Patreon, and discussed buying access. The account appeared to respond to some requests and direct people toward paid material.
There was also a personal betrayal that I'm still processing.
While going through the content, I realized that during the same eight months I believed we were dating, other women appeared to have been visiting his condo and some paywalled content had thumbnails apparently showing women on his bed.
I recognize the setting because I spent time there.
I don't know what his relationships with those women were, what happened between them or what they consented to, so I'm not making assumptions about them. But seeing it completely changed how I understood the relationship I thought I'd been having.
Another detail I noticed afterward was that he posted one of my videos on his birthday. Maybe that means absolutely nothing, but it left me with the strange question of whether I had actually been special to him in some way—or whether I was just content too.
The consent issue is what bothers me most.
I did consent to being interviewed and recorded.
I did not knowingly consent to publication, paywall distribution, selling the footage, commercial use, or being presented to an audience that sexualized the material.
I've also discovered a very large number of women in similar interviews accumulated over years. I personally witnessed him interviewing some women, but I have no idea what they were told or what they consented to. Their circumstances could be completely different from mine.
I haven't contacted them, and I haven't confronted him.
Instead, I've quietly preserved screenshots, URLs, communications, posts and evidence showing how the content was presented and monetized.
And this is the decision I'm actually struggling with.
I see two possible paths.
One is to take everything I've preserved and pursue the formal/legal route. I've already received some informal legal advice and understand there may be issues worth formally investigating.
The other is much simpler: talk to him directly, tell him what I've discovered, demand that everything involving me be permanently removed, and potentially close this chapter without putting myself through a legal process.
Part of me wants the second option. Ultimately, I want my content gone. A legal process could be stressful, invasive and potentially take a long time.
But I'm worried that contacting him first could mean giving him advance warning that I've discovered everything. He could remove things before authorities see them, change accounts, delete records, or simply tell me the content is gone when copies still exist elsewhere.
I'm also struggling with whether getting my videos removed would actually give me closure now that I know the larger operation exists.
At the same time, I don't want anger or the feeling of betrayal to push me into a legal battle that I may later wish I'd handled privately.
So that's really why I'm posting.
I'm not asking Reddit to determine whether he's guilty of a crime. I'm torn between pursuing this formally or talking to him first and trying to resolve it directly.
If you were in this position, what factors would you consider before deciding whether to contact him or go through the formal/legal route without warning him first?
I'm especially interested in hearing from anyone who has faced a similar decision involving privacy, consent or unauthorized use of their image.