Sextortion: The hidden crisis killing our boys

Jaded_Permit_7209 · 2024-04-19T11:43:27+00:00

An underlying reason for this is because boys are so starved for affection and attention that they're willing to take even an enormous risk for any shot at intimacy.

Put yourself into the shoes of a teenage boy. You have received one, maybe two compliments in your entire life from non-related women. You have shattered confidence, you're invisible to girls your age, you can't even talk to them out of fear of being bullied/socially ostracized, and your body image is in the toilet because Hollywood is using CGI because men who have millions of dollars to spend on personal chefs, trainers, and steroids are apparently not even good enough anymore.

Suddenly, you get a message. It's a girl. She's expressing interest in you. She's expressing sexual interest in you?

Least surprising thing in the world that he'd try to make her happy.

_ABx_ · 2024-04-19T11:48:36+00:00

Genuinely, my younger brother was a victim of similar a couple of years ago.

He had begun talking to a female on Tinder who was flirtatious and sexually provocative (as expected on Tinder); she was seemingly a genuine female, even sent him photos with his name written on her breasts etc to prove she was "real". Eventually she convinced him to masturbate on video chat for her entertainment which he did, being young and naive. In the digital age, this type of thing is not uncommon; a natural progression from nude photos, and a form of digital foreplay.

A couple of days later he was contacted by a random unknown male on Hangouts demanding money, otherwise the video of him masturbating would be distributed via social media to all of his family and contacts. The male knew exactly who my brother was and sent links to his social media profiles alongside evidence that he genuinely had the compromising footage to prove this was not a bluff. How the male had the footage was never determined. My working theory was that the grift revolved around the Tinder Girl being an accomplice of the scammer. She could bait males to send her videos/nudes etc. or to masturbate on camera, then send the footage to the scammer to exploit them.

My brother could not afford to pay the demands, and ultimately I received an inbox message via Facebook from the scammer with the aforementioned video attached. Unbeknownst to the scammer, my brother had already confided in me and had actually came to me immediately for guidance when this all arose. As a result, I already knew what the video was when I received it. We remain unsure of who else received the footage in their inboxes or if anyone actually watched it before realising what it was. The scammer was never paid. Understandably this experience deeply affected my younger brother, but also taught him valuable lessons.

Thankfully my brother did not become a statistic, but it's easy to see how a simple error of judgement could lead to a catastrophic outcome such as it did for those in the original post.

MannerNo7000 · 2024-04-19T11:08:56+00:00

I don’t believe in God, but you’re doing ‘Gods’ work.

Keep it up legend.

Smooth_Ad_7227 · 2024-04-19T11:40:40+00:00

New method? This is been happening since the existence of the internet and usually the victims are not recognised as such, they are seen as perverts.

Vaudeville_Clown · 2024-04-19T12:25:29+00:00

We need some scambaiters on this tbh.

Since it's file sharing involved, it should be relatively easy to trick them into downloading/activating what's needed to gain access to their computers.

"Oh, I never post nudes directly in chat. You have to follow my safe link" :)

Then you screw with them in even worse ways. Wrongs committed by citizen to criminal isn't even a crime, morally speaking.

Conscious_Ice66 · 2024-04-19T11:41:36+00:00

16 year old boy in my very small hometown took his life over this a year ago. Absolutely rocked the community. Everyone loved this young man so much. Like not one person would ever have had anything negative to say about him ever.

TheTinMenBlog · 2024-04-19T11:00:45+00:00

A new type of cybercrime, primarily targeting teenage boys, is sweeping across the social mediaverse, and has already silently claimed dozens of lives.

‘Sextortion’ is a new type of cybercrime that uses fake profiles to lure a target into sending explicit photos of themselves, and then uses these photos, alongside threats, to blackmail and extort money from the victim.

It is not about the sexual gratification of the predator, nor are these the actions of disgruntled former partners. This is purely about money, and getting as much of it from the target as possible.

Worse, unlike other types of cyber crime, where other demographics are targeted; sextortion does not need a long runway for the scammer to build trust, it can take hours, or even minutes, to get what they want.

So what makes teen boys uniquely vulnerable?

Well, boys have not been subject to the same awareness campaigns as girls, who are taught to be mindful of what they send, and to whom. Instead, boys’ fast and loose approach to sending explicit photos of their body, and the unique shame they feel when exposed, is what makes them an easy and lucrative target.

So who will speak to, educate and protect our boys?

How many more lives will have to be devastated, and lost, before we take the same meaningful action taken to help girls, to support boys too?

Is it time we talked about sextortion?

Is it time we protected our boys?

What do you think?

~

Bloomberg

Washington Post

Images – Darius Bashir, Filip Baotic, Jonas Loupe, Michael Maasen, Luiz Rogerio Lumaas

Important-Back-9545 · 2024-04-19T11:28:36+00:00

This is so heartbreaking

omegaphallic · 2024-04-19T12:20:48+00:00

I hope they found and punished the peace of shit who drove Jordan to suicide.

The best we can do is push for an education campaign.

DarkFireHydra · 2024-04-19T15:59:57+00:00

One of my close friends was a victim of this, but instead of sending it to close friends it was posted to his public story. He told me and everyone else that it was AI and it wasn’t really his penis, but i know he was lying. I felt really bad and still do but whenever i tried talking to him he would deny it. Another one of my “friends” screenshotted his story and would make fun of him, which just further shows how a toxic environment influences a man/boys support system.

Current_Finding_4066 · 2024-04-19T13:02:41+00:00

Part of the problem is also demonization of men and male sexuality. This way boys are more likely to feel such shame to actually end their life in such a case. Like one hellish feminist said in a TV interview, she likes it that boys are afraid.

onefreeshot · 2024-04-19T17:42:14+00:00

I might be coming from a different angle here, but I feel like there's quite a bit of naivety at play here and I'm not blaming boys for this but rather the differences in education they receive for some dangers which affect both girls/boys.

I hear quite often how women complain they're not safe to walk alone at night and one of the reasons is that most likely this fear, or maybe precaution, was instilled in the woman, when she was a girl, by her mother, so when she grew up she knew to be more careful about ending up walking alone at night. Apply the same precaution to getting exposed online and women might be less likely to send nudes. However these dangers (walking alone at night / being blackmailed for having sent nudes/ etc. really) will obviously affect both men and women, but I'm not so sure boys get the same warnings as girls do.

I guess just another thought on what might make boys end up in these awful situations in the first place. It seems rather naive and immature to me to send nudes to a random person and then be terrorised by the consequences immediately afterwards, as though you haven't given thought to any consequences in the first place. I'm aware it's teenagers this is about (although I'm sure there have been grown ups blackmailed by nudes as well), but it seems like something that could at least be more likely to be prevented by mentioning it as a problem for all teenagers (by their parents or school) rather than girls only (presumably by their mother).

I have always found it strange how others would express caution against things that could affect everyone only to a subgroup of people.

Lionheart27778 · 2024-04-19T17:59:40+00:00

A girl I used to know and work with did this to her ex - just because he dumped her.

She made a fake FB account and messaged him pretending to be a different lass - she got some adult vide and pics off the internet and sent them to him pretending to be the lass in them.

When he sent her some vids and pics in return , she posted them all over Facebook and used a burner phone to send them to all his family members.

She wasnt trying to extort him for any money - her goal was just to flat out humiliate him.

She just deleted the account and got rid of the burner phone - so despite it being pretty obvious she had been the one behind it - there was nothing the poor guy could really do.

I didn't stay friends with her after she told me about it and showed me some of the stuff btw.

Accordingly to her - they broke up on reasonable terms ,he just told her he wasn't feeling it anymore.

TittieMilkTittieMilk · 2024-04-19T16:35:28+00:00

I’ve actually spoken to both of my boys about this. They’re 12 and 18. It was a bit awkward but they got over it and I feel confident that they’d come to me if this ever happened to them. Scary world that our kids live in…

Randumpz · 2024-04-19T16:16:53+00:00

Someone tried doing this to me on Hinge. I laughed and asked him to send me the link cuz I wanted to know what fame felt like.

Hinge couldn't do shit either. They literally dk who you matched with if they unmatch you.

Expose_Ur_BS · 2024-04-19T13:20:16+00:00

But wait, the narrative explicitly states: “Men, BAD!!!”

How do you reconcile this information?

c0q0 · 2024-04-19T11:21:16+00:00

😢

NickelodeonBullshit · 2024-04-19T15:39:35+00:00

This shit happened to me as well. There is a pic of my dick and my own face in the picture circulating somewhere in the web because I fell for this scam like a moron. I can't even give a good explanation of why I did it: guess I was both too horny to think and too lazy to check if the girl was legit. She contacted me through Instagram and gaslighted me into thinking I knew her. The account seemed real at first glance, with a couple of photos posted, and I was pretty sure I found it in my recommendations aswell (turns out I didn't, I'm just very gullible). We start chatting, she always answered and there was no broken English from "her" . Around a day later she asks me if I have a Snapchat. We start talking there and that's when she asks me for nudes. I send them a couple, with one where you can almost clearly see my face. That's when they reveal the twist. Turns out there was never a girl, instead they were two guys, probably from India, or so I assumed by their shitty accent. They do the classic scammer routine and I'm starting to panic a little. They didn't seem like they were playing about exposing me either. As far as I know they sent my dick pics to only one account I knew, before I confronted them, but it could have been more and the other victims just never told me. Thankfully I never had any kind of crazy thoughts, but I genuinely felt like I had nothing to lose at that point, so I do the next best thing that came to my mind. I call the scammer, they answer, they ask me to pay the ransom and I start to be as dismissive as I can: randomly changing conversations, acting crazy, laughing in their face whenever they bring up their thick Indian accent while menacing me, asking them to hop on Black Ops 2 and do a 1v1 where the winner keeps the photos, sending them photos of random fake credit cards like the Batman credit card from Batman & Robin. I was trying to convince them that I didn't give a shit, and that they didn't scare me. I'm not sure if that strategy worked, but they did block me at one point, and only one person contacted me saying that they received my nudes. I promptly apologized, they said they understood, and that's how it ended. All of this happened around a year and a half ago. It was the very first scam in my life. I believe to be a lot more cautious now when it comes to talk with strangers online, and I sure as hell am not going to post my weiner online anymore. Anyway, if you are seeing this "Rachel", the challenge to a 1v1 is still open, also your mother is a dog or whatever the hell offends you in India.

Black_Midnite · 2024-04-19T19:29:56+00:00

I've has this happen to me a couple times.

The trick is that most of the time, they won't send them to anyone or they will send them to bot accounts with names that match the people you follow.

In the end, it's just a bunch of losers that try to extort money.

Everytime I get a pretty girl that has a bunch of guy followers, barely any pictures, and messages me, I always play the game of talking to them for 15 minutes, and then advising them I know they're fake and I know they're in (China, Saudi, etc.) And I will get the FBI involved. They, always, immediately block me and then delete the account.

I love terrorizing these people. Ugh, please, FBI, let me start a division that hunts these psychos to the ends of the earth! I would love to scare these Sextortionist!!

FH-7497 · 2024-04-20T07:07:59+00:00

Fathers need to be guiding their boys on shit like this. ACTIVELY.

Minimum_Compote_3116 · 2024-04-19T14:40:00+00:00

How about as a start NO SOCIAL MEDIA for people under 18!

Few-Procedure-268 · 2024-04-19T12:00:59+00:00

Honest question, what do people think is the solution here?

Sending nude pics to random numbers that text you is mind bogglingly impulsive behavior, which I guess is unsurprising in some number of teenage boys. But how do you stop it?

Would it be effective to just tell your kids never to respond to unknown numbers (I assume that's already standard advice). Like more general anti-scam education about phishing, etc? It feels like this wouldn't be effective for the type of boys falling pray here.

Maybe telling your sons that pretty "women" contacting them are likely Russian dudes (sending them stock girly pics)? Those extortion "bro" texts are all clearly from dudes.

Is there a role for the government here? The tech industry?

wegsty797 · 2024-04-19T14:48:46+00:00

fuck, we all get screwed over by a woman at least once in our lives

Zeroshame14 · 2024-04-20T02:37:16+00:00

The people doing this need to be summarily executed

Doneyhew · 2024-04-20T05:46:09+00:00

This actually happened to me when I was 17

Naive-Dingo-2100 · 2024-04-20T12:24:05+00:00

They'll just call the kids pervs and tell em to get off the internet. It's the same way they tell teenage fathers they should've kept it in their pants but when it's a girl, it's her body, her choice, because a baby will change the rest of her life.

IamTheConstitution · 2024-04-21T05:02:10+00:00

I can see this working on teens. Older men not so much. Go ahead, I just don’t care. Not much you can do to me. But younger me, was stupid and I got bullied about stupid stuff. But I never wanted to KMS.

killerpalencia · 2024-04-22T21:18:54+00:00

Happened to me a couple years back and it's terrifying AT that moment you feel shame and guilt even After 3 or 4 years it still traumatised me until a few month ago thanks you for bringing more light on this subject

deim4rc · 2024-04-20T13:13:20+00:00

I dont know why do I have to keep reading those lies even though this is supposedly a male safe space, it seems feminism doesnt stay on its place, it has to invade male spaces too

Real-Turnover-7289 · 2024-04-20T20:47:36+00:00

This is fuckin nuts

shelbymfcloud · 2024-04-21T01:51:27+00:00

So he sent nudes to a random after coming home from his girlfriends 🙄

Suspicious_Collar775 · 2024-04-24T07:24:35+00:00

The way out of this is just as easy for boys as avoiding so-called cyber bullying is for girls... Don't send a complete stranger online photos of yourself nude or/and performing a sex act

For all the problems in our judiciary which disproportionately affect men, we're far too often failing to help ourselves in the most elementary ways

Stunning_Memory8347 · 2024-04-20T12:10:42+00:00

First off, stop sending photographs of your genitals to strangers. It's not that hard. Second, killing yourself over a dick pick is insane. Presumably these guys had other issues going on.

KnucklehdMcSpazitron · 2024-04-19T14:33:51+00:00

Here’s an idea: teach your kids to not send dick pics to anyone, including strangers. It’s a morals thing.

Title	Sextortion: The hidden crisis killing our boys
Author	TheTinMenBlog
Upvotes	870
Comments	125
Date	April 19, 2024 11:00 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/1c7u0sm/sextortion_the_hidden_crisis_killing_our_boys/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/sextortion-the-hidden-crisis-killing-our-boys.1515662 https://theredarchive.com/post/1515662

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