Alarming rise in sextortion from men through videos, images of sex acts

With dating apps and interactions with new people on the social media becoming commonplace in present day youth culture, the prospects of finding sex online, be it by finding a casual partner or one nights stands, have increased. But the temptation of seeking a partner online does come with its fair share of risks.

Cybersex is one way for young internet users to find pleasure in the virtual world, but the same has put minor girls, women and men at risk of being exploited and blackmailed, as the term sextortion has been used for the practice, highlighting how widespread it is.

The rising outreach of the internet has resulted in teenage girls falling prey to perverts but recent data points towards an alarming growth in men and teenage boys being targeted for sextortion by users tricking them into performing sexual acts on camera and later blackmailing them.

Four men committing suicide after being blackmailed by criminals using false identities are just a part of a larger problem as UK alone saw the number of such incidents double from 385 in 2015 to 864 this year. Authorities have called it a major emerging threat, as boys aged 11 to 20 make up a substantial proportion of victims while men as old as 82 have also been targeted.

Some instances are that of a 17-year-old who killed himself for which his family blame a relentless campaign of online bullying by a gang, and another boy was blackmailed for 3000 pounds by a gang which threatened to post his intimate images online after getting them by posing as a girl.

The major obstacle for preventing such incidents is under-reporting which results from a feeling of shame on the part of victims and this is exactly what criminals are using to get away with blackmail and bullying.