“Several years ago, when I was in college, I was blackmailed because of photos. I was talking to someone I met online, and they asked for some. Once they had the photos, everything changed. They demanded money, threatening to leak them and actually sent them to two people to show they were serious. I didn’t have the amount of money they were demanding, and I was terrified. It was the worst night of my life. I contemplated taking my life several times because it seemed like there was no way out. I was pacing and crying with no idea what to do. I paid them every penny I had, and they wanted more.
Desperate, I reached out to a mentor, having to explain it all was terrifying and embarrassing, but he talked me through it (and after all of it helped me get through my addiction). I lost that money, but despite all that, they didn’t do anything with the photos past those first two people. Even then, the messages were deleted before the people saw them.
The thing I learned from all of that was that the threat feels real; they prey on your desperation, adrenaline, and fear. But the truth is, they take what they can and move on; exposing you doesn’t actually benefit them.
I recently saw a story of yet another person in that situation who took their own life. My heart breaks every time I see that because I’ve been in that exact position. That’s what led me to share this. As someone who’s been through it, I’d tell you, first, stay away from porn and sending pictures of yourself, but if you don’t, and you end up like me, there is hope, and you will make it through. Sending those pictures was the biggest mistake of my life, calling someone I trusted was one of the best because I still have my life. I’m so glad I picked up the phone and found help rather than doing what felt like the only option in the moment.”
-J*
*Name changed for privacy.
Sextortion Is Designed to Make a Temporary Crisis Feel Permanent
This true story sent to us from one of our Fighters describes the terror of sextortion from the inside.
A conversation online becomes sexual. An intimate image gets sent. Suddenly, the person on the other side changes. The messages become threats. A timer starts. Money is demanded. Friends, relatives, classmates, or coworkers may appear in screenshots as potential recipients.
And the victim can feel as though their entire future depends on what they do in the next few minutes.
That panic is exactly what sextortionists exploit.
Sextortion happens when someone threatens to distribute private or sexual material unless the targeted person complies with a demand. That demand might involve money, additional sexual images, sexual activity, or something else.
Financially motivated sextortion has become an especially serious threat to young people. In 2025, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) received more than 50,000 reports of financially motivated sextortion—an average of 137 reports every day. That represented a substantial increase from more than 36,000 reports in 2024.National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (2026, June 25). NCMEC releases new sextortion data: Over 100 reports received daily in 2025. https://us.missingkids.org/blog/2026/ncmec-releases-new-sextortion-data-2025Copy
The FBI describes a common financial sextortion pattern: an offender creates or takes over an online identity, develops a connection with someone, obtains an explicit image or creates one with AI, and then abruptly demands payment while threatening to distribute the image to friends and family. Sometimes the entire process unfolds within minutes.
And payment does not guarantee safety. According to the FBI, offenders sometimes distribute images even after receiving money, and cooperating with their demands rarely ends the blackmail and harassment.Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). Financially motivated sextortion. https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/common-frauds-and-scams/sextortion/financially-motivated-sextortionCopy
The Fear Can Have Devastating Consequences
J described contemplating suicide several times during one night of sextortion. Tragically, other victims have experienced that same sense of desperation.
The U.S. Department of Justice reported in April 2026 that more than 40 teenagers in the United States had died by suicide as a direct result of financially motivated sextortion. The Department specifically urges adults responding to child victims to approach them with empathy rather than blame, shame, or ridicule.U.S. Department of Justice, Criminal Division. (2026, April 23). Minimize the harm. https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/minimize-harmCopy
These deaths underscore something everyone—especially young people—needs to understand before sextortion ever happens:
An intimate image is not worth your life.
A threat can feel catastrophic in the moment. The possibility of someone seeing an intimate image can feel unbearable. Fear can convince a person that everyone will know, nothing will ever be normal again, and there is no way to undo what happened. But fear isn’t a reliable prediction of the future.
There are steps you can take. There are people who know how to respond. There are tools designed to limit the distribution of intimate images. Law enforcement investigates these crimes. And even if an image does get shared, that does not determine the rest of someone’s life.
If You’re Being Sextorted, Don’t Face the Threat Alone
The most consequential thing J did wasn’t finding the perfect technological solution. He called someone.
Sextortionists benefit from isolation. Embarrassment can convince victims to hide what happened, while the perpetrator continues flooding them with threats and demands. Bringing another person into the situation can interrupt that dynamic.
If you’re being sextorted, tell someone you trust as soon as possible, a parent, mentor, friend, teacher, counselor, partner, law enforcement officer, or another person who can help you think through what to do next.
Then focus on practical steps:Federal Bureau of Investigation. (n.d.). Sextortion. https://www.fbi.gov/how-we-can-help-you/common-frauds-and-scams/sextortionCopy
- Don’t send more money or images. The FBI warns that complying rarely ends the harassment. Paying once may simply lead to another demand.
- Preserve the evidence. Save messages, usernames, profiles, payment information, threats, and other relevant details before blocking the account. Don’t delete information investigators may need.
- Report and block the account. Use the platform’s reporting tools and cut off the offender’s access to you after preserving the evidence.
- Report the crime. In the United States, victims can contact local law enforcement or the FBI through tips.fbi.gov or 1-800-CALL-FBI.
- Get help limiting the spread of the images. There are tools specifically designed for this.
Tools That Can Help Protect Intimate Images
For an image or video taken or generated with AI when the person depicted was under 18, NCMEC operates Take It Down, a free service designed to help stop or remove the online sharing of nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit content.
Importantly, the image doesn’t have to be uploaded to NCMEC. The service creates a unique digital fingerprint, or “hash,” on the user’s device. Participating platforms can use that fingerprint to detect matching copies and take action against them. NCMEC specifically advises people not to download or redistribute an image just to submit it to the service.National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. (n.d.). Take It Down. https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/Copy
Adults who were 18 or older when an intimate image was created can use StopNCII.org. That service similarly creates a digital fingerprint on the person’s device and shares the fingerprint—not the intimate image itself—with participating platforms. Those platforms can then look for matching content that violates their intimate-image-abuse policies.StopNCII.org. (n.d.). How StopNCII.org works. https://stopncii.org/how-it-works/Copy
These tools cannot erase every copy from the entire internet, and no service can guarantee that an offender won’t share something elsewhere. But victims have more options than a sextortionist wants them to believe.
The Sextortionist Does Not Get the Final Word
If you’re in the middle of sextortion and thinking about hurting yourself, the priority right now isn’t your reputation, the image, the money, or explaining what happened perfectly. It’s staying alive long enough for someone else to help you through the crisis.
Put another person physically beside you if possible. Tell them directly that you’re afraid you might hurt yourself. In the United States, you can also call or text 988 or use the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s online chat. The Lifeline provides free, confidential support 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. (n.d.). 988 Lifeline. https://988lifeline.org/Copy
If there is immediate danger, call 911 or your local emergency service. You do not have to solve the entire situation tonight. You only need to get through the immediate crisis with help.
Preventing Sextortion Starts Before the First Threat
The safest intimate image to send is one you never send. Once an image leaves your device, you can’t fully control whether someone takes a screenshot, records it, saves it, alters it, or forwards it. But prevention also requires more than simply telling people, “Don’t send nudes.” Especially with AI’s ability to create explicit images.
Sextortionists deliberately deceive people. They may use stolen photographs, fake profiles, hacked accounts, prerecorded videos, or increasingly sophisticated manipulated content. The FBI warns that a photograph or video is not proof that an online contact is who they claim to be.
People can reduce their risk by keeping social media accounts private, limiting what strangers can learn from public profiles, being cautious about unsolicited sexual conversations, treating sudden requests to move between platforms as a potential warning sign, and refusing requests for intimate content from people they only know online.
Young people also need to know something just as important: if they make a mistake, they can still ask for help.
Parents and caregivers can make that message explicit before anything happens. Instead of only warning, “Never send a picture,” add: “And if you ever do and someone threatens you with it, come to me. We’ll handle it together.”
That second sentence could save a life.
The Most Important Thing a Sextortionist Wants You to Forget
J can’t change the image he sent or recover the money he lost. But he survived the night. Years later, the decision that stands out isn’t the one he regrets. It’s the phone call he made when fear was telling him there was no way out.
That phone call changed the trajectory of his life.
Sextortion works by compressing someone’s world until an image, a threat, and a glowing phone screen seem bigger than everything else. The perpetrator wants the victim focused on the next message, the next deadline, the next payment, and the imagined humiliation that could follow. Real life is bigger than that screen.
An intimate image does not erase your dignity. A mistake does not cancel your future. Someone else’s decision to exploit your vulnerability does not give them ownership of the rest of your life. And if you’re currently staring at a message that makes you feel like your life is over, do what this survivor did.
Put down the conversation with the person threatening you. And pick up the conversation with someone who can help.
Your Support Matters Now More Than Ever
Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
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