Short answer: Sextortion is blackmail using a sexual image. Someone persuades your child to send a photo, then threatens to share it with their friends, family and school unless they send money or more images. It usually starts with a stranger pretending to be a teenager, it moves from friendly to threatening within hours, and it targets boys more than girls. The single most important thing you can do is make sure your child believes they can tell you.
In short:
- Sextortion means threatening to share a sexual image unless somebody pays or sends more.
- It often moves from first contact to blackmail in under an hour.
- Most reported victims are teenage boys, which surprises almost every parent.
- Paying does not stop it. The demands almost always continue.
- It can also come from an ex-partner rather than a stranger, and that version looks completely different.
What is sextortion?
Parents usually ask what is sextortion after hearing the word somewhere alarming. The plain answer is that sextortion is blackmail, and the currency is a photograph.
Somebody contacts your child online, usually pretending to be a teenager around the same age. They are friendly, they are interested, and they move the conversation somewhere private fairly quickly. At some point they send an image, or claim to, and ask for one back.
The moment your child sends anything, the tone changes completely. The friendly stranger disappears and a threat arrives: send money, or send more images, or this photo goes to your mum, your school and everybody on your friends list.
Two things make it especially cruel. It happens fast, often within an hour of first contact. And the person doing it has usually already looked at your child’s followers, so the threat comes with names attached.
What happened to Jordan
The case that changed how many parents think about this involved a seventeen-year-old called Jordan.
Two brothers posed as a teenage girl on Instagram, persuaded him to send explicit images, then demanded money and threatened to release them. Jordan took his own life less than six hours after the first message. The brothers were later jailed in the United States, and the case was widely reported by the BBC and others.
Six hours is the part worth holding on to. There was no slow build, no weeks of grooming, no chance for anybody to notice something was wrong. That is why this post spends more time on what to say in advance than on spotting it afterwards.
How common is sextortion?
The Internet Watch Foundation, which works to remove child sexual abuse imagery from the internet, recorded a sharp rise. Confirmed sextortion cases involving that imagery went from 21 in 2022 to 176 in 2023.
The pattern in those reports surprises most parents.
Boys made up 91% of victims reported to the IWF in 2023, and around 60% of reports involved sixteen and seventeen-year-olds. Reports involving girls have risen since.
If you have a teenage son and you have only ever had this conversation with a daughter, that is the gap worth closing this week.
The signs to watch for
There is rarely much time, so these matter less than the conversation further down. But they are worth knowing.
A child who suddenly guards their phone in a way they did not before. A sharp change in mood after being online. Asking for money without explaining why, or money disappearing. Withdrawing from the family. Anything that looks like real distress after a message arrives.
The money one is the most reliable, because a child in this situation almost always tries to solve it alone first.
When it is not a stranger
Everything above answers what is sextortion in its commonest form: a stranger running a scam. There is a second version that looks completely different, and far fewer people talk about it.
Sometimes the person making the threat is an ex-partner. Images that were shared willingly inside a relationship become a way to keep control after it ends. Nobody was deceived and there is usually no money involved, because the point is not money. The point is that the other person does what they are told.
This happens to adults as often as to teenagers, and it often sits alongside other things: constant messaging, checking location, shared accounts nobody unpicked. Kids n Clicks covers that wider pattern in our post on coercive control and our post on post separation abuse.
It matters for two practical reasons. The advice is different, because blocking a stranger is straightforward and blocking somebody you share children with is not. And the person affected is far less likely to call it sextortion, because it does not match the story they have heard.
If that is the situation, the Revenge Porn Helpline supports adults directly and will deal with platforms on their behalf.
What to do if it happens
Order matters, and the natural instinct is usually wrong.
Stop replying. Not another word, not to negotiate, not to explain.
Do not pay. Paying almost never ends it. It confirms the threat works, and the demands continue.
Do not delete anything yet. The messages and the account name are what anybody helping will need. Deleting feels like safety and destroys the trail.
Screenshot the conversation and the profile. Include the username and the dates, not just the worst message.
Report and block, in that order. Report the account inside the app first, then block.
Get help from people who do this daily. CEOP, the child protection command of the National Crime Agency handles this for under-eighteens. StopNCII can stop an image being shared further across participating platforms without anybody having to send the image anywhere.
And tell your child, out loud, that this is not their fault and that they are not in trouble. They will not believe it the first time. Say it again.
The conversation that matters most
Almost everything above happens after the fact. This is the part that works before it.
Say something like this, calmly, not during an argument. “If anyone online ever gets a photo of you and threatens to share it, come and tell us straight away. You will not be in trouble, and you will not lose your phone. Nobody will be angry with you, and we will sort it out together.”
That is the whole thing. Jordan had six hours. A child who believes they will lose their phone spends those hours alone, trying to fix it themselves. A child who believes they can come to you spends them with you.
Kids n Clicks covers neighbouring ground in our post on sexting and our post on online grooming.
For help keeping up with the apps and trends your child is using, Kids n Clicks publishes free resources for parents and runs the Kids n Clicks app.
Parven Kaur is a digital parenting and online safety expert, and the founder of Kids n Clicks. She won the Scottish Cyber Security Award, and she sits on the National Board of Advisors for Barnardo’s Scotland.
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