Breaking the silence: Examining process of cyber sextortion and victims’ coping strategies
| Published date | 01 January 2025 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02697580241234331 |
| Author | Fangzhou Wang |
| Date | 01 January 2025 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580241234331
International Review of Victimology
2025, Vol. 31(1) 91 –116
© The Author(s) 2024
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DOI: 10.1177/02697580241234331
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Breaking the silence: Examining
process of cyber sextortion and
victims’ coping strategies
Fangzhou Wang
The University of Texas at Arlington, USA
Abstract
Sextortion is the threat to distribute intimate, sexual materials unless a victim complies with
particular demands. Cyber sextortion, specifically, takes advantage of the Internet’s anonymous
nature and uses explicit personal images to inflict harm on victims. Despite this crime’s serious
nature, there is a dearth of empirical knowledge of sextortion, particularly the process of fear
management for the victims. This article employed a qualitative content analysis of the victim
testimonials posted on the Reddit sextortion forum to explore the coping mechanisms of 175
cyber sextortion victims. Borrowed from the transactional model of stress and coping developed
by Lazarus and Folkman, the characteristics of person–environment stimuli, ransom, appraisal and
coping, revisit, and reappraisal were identified and revealed an extended model of fear and stress
management applied particularly among sextortion victims. In addition, characteristics that are
unique to female and male victims are also revealed in this analysis. In sum, the dynamic nature
of fear and stress management among victims of sextortion implies specific crime control and
prevention policies.
Keywords
Cyber sextortion, victimization, fear and stress management, transactional model of stress and
coping
Introduction
Cyber sextortion, a derivative from the words ‘sexual’ and ‘extortion’, represents a burgeoning
online act of coercing victims by threatening to distribute their intimate or sexual images or record-
ings unless they satisfy the ransom requests. It represents a more sophisticated forms of extortion
as offenders increase their sexual explorations on different social media platforms and the use of
smart tablets (O’Malley and Holt, 2022). Whitty (2013) has highlighted that sextortion
is occasionally used by a few online romance fraudsters as one of the approaches to financially
Corresponding author:
Fangzhou Wang, Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at Arlington, 601 S.
Nedderman Drive, Arlington, TX 76019-9800, USA.
Email: fangzhou.wang@uta.edu
1234331IRV0010.1177/02697580241234331International Review of VictimologyWang
research-article2024
Article
92International Review of Victimology 31(1)
blackmail victims. In cases where victims are unable to meet the fraudsters’ demands, they are
coerced into performing sexual acts in front of a webcam, with the recorded footage subsequently
utilized to extract further monetary gain from the victims. Despite the interconnected nature of
these phenomena, cyber sextortion is slightly different from online romance scams; the purpose of
sextortion can range from maintaining an intimate relationship to financial requests (e.g. Cross et
al., 2023a, 2023b; O’Malley and Holt, 2022). Most importantly, what distinguishes sextortion from
other types of image-based sexual abuse is the influence of the level of uncertainty that seriously
torments victims, creating feeling of desperation, shame, and fear. Victims are perpetually uncer-
tain about when and where their personal files will be distributed online. Consequently, offenders
exploit this psychological vulnerability to exert control over and isolate their victims.
According to the 2023 report from the Federal Trade Commission Center in the United States,
sextortion cases have undergone an exponential surge, escalating by over eightfold since 2019 (e.g.
Fletcher, 2023). The Internet Crime Complaint Center has estimated that they have received over
18,000 sextortion-related complaints nationally (FBI Newark, 2022), resulting in more than US$13
million in 2021 (Campbell and Kravarik, 2022). Of particular concern is the significant representa-
tion of minors among the victims, with statistics indicating that 1 out of 4 victims were 13 years old
or younger at the time of the threats (Thorn, 2017). Over the past year, law enforcement agencies
have received over 7,000 reports related to online sextortion of minors (Department of Justice,
2023). In the United Kingdom, reports related to sextortion have experienced a 90% surge from
2020 to 2021, with male victims comprising 88% of the cases (Coker, 2022). Similarly, law
enforcement in Canada has observed a sharp increase of nearly 300% in sextortion cases over the
past decade, with a substantial rise occurring during the pandemic (Malone, 2022). This phenom-
enon is particularly prevalent among minors, and tragically, some of these cases have resulted in
suicide (Nilsson et al., 2019).
Notably, sextortion is a transnational crime, involving victims not only in Western countries
but also around Asian regions. China, for instance, experiences sextortion in two different
forms. The first one is known as ‘nude chat scams’, wherein scammers impersonate attractive
women or men and explicitly chat with male or female victims. The nude video calls are con-
ducted on an app, where scammers can record the screen, retrieve the victim’s personal infor-
mation using click baits, and use it to blackmail the victims (Wang et al., 2021). The second
form is called Luo Dai, which translate into ‘nude loans’. In this scenario, financially desperate
female college students would provide their nude pictures, holding their identification cards, to
potential but illegal lenders. If they cannot pay the loan in time with usurious interests (approxi-
mately 30%), their nude pictures would be published online or sent to family members or used
for other sexual purposes (Li et al., 2021; Liu and Keane, 2021). Despite increased attention
from Chinese law enforcement, numerous individuals continue to fall victim to sextortion
schemes, resulting in substantial financial losses. In one province alone, the police station
recorded losses exceeding 24.7 million Chinese yuan (3.9 million US dollars) between
December 2020 and January 2021(China Daily, 2023).
Despite the seriousness, there is a dearth of knowledge regarding the interplay between sextor-
tion processes and the coping mechanisms employed by victims to mitigate the stress resulting
from sextortion. Previous research on sextortion has primarily focused on understanding the com-
plexity of this crime, such as the nature of the relationship and the location involved, as well as its
prevalence and the impact on victims’ mental health (e.g. Cross et al., 2023a, 2023b; O’Malley and
Holt, 2022; Patchin and Hinduja, 2020; Walsh and Tener, 2022). The detailed iteration of victims’
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