Short-Term and Long-Term Impacts of Financial Sextortion on Victim’s Mental Well-Being

Sextortion occurs when an individual threatens to distribute a victim’s intimate images, videos, or information unless they comply with the perpetrator’s demands. In financially motivated sextortion, these demands include payment of a ransom. Despite global increases in financially motivated sextort...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: O’Malley, Roberta Liggett (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
In: Journal of interpersonal violence
Year: 2023, Volume: 38, Issue: 13/14, Pages: 8563-8592
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
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Summary:Sextortion occurs when an individual threatens to distribute a victim’s intimate images, videos, or information unless they comply with the perpetrator’s demands. In financially motivated sextortion, these demands include payment of a ransom. Despite global increases in financially motivated sextortion victimization, there is limited research on the psychological impacts of this type of victimization. Leveraging 332 threads (3,276 posts) from a popular sextortion support forum, the purpose of this research was to use inductive qualitative methods to understand how financially motivated sextortion impacts victims’ mental well-being, their online engagement, and how they process and deal with these impacts. The results illustrate four main concepts: short-term impacts, long-term impacts, coping strategies, and getting better over time. Short-term impacts included worry, stress, anxiety, self-blame, and somatic symptoms of stress. Long-term impacts included enduring episodes of anxiety. Some sources of coping reported by forum users were to confide in a trusted friend, stay offline, or seek professional mental health care. Despite these impacts, many forum members expressed a sense that their anxiety and distress “get better overtime,” a concept that was assisted through active coping strategies.
ISSN:1552-6518
DOI:10.1177/08862605231156416