ABU DHABI // Threats and demands from online “sextortionists” can cause severe emotional stress among victims who may contemplate suicide.
Dr Justin Thomas, a psychology lecturer at Zayed University, said the shame of exposing sexual behaviour can haunt people.
“Shame is a powerful moral emotion,” he said. “Shame - unlike guilt - requires an audience. The internet provides that audience in a big way.
“The internet has now allowed us to shame one another, and some subhumans, of course, will give this a criminally mercantile twist.”
Being a victim of such a crime is shameful in liberal western societies and more so in conservative countries where sex remains a taboo.
“Shame as an emotion is devastating, people who are shamed often say that they just want to vanish, they want to die,” said Mr Thomas. “It is not surprising that shaming is often associated with suicide.”
Like other internet scams, sextortion also exploited gullible victims and the problem is not only limited to adults.
Children and teenagers can also be coerced or blackmailed into sending explicit pictures or videos to a predator.
Earlier this year, the United States justice department declared in a new report that “sextortion is by far the most significantly growing threat to children, with more than 60 per cent of survey respondents indicating this type of online enticement of minors was increasing”.
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