Honestly, caution about this kind of scam online needs to be part of education from an early age in the modern world. You simply can’t trust young kids to figure things out on their own when the stakes are potentially this high. Yes, you should be immediately suspicious at a private message out of the blue from someone you don’t know. Always assume the worst. Sure, it’s an incredibly harsh worldview, but it’s no different than the “never talk to strangers” we already teach.
Hard to disagree. We need to drill into kids heads that real girls will never ever not in a million years ask a dude they’ve never met for a nude picture. The girls need to be taught to never ever send a nude either, because only scammers do that.
Yeah, boyfriends and girlfriends will still sext each other. That will never change. But randos? Nah, no random on Instagram is going to send you a nude two hours after you start talking.
This is entirely the extortionists fault, so don’t think I’m saying otherwise. I can’t help but feel these boys wouldn’t be driven to suicide if it weren’t for such toxic views of sexuality in our society.
It was the same way when I was a boy. You’re basically taught by society, media, religion, and often your parents, that masturbation (particularly for men) is disgusting and harmful. Or that having your nudes leaked is shameful. It’s shameful for the person who leaked them, but not at all shameful for the subject. They’re a victim. That’s not shameful.
While the blackmail is terrible, if you don’t send random dick pics while you’re in a relationship, you probably won’t feel like your life is ending when someone threatens to share them
They’re not sending “random dick pics” — they’re sending ones that the scammers have asked them to. Most of us don’t send random dick picks, but expecting a teenage boys to turn down online-profile-with-attractive-photo seems unlikely.
The literal first paragraph in the article says the 17 year old had just kissed his girlfriend goodnight and then got this message on Insta.
If you’re sending random dickpics to random people you don’t know, while in a relationship, that is most definitely on you. Don’t be a scumbag and it won’t happen.
My recollection of a study about 20 years back where they asked college women to ask out guys at random. About a third of the guys who said yes were in a relationship.
oh thats interesting and sad. do you know which study that was?
also not trying to be dismissive, but I wonder how they asked the men out. like was it clear that it was a date or could it be mistaken for someone who was looking for someone to drink a beer together?
I doubt I’ll find it;; it was in the paper-journals era. If I recall correctly, the form of question ranged from “it’s a date” to “let’s sleep together”
A LOT of guys at that age just want to get laid more, and a big chunk simply don’t care about existing relationships if they think they can get away with it. This matches my personal experience.
Absolutely. If you’re passionate about it then you might want to learn more about how the scams are enabled by modern technology’s complete disregard for security and privacy.
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