Background: Sextortion – the threatened dissemination of explicit, intimate, or embarrassingimages of a sexual nature without consent for the purpose of acquiring money, more images, orsomething else – has emerged as a critical public safety and public health concern for youth inrecent years.Objective: The current study explores the extent of sextortion among youth, as well as its relationshipto suicidality.Participants/setting: Respondents were from a national US sample of 3416 English- or Spanish-speakingmiddle and high school students aged 13 to 17 (Mage = 15.0 years; 50.7% female;63.5% White/Caucasian).Methods: A cross-sectional design was utilized. Adolescents completed an anonymous onlinesurvey with questions about their experience with sextortion and suicidal thoughts and behaviors.Results: Approximately 15% of youth in the sample had been the target of sextortion. Multivariatelogistic regression analyses revealed a statistically significant relationship between experiencewith sextortion and suicidality. Results also indicated that the relationship between the victimand the offender (whether the offender was known offline or not) did not have an impact onsuicidality.Conclusions: More research is necessary to better understand the underlying causes of sextortion,as well as effective ways to prevent and respond to it. One possible avenue for prevention couldinvolve educating youth and their caregivers about the risks associated with sexting (such assextortion), including the potential deleterious mental health outcomes when the experienceturns negative.
Keywords: Sextortion; Suicide; Adolescence; Youth; Education; Trauma
Patchin, J. W. & Hinduja, S. (2026). Sextortion and Suicide: Implications for Adolescent Image-Based Abuse. Child Abuse and Neglect, 175. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2026.107981.
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