From October 2021 to March 2023, there were at least 13,000 national cases of sexual extortion, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates data. (Getty Images)
FRANKFORT — Kentucky’s laws haven’t caught up to the digital age and rampant sexual extortion targeting children, advocates said Wednesday.
That’s why they’re pushing for swift passage of Senate Bill 73, which makes sextual extortion — or sextortion — a felony. The bill would also make it easier to collect legal damages from a perpetrator and require schools to educate children about what sextortion is.
Sexual extortion is when a perpetrator obtains a sexually explicit photo and threatens to release it if the victim doesn’t meet their demands, which could be monetary, sexual or other kinds of blackmail.
SB 73 sponsor Sen. Julie Raque Adams, R-Louisville, called the practice “calculated” and “cruel.”
“Being a kid today is very different than when we grew up,” Raque Adams said during a news conference at the Capitol Annex. “Social media and technology have changed the way young people connect, but it’s also opened the door to new dangers that we never had to face before.”
The current punishment for sextortion can be a “patchwork” of legal charges, said Jaime Thompson, the program coordinator of People Against Trafficking Humans (PATH) Coalition of Kentucky. Putting something specific on the books would deter more predators, she and others said.
From October 2021 to March 2023, there were at least 13,000 national cases of sextortion, according to Kentucky Youth Advocates data. Child victims of sextortion sometimes end their own lives, advocates said, because of shame and fear.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 988.
Tips for staying safe in the digital age
Advocates, the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations offer these tips for staying safe online:
- Close or cover the camera lens on cell phones, computers and other devices, especially when undressing or changing clothes. Assume cameras can be activated remotely. Do not undress with a camera lens pointed at you.
- Be careful what you share online.
- Report suspicious behavior.
- Block suspicious accounts.
- Don’t accept a friend request from anyone online that you don’t know in real life.
- Don’t give any personal contact info to anyone you don’t know in real life.
- If someone you don’t know asks for personally identifying information, do not comply.
- Do not share your passwords with anyone.
- Don’t use passwords that may be easy to guess.
- Don’t click on links in emails when they come from people you don’t know.
- For parents: teach kids to report threats. Discuss online safety with them and encourage them to disclose when they receive suspicious communication.
“Sexual extortion is one of the most dangerous and rapidly growing crimes targeting our young people today,” Raque Adams said. “It is calculated, it is cruel and it thrives on fear and silence.”
Her bill has been assigned to the Judiciary committee, and is on Thursday’s agenda. A sister bill in the House has also been assigned to the House Judiciary committee.
‘Sexual boundaries get blurred’ online
Frankfort Police Detective Ricky Lynn said it’s become increasingly difficult for parents to guard and monitor what children are exposed to through online games and social media. Children as young as 11 are exposed to pornography online, he said.
Through the internet, he said, “sexual boundaries get blurred.”
“When someone finds them on the internet and talks to them about sending a naked picture or receiving a naked picture, now, all those boundaries are blurred, and most parents don’t have the tools to even govern that, because we don’t have any laws that govern that,” Lynn said.
Lady Tee Thompson, who works with several organizations to combat human trafficking, said Kentucky is a “fertile ground” for “predators to weaponize shame and isolation.”
The “insidious” crime, she said, is “a gateway to human trafficking.”
“When an individual is coerced into providing explicit images, videos or acts under threats of exposure, harm or blackmail and a party profits in the form of money, drugs or something else of value, often beginning online, it traps victims into cycles of fear, forging compliance and enabling traffickers to escalate controls, leading to in-person exploitation and trafficking,” Thompson said.
Advocates said there has recently been a “ steep climb” in 14-17-year-old boys targeted in this manner, though anyone can become a victim. Perpetrators often pose as a romantic interest, luring in boys who think they’re speaking to girls their age.
Shannon Moody, the chief policy and strategy officer at Kentucky Youth Advocates, said the extortion leaves “many children feeling ashamed and too scared to seek any help.”
More than half of minors find online grooming common, according to KYA data, “really highlighting the widespread nature of how prevalent this is,” Moody said.
This is “not a theoretical issue at all,” Thompson said.
“This is a crisis that is not just devastating,” she said. “It is preventable, and yet we are not moving fast enough. We are allowing the predators to outpace our protection.”
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