Guest Post: How would you respond if your child was told to strip online?

[NicolaDMumsnet]

I’m 17 and standing in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom with my heart in my chest and a lump in my throat. “Mum, dad, I don’t know what to do. There’s a guy online saying he’ll shut off our WiFi if I don’t take my clothes off on camera for him”.

As a teenage girl grappling with the two realities of a) being lonely with insecurities remedied only by validations from boys, and; b) finding sex exciting; I had been going on anonymous one-on-one chatrooms like ChatRoulette and Omegle to appease both sides.

And so, when a cute guy flattered me on Omegle, I didn’t question giving him my Skype details. It meant he wanted to keep talking, and the sweet sound of validation rang louder than any warning bells about giving out my information to a stranger online.

His friend request appeared alongside a message containing my first, middle, and last name. This information wasn’t available on Skype, he shouldn’t know it. I questioned it, and he replied “that’s nothing”. He proceeded to tell me to take my clothes off on camera. If I didn’t comply he threatened to turn off my WiFi to show the power he had over me.

I was scared but still thought I could regain control. I told him no and he just shook his head at me.

Suddenly the WiFi was off on my laptop and my phone. It was too much of a coincidence. I breathed a sigh of relief and apprehension when the WiFi was back on a few minutes later. But if this had been him, what else could he find out or do?

He called back and told me to strip again, clearly enjoying making me afraid. He said he had other girls who would do this for him, making me wonder if he was blackmailing them too. I hope they’re ok.
He then threatened to tell my parents what I’d been up to. He also found out where I went to school and threatened to shut down the entire school’s WiFi.
I was crying at this point, terrified. But I still couldn’t make myself strip.
My parents had never failed in making me understand that things are replaceable, but people aren't. So despite the shame and fear, I knew my parents cared more about me than having to buy a new WiFi router. And as much as I didn’t want my school to find out, I knew my parents would protect me there too.

So I hung up and turned off the laptop. I went to my parents and told them everything. They handled it beautifully. I was taken seriously immediately, and made to feel no shame. There was no punishment, no new rules beyond a soft “and now we’ve learned that we should avoid sites like that”. We took my laptop to the police and I was later given a new one. Importantly, I was not cut off from the internet, regardless of how keen my parents were to protect me. The experience was punishment enough, and I’ve not been in a chat room since.

Men blackmailing women and girls for pleasure is not only common, but its own genre of pornography. If I hadn’t told my parents, there is a very real chance that my crying face and naked body would have ended up on a porn site seen by millions of people without my knowledge or consent. Knowing this only makes me more grateful to them for fostering trust between us.

A parent’s natural instinct to shield children from the world and its dangers is not one I am here to question. But surely second to the hope that your child will never come to harm, is the hope that if they do, they feel safe enough to tell you. What I hope to impart with my experience is that if your child is victimised by porn culture, try not to worsen the experience by punishing them, even in the name of protection. I commend my parents for facing their fear, shock and disappointment on their own rather than projecting them on to me.


As long as the pornography industry is legal and unregulated, the unrelenting demand for content will drive more ‘amateurs’ to seek out young, insecure girls to exploit and upload for public consumption.

Inevitably, parental protection can only go so far. Protection of children has to be a priority for the government as well. So I am joining with CEASE to call for age and consent checks for everyone who appears in pornographic content online, as well as stronger age verification for pornography websites, and for this to be implemented within six months of the passing of the Online Safety Bill.

I hope your child never goes through what I went through. But if they do, it’s the trust you have forged up until that moment that will matter most. I hope you will take a lesson from my parents and respond with calmness, kindness and without judgement.

Twitter: @CEASEorgUK
Website: https://cease.org.uk/

[ItsGotMe]

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. I'm so glad you had that relationship with your parents that meant you did exactly the right thing and told them. As the mother of a teenage daughter, the fact that you said that your parents had instilled in you that 'things can be replaced but people can't' reminded me to make sure that that message is also foremost in my DD's mind. I try and instil that thought but I might do some work on gently reinforcing that message. So helpful to hear your thoughts on how they reacted. I'd like to think I'd react the same way.

Thanks for the good work you're doing in trying to stop this.

[jb2RR]

Makes me want to scoop up my girls and never let them out of my sight!

Thanks for your bravery in sharing.