Blackmail ideas

[Cassioirl]

Hi gang! I’m working on a blackmail story and I’m looking for suggestions for “early” blackmail asks as the blackmailer is moving from easy to more involved asks. Feel free to DM ideas or reply here.

Victim is a successful woman in her 30s living with her grandmother in an unnamed midwestern US city. So she has ample resources, privacy, etc.

 

[000zing]

What the hell's a "blackmail ask" when it's around? Personally, I use English when all else fails.

 

[Cassioirl]

I suspect I may live in a different country to you. I mean request/demand.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

'Blackmail ask' was clear enough, IMO.

OK, it starts with something minor, something easy, using something fairly innocuous as leverage. What would a fairly normal woman try to hide from her grandmother? Much would depend on their relationship, but it might be something as simple as having gone topless on a beach while on vacation. Would she be embarrassed if Granny saw photos? Quite possibly. There's the lever.

The trick now is to convince her to yield something just a little bit more potentially embarrassing. What might it be? How about a posed topless photo, something obviously not amid dozens of other topless people on a public beach. The one might be explained as going with the crowd and 'everybody was doing it'; the other must have been aimed at somebody, a deliberate attempt at sexuality. I will mail this photo of you on a nude beach unless you send me one of you topless in your bedroom...

From there it progresses, increasingly serious asks.

It needn't be sexual. It could be some minor indiscretion at work, like stealing something trivial or making a silly mistake which would embarrass her firm. It might be a hit-and-run accident after she'd had a couple of drinks. Either might jeopardize her job and professional status.

The thing is that, once the blackmailer sets the hook, the demands keep getting worse and, with every step, the blackmailed person becomes less able to refuse further things.

 

[Cassioirl]

Thanks. That’s the type of approach I’m wanting to take. Do you have any more suggestions along the line of the topless beach?

 

[SteelPoint]

'Blackmail ask' was clear enough, IMO.

Maybe to those who can see through mud... especially when the blackmailer is allegedly "moving from easy to more involved 'asks'". A blackmail demand, if that is what is really meant, is usually in the form of money. If what's implied is a requirement to perform ever greater sexual acts/favours, then this also is mystifying as the OP is apparently only interested in "early asks" - presumably the initial trap by which the blackmailer ensnares his/her victim in the first place.

Now, I can understand that. Unless a blackmailer stumbles upon suitable blackmail material totally by chance, then the planning and setting of a trap - especially one with a touch of interest or originality to it - is always going to be a challenge to any writer. After that - once the victim is hooked - the ramping up of demands is fairly simple by comparison, as most police investigators will probably tell you.

 

[Cassioirl]

It’s the way I want this to evolve—not just crazy sex scenes from the start. I’ve gotten some really good ideas by DM, so it’s starting to come together.

I feel good about the setup and I think it has a realistic feel to it.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Thanks. That’s the type of approach I’m wanting to take. Do you have any more suggestions along the line of the topless beach?

Certainly.

A blackmailer can take advantage of something the victim has done or is doing or else he can create something.

How to create leverage? A classic blackmail scheme involves a prostitute taking a john to an apartment set up either with hidden cameras or with a 'jealous husband' who breaks in at the opportune moment. That's likely to be purely financial - money for photos or money to keep the 'husband' from going nuts.

On a beach...

Let's say a woman living in a conservative state or in a sensitive job (let's say a well-known family lawyer) goes on vacation to any one of the many resorts and beaches around the world where toplessness is normal. She decides 'why not?' and spends a perfectly normal week at the beach - normal except that she's topless day after day.

She does what many of us do and takes a bunch of selfies on her phone, which subsequently gets stolen or her account gets hacked. Annoyed but not worried, she gets a new phone and all is well until a stack of photos arrive in the mail (snail mail so to be less likely to be lost in a spam folder). They are of course her selfies, ones of her suntanning, playing a pickup game of volleyball, having drinks with new friends at a pool-side bar - all very normal beach holiday photos, but with boobage. Maybe there are ones of her going for an innocent walk with a nice guy, nothing more than holding hands and a chaste peck on the lips at her door before he left.

All innocent, all legal, but potentially embarrassing.

The blackmailer also includes contact info from her phone for her contacts, including Granny, the threat of exposure being obvious. But they say they'll be reasonable and wipe all those photos in return for just a couple of others, say three photos taken in her own bedroom, nude but her hand covering her sex. Trying to escape embarrassment, she goes along, only to get further demands.

(This is sadly all too common with young teenage women, ones just discovering their sexuality. She texts a slightly risqué photo to a cute boy, who talks her into something more revealing, then eventually turns nasty and demands really explicit stuff or else...)

What further demands would your story blackmailer make? That's up to you. Money, business secrets, non-consensual sex are obvious possibilities.

Good luck.