He secretly hoped his financially struggling single mother, or anybody, would notice what was happening and protect him. The demands snowballed into riskier requests, and within months the gay Connecticut teen was trading sex for dinners out, designer sneakers and other luxuries.īates says he was lured by the attention and what appeared to be easy money.
Unseen: The Boy Victims Of The Sex Trade, Part IĬhris Bates was 16 years old when he started selling nude photos of himself on the internet to adult men who pressured him for more and more images.