First of all blackmail is always a contest of wills.  Often reverse blackmail is possible ­ ‘carry out your threat and I’ll have you arrested’ or “you think you couldn’t be identified in that picture?”  To have the  blackmailer on tape would be very useful, use a cellphone or a discreet tape recorder.  I am not a lawyer, but I believe a tape of even a “your secret is safe with me” or a joking (but not really) threat would still carry weight in court.  Implied threats would be more problematical.

Could a blackmail threat be subliminal?  Subliminal extortion is certainly possible.  If one loans too much money to a sociopath, there is a stress to keep loaning money lest the earlier amounts never be paid back.  (But of course, they almost never will be ­ one has to wake up and stop throwing good money after bad.)

But back to blackmail.  I don’t know what this searcher’s situation is, my experience involved what I assumed to be sexual blackmail taking place in a workplace.

Blackmail of course relies on the cooperation of the victim who is counted on to have as much interest in not going to the police as the blackmailer does.  For the sociopath this makes it almost a perfect crime, a crime without consequence.  Further if the sociopath can blackmail others into doing his dirty work, slander or murder etc., he’s protected on these additional crimes.   The victim needs to understand that blackmail is rarely a onetime thing, the victim is really entering into a criminal compact with the blackmailer that can last for years.

You do not want to be blackmailed. You may start by feeling ‘this is insane.’  But as the years go by the insanity becomes a way of life.  If it’s in a job situation, leave, asap — the situation is not manageable.

Depending on how tough of a strategy you wish to use, you might want to file harassment or even stalking charges against the blackmailer.  You might also want to check your local laws and get a concealed carry permit (but don’t threaten the sociopathic blackmailer directly, just let the word out).

Speaking from imagination, not experience, never, ever threaten a sociopath with a gun.  The sociopath will sense, before you know yourself, whether you have the will or actual intent to use it.  That’s their prime ability, reading others’ emotional states.

Switching viewpoints and sympathy, if you are a victim of a sociopathic harassment, slander (or whispering) or bullying campaign then you must view any blackmailed (by the same sociopath) friend as an enemy.  Again, sociopaths love to get others to commit their crimes or dirty work.

I recall a death penalty case in which the murderer (a paranoid with actual enemies) had been manipulated by being told his victim was out to get him, so he acted first.  The sociopath:  ‘Chortle, chortle,’ as he collected the remaining money on the contract — his hands were clean, the law couldn’t touch him.

Looking at blackmail from the sociopath’s viewpoint, many sociopaths experience life as strangers in a strange land (this idea and phrase is not my original).  They live surrounded by weirdos (us) doing things they can’t understand for reasons they can’t understand.  The need for security can become topmost.  Blackmail simply becomes a tool for that end.  It can become their main tool-for-life like education and hardwork is for the rest of us.

I once had the rare opportunity to bring blackmail charges as a third party, that I didn’t take up.  The situation involved a woman who I considered a good friend.  I was also friends with her husband and sometimes gave her child gifts.  I didn’t want to harm her life or her family.

To paraphrase an unknown source (I want to say Faulkner, but a quick search turned up nothing), an act of evil is like throwing a pebble into a pond, you never know where the ripples are going to reach (which unlike the natural metaphor never dissipate).  One doesn’t want to be the cause of further misery.  But what course of action would actually lead to the least misery?  I now absolutely view the blackmailed victim as being complicit in a criminal compact.

The case above revolves around another third party.  At one point my friend (call her A), a manager, fired this individual (call him X) (fact).  However she was incapable of offering a reason for the firing to her superiors (fact) and was forced to rehire him (fact).  The story was that it involved pictures (rumor).  The surmise is that A refused to believe the blackmailer (call him Z) was actually blackmailing her, so Z showed his friend (and male lover) X the photos in front of A (supposition).

Around the same time A was repeatedly telling blackmail jokes that no one else laughed at.  For example, at an office party she and I had our picture taken together.  Later she repeatedly joked that I had had it altered to show a sex act and was using it to blackmail her.  I believe she was using these jokes to, in effect, tell us she was being blackmailed and to somehow deal with it emotionally.

The reader might wonder why I thought A and Z were involved in the first place.  The sequence went like this, first A spoke often about Z, often saying what troubles Z had (the psychopath was setting the pity play); second, they would go out for drinks more or less publicly; third A stopped talking about Z totally but one would often see them talking very quietly, very close to each other.  In addition one time another suspected lover/devotee (call her B [ASIDE 1]) of the psychopath Z (a Don Juan or love thug, no doubt with hundreds, if not thousands, of lovers of both sexes [ASIDE 2]) started complaining to me (I don’t know why) that A needed to go home and spend more time with her husband and family.  It seemed clear that she was angry with the competition and wanted to express that anger.  I’m sure she didn’t think I would know what she was talking about.

Anyway, I believe that X, the third party accessory who I’m speculating was shown the pictures in front of the blackmail victim, could have been the key to a prosecution of Z, the psychopath.  X would have needed to have been persuaded to testify to what he knew, or perhaps threatened with arrest himself as an accessory to felony blackmail.  He might have realized  his situation however, for not long after he moved across the country.  Perhaps he also have feared for his physical safety if his psychopathic lover ever recognized his (X’s) danger to Z.

The psychopath involved is of the “alien masquerading as a human” category who should be involuntarily committed to a mental hospital, in my opinion.  It is clear that the public wants to be protected from sociopaths/psychopaths from the numerous sexual predator laws.  I believe mental hospitals should be reopened or be used more often to protect the public from incorrigible psychopathic transgressors.

This particular individual (Z) lives to destroy others, imo — it’s his source of emotionless enjoyment (if such is possible).  It would have been a good bargain for the world to have incarcerated him (or even try to prosecute him) even if it had destroyed my erstwhile friend’s marriage.  Loose, I’m sure he’s destroyed other couples and families, probably caused death(s) through heart attacks brought on by stress and emotional devastation, or perhaps out right murders (I have no doubt he  would be capable of them).

My advice to anyone who is a victim of a sociopathic harassment campaign to always make the self defense choice.  One should never say that the situation is done and over (probably not).  A blackmailed friend can actually do you more harm than the blackmailing sociopath since no one will assume ulterior motives on your ex-friend’s part and the bad blood which might be known to exist between you and the sociopath won’t be considered.

You have to protect yourself and let the chips fall where they may.  The blackmailed party has made his or her choice ­ twice, actually, first by engaging in the blackmailable activity, second, by entering into the criminal or sub-criminal compact with the blackmailer.

Further discussion of blackmail:  http://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2011/09/06/more-searches/

ASIDE 1: It is worth noting that this individual was actually engaged to be married at the time.  She described her fiancee as someone “who would be a good father” — i.e., Mr. Boring.  The following is speculation on my part, but it didn’t seem that either A or B had any guilt about “stepping out” with the sociopath, Z.  Perhaps it was too close to comforting-a-child.  This may also explain why the women I have known who destroyed a marriage or primary relationship through an affair with a sociopath were so shocked and confused, seemingly they didn’t see it coming.  I’ve certainly known men who destroyed their primary relationships through such affairs, but I never knew them to be surprised.

ASIDE 2: Such individuals are often described as having unusually strong sex drives — I don’t see it that way.  Seduction and sex are lifetools for sociopathic Don Juans ­ they are seeking safety and security, they exercise dominance, they gain protectors or even livelihoods (they may be able to live off the willing loans of girlfriends (which is a crime)).  Further, since there is zero emotional involvement, boredom is a huge driving force.  If you and I could only have sex with blow-up dolls we would probably go in for variety ourselves.