victim blaming across choices and especially towards women and POC individuals

I don't know about the US, here in Spain the love scams, and fame scams, are a thing across all genders and orientations, with low reporting of scams in general being attributed mainly to shame of the victims for having fallen for a scam.

People like to think they're smarter than most other people, and the more sure they are of that, the easier they are to fool. I think it's no wonder they don't want to acknowledge it afterwards.

everyone in this case is trying to take advantage of someone

We don't know this, and we shouldn't assume this of the victim.

I don't see how else it could work... but I'm open to hearing alternatives?

we must acknowledge the existing structure of power and how it silences certain people and also blames them

Fair.

A relevant aspect I can think of, is the part about it being fine to lie to have sex between "consenting" adults. How can there be consent, when one or both parties are misleading the other? Sounds like an officially codified permission to abuse.

I don't get what people see in fame or clout, it looks like lying and argument of authority to me. The fact that anyone would pursue or get influenced by either, seems to me like ingrained predisposition to getting abused (by authority figures). Not sure how much of that is inherent, and how much social.

A clearly perverse incentive in the whole scheme, is money... but that's kind of unavoidable in any money based society.

The elephant in the room, is sex itself: how can it, on one side, make someone pay and lie for it, and on the other side be used as a bargaining chip. Is it a purely hormonal catalyst for the whole scheme, or a proxy for a power play?