Growing Human Sexuality within the Age of AI

November 19, 2025

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by know-how just about for the reason that daybreak of time. Nearly as quickly because the printing press was invented, erotica was being revealed. Pictures was used for erotic functions with glee by the Victorians. And, everyone knows how a lot the web has influenced trendy sexual tradition.

Now that we’re grappling with the impact of AI on numerous sectors of society, what does that imply for sexuality? How are younger individuals studying about sexuality, and the way are individuals participating in sexual exercise, with AI as a part of the image? Some researchers are exploring these questions, however my analysis has indicated that there’s a little bit of a scarcity of research analyzing the true impacts of this know-how on how individuals suppose and behave sexually. This can be a big subject, after all, so for at this time, I’d prefer to dig into the topic in two particular and associated areas: distribution of knowledge and consent.

Earlier than we dive in, nonetheless, I’ll set the scene. What our normal tradition calls generative AI, which is what I’ll give attention to right here, includes software program powered by machine studying algorithms that may create textual content, photographs, video, and audio which are artificial, however that are troublesome if not unattainable to tell apart from natural content material created by human beings. This content material is so much like natural content material as a result of the machine studying fashions are fed huge portions of human-generated content material through the coaching course of. Due to the immense volumes of content material required to coach these fashions, all corners of the web are vacuumed as much as embody within the coaching information, and this inevitably contains some content material associated to sexuality, in a method or one other.

In some methods, we wouldn’t need to change this — if we wish LLMs to have a radical mapping of the semantics of English, we will’t simply reduce out sure areas of the language as we truly use it. Equally, picture and video turbines are going to have publicity to nudity and sexuality as a result of these are a good portion of the pictures and movies individuals create and put on-line. This naturally creates challenges, as a result of this content material will then be mirrored in mannequin outputs occasionally. We implement guardrails, reinforcement studying, and immediate engineering to attempt to management this, however ultimately generative AI is broadly pretty much as good at creating sexually expressive or express content material as some other form of content material.

Nicola Döring and colleagues did a considerable literature assessment of research addressing how utilization of AI intersects with sexuality, and located customers have 4 predominant methods of interacting with AI which have sexual elements: Sexual Info and Training; Sexual Counseling and Remedy; Sexual and Romantic Relationships; and Erotica and Pornography. This intuitively most likely sounds proper to most of us. We’ve heard of not less than a number of of those types of phenomena referring to AI, whether or not in films, TV, social media, or information content material. Sexually express interplay is mostly not allowed by mainstream LLM suppliers, however universally stopping it’s unattainable. Assorted different generative AI merchandise in addition to self-hosted fashions additionally make producing sexual content material fairly simple, and OpenAI has introduced its intentions to enter the erotica/pornography enterprise. Sexual content material from generative AI has an incredible quantity of demand, so it seems that the market will present it, a method or one other.

It’s necessary that we keep in mind that generative AI instruments haven’t any idea of sexual explicitness aside from what we impart via the coaching course of. Taboos and social norms are solely a part of the mannequin insofar as human beings apply them in reinforcement studying or present them within the coaching information. To the machine studying mannequin, a sexually express picture is identical as some other, and phrases utilized in erotica have which means solely of their semantic relationships to different phrases. As with many areas of AI, sexuality will get its which means and social interpretations from human beings, not from the fashions.

Having sexual content material obtainable via generative AI is having important results on our tradition, and it’s necessary for us to consider what that appears like. We need to shield the protection of people and teams and protect individuals’s rights and freedoms of expression, and step one to doing that is understanding the present state of affairs.

Info Sharing, Studying, and Training

The place will we find out about sexuality? We study from observing the world round us, from asking questions, and from our personal exploration and experiences. So, with generative AI beginning to tackle roles in numerous areas of life, what’s the influence on what and the way we find out about sexuality particularly?

In essentially the most formal sense, generative AI is already taking part in a significant position in casual and personal intercourse training, simply as performing google searches and looking web sites did within the period earlier than. Döring et al. famous that their analysis discovered that searching for out sexual well being or academic details about sexuality on-line is sort of widespread, for causes that we will most likely all relate to — comfort, anonymity, avoidance of judgment. Dependable statistics on how many individuals are utilizing LLMs for this identical form of exploration is tough to come back by, however it’s cheap to count on that the identical benefits apply and would make it an interesting strategy to study.

So, if that is taking place, ought to we care? Is it significantly any totally different to find out about sexuality from google searches versus generative AI? Each sources have accuracy points (anybody can put up content material on the web, in spite of everything), so what differentiates generative AI, if something?

LLM as Supply

Once we use LLMs to seek out out data, the presentation of that content material is sort of totally different from once we do primary net searches. The outcomes are offered in authoritative tone, and sourcing is usually obscured except we deliberately ask for it and vet it ourselves. Consequently, what’s being referred to as “AI literacy” turns into necessary to successfully interpret and validate what the LLM is telling us.

If the person utilizing the LLM has this sophistication, nonetheless, students have discovered that primary factual details about sexual well being is mostly obtainable from mainstream LLM choices. The restricted research which were executed so far don’t discover the standard or accuracy of sexual data from LLMs to be worse than that retrieved basically net searches, in keeping with Döring et al. If that is so, younger individuals searching for necessary data to maintain themselves protected and wholesome of their sexual expression might have a useful instrument in generative AI. As a result of the LLM is extra nameless and interactive, customers can ask the questions they actually need to have answered and never be held again by fears of stigma or disgrace. However hallucinations proceed to be an unavoidable drawback with LLMs, leading to occasional false data being served, so person skepticism and class is necessary.

Content material Bias

We should keep in mind, nonetheless, that the angle offered by the LLM is shaped by the coaching processes utilized by the supplier. That implies that the corporate that created the LLM is embedding cultural norms and attitudes within the mannequin, whether or not they actually imply to or not. Reinforcement studying, a key a part of coaching generative AI fashions, requires human customers to make choices about whether or not outputs are acceptable or not, and they’re essentially going to carry their very own beliefs and attitudes to bear on these choices, even implictly. In the case of questions which are extra of opinion, relatively than reality, we’re on the mercy of the alternatives made by the businesses that created and supply entry to LLMs. If these firms incentivize and reward extra progressive or open-minded sexual attitudes through the reinforcement studying phases, then we will count on that to be mirrored in LLM habits with customers. Nevertheless, researchers have discovered that this implies LLM responses to sexual questions may end up in minimizing or devaluing sexual expression that isn’t “mainstream”, together with LGBTQ+ views.

In some circumstances, this takes the type of LLMs not being permitted to reply questions on sexuality or associated matters, an idea referred to as Refusal. LLM suppliers may merely ban the dialogue of such matters from their product, which leaves the person on the lookout for dependable data with nothing. Nevertheless it can also insinuate to the person that the subject of sexuality is taboo, shameful, or unhealthy — in any other case, why would it not be banned? This places the LLM supplier in a troublesome place, unquestionably — whose ethical requirements are they meant to observe? What sorts of sexual well being questions ought to the chatbot reply to, and what’s the boundary? By entrusting sexual training to those sorts of instruments, we’re accepting the opaque normal these firms select, with out truly understanding what it’s or the way it was outlined.

Visible Content material

However as I discussed earlier, we don’t simply find out about sexuality from asking questions and searching for info. We study from expertise and commentary as nicely. On this context, generative AI instruments that create photographs and video turn into extremely necessary for the way younger individuals perceive our bodies and sexuality. Döring et al. discovered a major quantity of implicit bias within the picture era choices when examined.

“One strand of analysis on AI-generated data factors to the danger that text- and image-generating AI instruments will reinstate sexist, racist, ageist, ableist, heteronormative or different problematic stereotypes which are inscribed within the coaching information fed into the AI fashions. Such biases are simple to exhibit comparable to when AI instruments reaffirm cultural norms and stereotypes of their textual content and picture outputs: Merely requested to create a picture of “a pair” an AI picture generator comparable to Midjourney (by Midjourney Inc.) will first current a younger, able-bodied, normatively engaging, white, mixed-sex couple the place the lady’s look is extra sexualized than that of the person (as examined by the authors with Midjourney Alpha in June 2024).” — https://hyperlink.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11930-024-00397-y

As with the textual content turbines, extra refined customers can tune their prompting and choose for the sorts of photographs they need to see, but when a person will not be certain what they’re on the lookout for, or isn’t that expert, this type of interplay serves to additional instill biases.

The Physique

As an apart, it’s price contemplating how AI-generated photographs might form our understanding of our bodies, in a sexual context or in any other case. There have been threads of dialog in our tradition for many years about how internet-accessible pornography has distorted younger individuals’s beliefs and expectations about how our bodies ought to look and the way sexual habits ought to work. I feel most evaluation of these questions actually isn’t that totally different whether or not you’re speaking in regards to the web typically or generative AI.

The one space that does appear totally different, nonetheless, is in how generative AI can produce photographs and movies that seem photorealistic however show individuals in bodily unattainable or near-impossible methods. It takes unrealistic magnificence requirements to a brand new degree. This could take the type of AI-based filters on actual photographs, severely distorting the shapes and appearances of actual individuals, or it may be merchandise that create photographs or movies from entire fabric. Now we have moved previous a time when airbrushing was the foremost concern, which might make small distortions of in any other case actual our bodies, right into a time when the bodily unattainable or near-impossible is being offered to customers as “regular” or the anticipated bodily normal. For girls and boys alike, this creates a closely distorted perspective on how our our bodies and people of our intimate companions ought to seem and behave. As I’ve written about earlier than, our growing incapacity to inform artificial from natural content material has considerably damaging potential.

On that word, I’d additionally like to debate a particular space the place the norms and ideas younger individuals study are profoundly necessary to making sure protected, accountable sexual engagement all through individuals’s lives — consent.

Consent

Consent is a tremendously necessary idea in our understanding of sexuality. This implies, in brief, that each one events concerned in any form of sexual expression or habits readily, affirmatively agree all through, and are below no undue coercion or manipulation. Once we discuss sexual expression/habits, this will embody the creation or sharing of sexually express imagery of those events, in addition to bodily interactions.

In the case of generative AI, this spawns a number of questions, comparable to:

If an actual particular person’s picture or likeness is used or produced by generative AI for sexual content material, how do we all know if that particular person consented?
If that particular person didn’t consent to being the topic of sexual content material, what are their rights and what are the obligations of the generative AI firm and the generative AI person? And what are these obligations in the event that they did consent to creating sexual content material, however not within the generative AI context?
How does it have an effect on generative AI customers’ understanding of consent after they can so simply purchase this sort of content material via generative AI, with out ever straight interacting with the person/s?

What makes this totally different from older applied sciences, like airbrushing or picture modifying? It’s a matter of levels, in some methods. Deepfakes have existed since nicely earlier than generative AI, the place video modifying could possibly be utilized to place another person’s face right into a porn scene or nude picture, however the ease, affordability, and accessibility of this know-how has modified dramatically with the daybreak of AI. Additionally, the growing incapacity for common viewers to detect this artificiality is important as a result of understanding what’s “actual” is more durable and more durable.

Copyright and IP

This subject has quite a lot of widespread threads with copyright and mental property questions. Our society is already beginning to grapple with questions of possession of 1’s personal likeness, and what boundaries we’re entitled to set on how our picture is used. By and enormous, generative AI merchandise have little to no efficient restriction on how the pictures of public figures might be rendered. There are some perfunctory makes an attempt to forestall picture/video/audio turbines from accepting express requests to create photographs (sexual or in any other case) of named public figures, however these are simply outwitted, and it appears to be of comparatively minimal concern to generative AI firms, exterior of complaints by massive company pursuits. Scarlett Johansson has discovered this from expertise, and the not too long ago launched Sora 2 generates countless deepfake movies of public figures from all through historical past.

This is applicable to individuals within the intercourse business as nicely. Even when individuals are concerned in intercourse work or creating erotica or pornography willingly, this doesn’t imply they’re consenting to their work being usurped for generative AI creation — that is actually no totally different from the problems of copyright and mental property being posed by authors, actors, and artists in mainstream sectors. Simply because individuals create sexual content material, this doesn’t make the declare to their rights any much less legitimate, regardless of social stigma.

I don’t need to painting this as an indictment of all sexual content material, or essentially even sexual content material generated by AI. There’s room for debate about when and the way artificially generated pornography might be moral, and definitely I feel when consenting grownup performers produce pornography organically there’s nothing fallacious with that on the face of it. However these problems with consent and particular person rights haven’t been adequately addressed, and these ought to make us all very nervous. Many individuals might not suppose a lot in regards to the rights of creators on this house, however how we deal with their claims legally might create precedents that cascade all the way down to many different situations.

Sexual Abuse

Nevertheless, within the house of sexuality, we should additionally take into account wholly nonconsensually created content material, which may trigger great hurt. As an alternative of calling issues “revenge porn”, students are starting to make use of the time period “AI-generated image-based sexual abuse” to check with circumstances the place individuals’s likenesses are used with out their permission to generate sexual content material, and I feel this significantly better articulates the harm that may be executed by this materials. Contemplating this habits sexual abuse rightly forces us to suppose extra in regards to the experiences of the victims. Whereas picture manipulation and fakery has all the time been considerably potential, the most recent generative AI makes this extra achievable, extra accessible, and cheaper than ever earlier than, so it makes performing this type of sexual abuse far more handy to abusers. It’s necessary to notice that the diploma or severity of this abuse will not be essentially outlined by the publicness or harm to the sufferer’s status — it’s not necessary whether or not individuals consider that the deepfake or sexual content material is actual. Victims can nonetheless really feel deeply violated and traumatized by this materials being created about them, no matter how others really feel about it.

Main LLM suppliers have, so far, held the road on sexual textual content content material being produced by their merchandise (to better or lesser levels of success, as Lai 2025 discovered), however OpenAI’s impending transfer into erotica implies that this can be altering. Whereas textual content communication has much less potential for critically damaging abuse than visible content material, ChatGPT does have interaction in some multimodal content material era, and we will nonetheless think about situations the place a person instructs an LLM to provide erotica within the voice or fashion of actual individuals, and the true individuals being mimicked may understandably discover this upsetting. When OpenAI introduced the transfer, they mentioned some questions of safety however these have been totally issues in regards to the customers (psychological well being points, for instance) and didn’t converse to the protection of nonconsenting people whose likenesses could possibly be concerned. I feel this can be a main oversight that wants extra consideration if we will presumably hope to make such a product providing protected.

Studying about Consent

Past the rapid harm to victims of sexual abuse and the IP and livelihood harms to creators whose content material is used for these functions, I feel it’s additionally necessary to think about what classes customers soak up from generative AI with the ability to create likenesses at will, significantly in sexual contexts. Once we are given the power to so readily create another person’s picture in no matter type, whether or not it’s a historic determine pitching somebody’s software program product, or that very same historic determine being represented in a sexual scenario, the inherent lesson is that that particular person’s likeness is truthful recreation. Authorized nuances apart (which do should be taken under consideration) we’re particularly asserting that getting somebody’s approval to interact with them sexually will not be necessary, not less than when digital know-how is concerned.

Think about how younger individuals are receiving the implicit messages from this. Youngsters know they may get in hassle for sharing different individuals’s nudes, typically with extreme authorized penalties, however on the identical time, there’s an assortment of apps letting them create pretend ones, even of actual individuals, with a click on of a button. How will we clarify the distinction and assist younger individuals find out about the true hurt they might be inflicting even simply sitting in entrance of a display screen alone? Now we have to start out fascinated about our bodily autonomy within the digital house in addition to the bodily house, as a result of a lot of our lives are carried out within the digital context. Deepfakes usually are not inherently much less traumatizing than sharing of natural nude pictures, so why aren’t we speaking about this performance as a social danger children should be educated on? The teachings we wish younger individuals to study in regards to the significance of consent are fairly straight contradicted by the generative AI sphere’s strategy to sexual content material.

Conclusion

You may moderately finish this asking, “So, what will we do?” and that’s a very laborious query. I don’t consider we will successfully forestall generative AI merchandise from producing sexual content material, as a result of the coaching information simply contains a lot of that materials — that is reflective of our precise society. Additionally, there’s a transparent marketplace for sexual content material from generative AI and a few firms will all the time come up to fill that want. I additionally don’t suppose LLMs ought to forbid responding to sexual questions, the place individuals could also be on the lookout for data to assist perceive sexuality, human growth, sexual well being, and security, as a result of that is so necessary for everybody, significantly youth, to have entry to.

However on the identical time, the hazards round sexual abuse and nonconsensual sexual content material are severe, as are the unrealistic expectations and bodily requirements being set implicitly. Our authorized programs have confirmed fairly inept at coping with web crime over the previous many years, and this image-based sexual abuse is not any exception. Prevention requires training, not simply in regards to the info and the legislation, however in regards to the influence that deepfake sexual abuse can have. We additionally want to offer counter-narratives to the distortions of bodily type that generative AI creates, if we wish younger individuals to have wholesome relationships with their very own our bodies and with companions.

Past the broad social tasks of all of us to take part within the undertaking of successfully educating youth, it’s the accountability of generative AI product builders to think about danger and hurt mitigation as a lot as they take into account revenue objectives or person engagement targets. Sadly, it doesn’t appear to be many are doing so at this time, and that’s a shameful failure of individuals in our area.

In reality, the sexual nature of this subject is much less necessary than understanding the social norms we settle for, our tasks to maintain weak individuals protected, and balancing this with defending the rights and freedoms of standard individuals to interact in accountable exploration and habits. It’s not solely a query of how we adults perform our lives, however how younger individuals have alternatives to study and develop in methods which are protected and respectful of others.

Generative AI generally is a instrument for good, however the dangers it creates should be acknowledged. It’s necessary to acknowledge the small and enormous methods including new know-how to our cultural house impacts how we expect and act in our day by day lives. By understanding these circumstances, we equip ourselves higher to answer such adjustments and form the society we need to have.

Learn extra of my work at www.stephaniekirmer.com.