We Can't Outsource Sex Education to AI
We Can't Outsource Sex Education to AI
In a time of deepfake porn & misogyny, we need sex ed more than ever
I have to admit that when I first heard about deepfake pornography, I thought it could be a positive thing because real human beings would no longer have to perform sex for money, catering to consumer pleasure. Maybe sex could go back to being something we do IRL for our own pleasure!
Pardon my idealism.
Instead, here we go again, as the technology is gleefully put to use as a sophisticated new form of bullying girls and women.
In a recent Rolling Stone article, Lorena O'Neil interviewed US Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), one of the many celebrities who have been subjected to what is being cleverly called “intimate image abuse.”
O'Neil informs us that:
“An overwhelming 96 percent of deepfake videos are nonconsensual porn, all of which feature women, according to a recent study by the cybersecurity company DeepTrace Labs. And women who face multiple forms of discrimination, including women of color, LGBTQ+ people, and women with disabilities, are at heightened risk to experience technology-facilitated gender-based violence, says a report from U.N. Women….
“In 2023, more deepfake abuse videos were shared than in every other year in history combined, according to an analysis by independent researcher Genevieve Oh. What used to take skillful, tech-savvy experts hours to Photoshop can now be whipped up at a moment’s notice with the help of an app. Some deepfake websites even offer tutorials on how to create AI pornography.”
In the Rolling Stone interview, Ocasio-Cortez (often known by her initials, AOC) recognizes that the repercussions of this kind of violence go far beyond the merely personal, however serious that may be:
“It’s so important to me that people understand that this is not just a form of interpersonal violence, it’s not just about the harm that’s done to the victim...this is about class subjugation. It’s a subjugation of entire people. And then when you intersect that with abortion, when you intersect that with debates over bodily autonomy, when you are able to actively subjugate all women in society on a scale of millions, digitally, it’s a direct connection [with] taking their rights away.”
In other words, it is hard to agitate for your rights in the workplace or the doctor’s office when you know that people who look like you are being systematically harassed, abused and humiliated, and no one seems to notice or care.
It must be hard for a public figure like AOC to go to work knowing that her colleagues and political opponents may be watching porn videos of her under their desks, even if everyone knows they are faked.
Now imagine what it would be like for a young teenager to go to school and try to focus on learning when she knows that her classmates have been getting off to faked but real-enough videos of her naked body, and everyone is either ignoring the situation or sniggering about it.
A recent NYT article entitled “Teen Girls Confront an Epidemic of Deepfake Nudes in Schools” details how middle and high school students are using AI apps to fabricate and share explicit images of female classmates.
Not only that, but boys and young men are taking what they've learned from violent porn sites into their real-life encounters with girls and young women.
Another recent New York Times article by author and sex researcher Peggy Orenstein, innocuously entitled “The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sex,” turns out to be about how boys are learning from pornography (real and/or faked) to choke girls during sex.
Orenstein points to new research by Dr. Debby Herbenick, the director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University:
“For the past four years, Dr. Herbenick has been tracking the rapid rise of “rough sex” among college students, particularly sexual strangulation, or what is colloquially referred to as choking. Nearly two-thirds of women in her most recent campus-representative survey of 5,000 students at an anonymized “major Midwestern university” said a partner had choked them during sex (one-third in their most recent encounter). The rate of those women who said they were between the ages 12 and 17 the first time that happened had shot up to 40 percent from one in four.”
After reviewing all the negative effects of sexual strangulation, Orenstein observes:
“The physical, cognitive and psychological impacts of sexual choking are disturbing. So is the idea that at a time when women’s social, economic, educational and political power are in ascent (even if some of those rights may be in jeopardy), when #MeToo has made progress against harassment and assault, there has been the popularization of a sex act that can damage our brains, impair intellectual functioning, undermine mental health, even kill us.”
Back in the day, I used to teach college women’s studies classes where we would talk about safe sex and consent. We used to talk about the damaging social effects of violent pornography, in which the violence is almost always directed in degrading ways towards women, by men. We also used to dream about “overcoming the binary,” and achieving full equality of all genders and identities.
In recent years, at least on college campuses, there has been more progress made towards overcoming the binary than I ever imagined I would see. But deep-rooted misogyny remains intact and widespread, growing out of sight in social locations like pornography, widely consumed but rarely discussed and barely regulated.
In the age of deepfake porn, now more than ever, we need the kind of honest inquiry into human relationships that used to take place under the banner of feminism and gender studies. Sex ed, currently only available to about half of American students, should begin in elementary school and continue robustly into college.
We can't outsource this kind of education to AI, especially when we know that a large swath of the porn landscape depicts and normalizes violence against women, even showing women “enjoying” being abused.
Unregulated pornography that violently demeans women, whether real or faked, is a symptom of a deep sickness in our society, eating away at our social health from the inside.
This is not just about improving intimate relationships, however worthy a goal that might be. It's about improving the mental health and vibrancy of our entire social fabric, so that we can work together to solve the urgent problems that face us in the 21st century.
In other all-hands-on-deck moments in recent history, women and queer folks have been told that their issues need to come second to the primary goals of whatever movement the men were focused on. I can imagine that happening now, when we will be told we have to focus on politics or the environment, and not get worked up over "intimate image abuse" or girls being choked during sex.
But as Audre Lorde said long ago, "we do not live single-issue lives." Disrespect for girls and women goes hand in hand with disrespect of the environment. We can't afford to have girls and women shamed and traumatized in a time when their clear, decisive leadership is so needed. Neither can we afford to have boys and men more focused on creating and watching pornography than on contributing to a healthy, respectful and flourishing society for all.
Educators and activists of all backgrounds: we need to teach about and promote healthy sexual relations as well as healthy ecosystems. We need to work together to nurture the next generations, creating the conditions for all life on Earth to thrive.
NOTE: The images I captured of the beautiful Earth Altarscapes by Veronica Ramirez at the 35th Annual Bioneers Conference are included here as a kind of counterpoint to the disturbing information I’m sharing; a way to ground us and remind us of the earthly beauty that abides. Despite all the ugliness humans and our technology are capable of creating, we can create works of great beauty, too.
Coming up….An Inspiring Author Conversation
On April 17 at 7 pm Eastern, I’ll be hosting a free online Green Fire Press author conversation with Olivia Ames Hoblitzelle, author of Ley Lines of Love: Adventures Along the Spiritual Path. A dedicated practitioner of Buddhism, Olivia shares many remarkable stories about her inner journey, including the joys of learning from enlightened teachers. She also recounts how her years of involvement with a devotional tradition from India ended in an archetypal story of disillusionment. In her compelling, deep and far-ranging memoir, she confronts legacy issues connected to her family and illustrious ancestry, while tracing the intricate “ley lines of love” that span cultures, centuries, and countries.
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Step off the beaten path of your routine life and join me for a fabulous Il Chiostrowriting workshop May 25 - June 1, 2024 at the luxurious Borgo San Fedele, a meticulously restored monastery set in exquisite gardens amid a classic Tuscan landscape of olive groves and vineyards.
Our days will unfold in a perfect balance of guided writing and productive sharing; excursions guided by our Il Chiostro hosts to nearby picturesque medieval towns; coming home to San Fedele to relax by the pools and gardens, eat delicious meals and visit with new friends; and taking time for your own contemplative writing and thinking.
You’ll come away from this magical sojourn simultaneously enlivened and relaxed, with a deeper understanding of your purpose in writing memoir, along with many pages of new writing providing a plethora of potential doorways into the story of your life.
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I have not found a better creative tonic than RIDING and WRITING in the spectacular Icelandic countryside. Join me in the height of the bright summer season, June 10 – 16, 2024.
Every day we’ll ride out on sturdy, sweet Icelandic horses through the expansive rolling vistas of western Iceland, led by our experienced guides from Hestaland. Once you’ve experienced the exhilaration of the fast, smooth tolt, a gait unique to Icelandic horses, you may not want to go back to the trot!
We’ll eat delicious meals together at the beautiful Hestaland Guesthouse and participate in thoughtful, open-hearted guided writing sessions.
There will also be plenty of time for sharing and discussing your writing projects and visiting the nearby hot spring spa at Krauma.
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Whether you’ve been to Iceland many times, or this will be your first experience there, this trip is sure to be transformative!
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Friends, it’s my pleasure and my passion to support you as we stretch towards living our lives creatively and to the fullest.
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Such an important and deeply disturbing topic! Thank you for delving into this pile of shit and exposing it. I've never watched pornography, and cannot imagine how anyone would consent to participating in it (unless being paid for it and desperate for the money) nor why anyone would enjoy watching it (unless in a state of desperation and totally disconnected from oneself). In my mind, pornography has always been the pits of depravity. Now it turns out there is worse ~ deepfake porn! And among kids!!
As a "character-assassination / stalking-survivor" I can totally imagine the devastating impact.
Thank you so much for sharing 💕🙏