#non-consensual-images — Public Fediverse posts

James Strahler II has been sentenced to 15 years in prison in the US for harassing and blackmailing women with real and AI-generated intimate images and videos.

According to the Justice Department, at least six adult women were targeted; threats were also made against some of their mothers.

The case is the first conviction under the 2025 Take It Down Act, which bans sharing sexual material—including AI-g…

https://en.hacks.gr/eftiachne-pseytikes-gymnes-eikones-gynaikon-kai-tis-ekviaze-15-chronia-fylaki/

#TakeItDownAct #NonConsensualImages #OnlineHarassment #AIImages

AI Nudification: The 55% Stat Parents Can’t Ignore

How AI Nudification Became the New Adolescent Normal

From Virtual Fitting Rooms to Digital Danger

Generative AI (GenAI) was supposed to be our creative co-pilot. We didn’t see AI Nudification coming.

We marveled at its ability to turn text into art and embraced “virtual try-on” applications that allowed us to see how clothing might fit using nothing more than a smartphone camera. But as a tech ethicist, I’ve watched this innovation take a dark, predatory turn. While the underlying technology, specifically “inpainting,” is legitimate, its application in adolescent circles has reached a terrifying tipping point.

We are no longer talking about a few “tech-savvy” outliers; we are witnessing the mass-normalization of AI-generated Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) among teenagers. This isn’t just the next stage of digital growing pains. It’s a fundamental shift in how the first generation of “AI adolescents” navigates consent, identity, and digital harm.

Takeaway 1: The “Scaling Gap” and the New AI Nudification Normal

For years, educators and parents tracked the steady rise of traditional “sexting.” Historical meta-analyses placed adolescent creation and receipt of self-generated sexual imagery at roughly 14.8% and 27.4%, respectively. This latest data reveals a staggering “scaling gap” that should alarm every stakeholder in digital safety. 

Today, GenAI has effectively quadrupled those rates. According to a nationally representative survey of 13-to-17-year-olds:

• 55.3% of adolescents have used AI “nudification” tools to create sexualized images of themselves.
• 54.4% have received these images.

What was once a niche behavior has become a majority experience. This isn’t just a technological update to sexting; it is a total normalization of CSEM production as a routine part of adolescent sexual exploration.

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Takeaway 2: Nudification vs. Creation – The Personal Toll of Inpainting

It is vital to understand the technical nuance that makes this trend so invasive. There is a massive difference between general text-to-image GenAI (which creates an image from a prompt) and “nudification” tools. These tools utilize a technique called inpainting, which modifies a pre-existing, real photo. 

The survey found that usage of these specific nudification tools is significantly higher than traditional AI content creation. This is precisely why the victimization is so direct: it requires the likeness of a real person. As the study notes, these tools are designed to: 

“…visualize what individuals might look like without clothing.” 

By using a real individual as a “basis image,” the technology allows for the digital removal of clothing, turning a casual school photo into CSEM in seconds. The distinction between a “fake” image and a “real” person is erased, leading to a profound degree of direct victimization.

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Takeaway 3: The High Cost of Non-Consensual “Deepfakes”

The most heartbreaking aspect of this shift is the erosion of consent. The data highlights a crisis of victimization: 36.3% of participants reported having a non-consensual image of them created, and 33.2% had such an image shared without their permission. 

Victims describe a visceral sense of “powerlessness” and “dehumanization.” When your likeness can be hijacked and sexualized without your involvement, it leads to a state of constant hypervigilance. Crucially, these statistics represent a lower bound of the crisis. Because the study only measured peer-to-peer actions, it does not account for images created by adults exploiting minors or images of children under the age of 13. If those variables were included, the scale of victimization would likely skyrocket.

Takeaway 4: The Gender and Age Myths Around AI Nudification Debunked

We often fall into the trap of thinking digital crises are limited to specific subcultures or older teens. The data tells a different story. The usage of AI nudification tools is remarkably uniform across all demographics: race, region, and sexual orientation showed no statistically significant differences in prevalence. This is a universal adolescent issue. 

While male participants showed higher rates of regular (frequent) creation and distribution, the most startling finding was the age breakdown. There was no statistically significant difference in usage between 13-year-olds and 17-year-olds. This destroys the myth that we can wait until high school to talk about AI safety. To be effective, digital literacy and intervention must begin before age 13, as younger adolescents are already engaging with these tools at the same rates as their older peers.

Learn why it’s important for everyone, especially teens, to be able to control their online experiences. Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

Takeaway 5: A Legal and Ethical Gray Zone

We must call these images what they are: CSEM. Under federal law (18 U.S. Code § 1466A), the production and distribution of pornographic GenAI images of minors is illegal, regardless of whether the image is “real.” 

This puts policymakers in an ethical bind.

We are currently seeing thousands of adolescents technically committing federal crimes as part of “exploratory” peer behavior. Ethicists and lawmakers are now forced to debate whether we need legal “carve-outs” for consensual, same-age peer interactions, or if the permanent digital harm of these images necessitates strict criminal enforcement. Meanwhile, “gray market” apps continue to bypass app store controls, providing easy access to nudification tools without any meaningful age verification.

Conclusion: A Call for Proactive Digital Literacy

The window for intervention is narrow but still open. Because much of the current usage is reported as “exploratory” rather than “habitual,” we have a brief opportunity to steer this generation toward a more ethical digital future. However, our response cannot be reactive. We need multimodal education that doesn’t just teach “online safety” but addresses the profound ethical weight of AI tools and the lifelong impact of non-consensual sharing. 

Final Thought: As we enter an era where a child’s likeness can be permanently decoupled from their consent in a matter of clicks, we must ask: Are our legal and educational frameworks fundamentally incompatible with this new reality, or are we simply too slow to protect the first generation of AI adolescents?

Are you a professional looking to stay up-to-date with the latest information on, sex addiction, trauma, and mental health news and research? Or maybe you’re looking for continuing education courses? Then you should stay up-to-date with all of Dr. Jen’s work through her practice’s newsletter!

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

https://www.europesays.com/ie/292023/ Senior government figures to discuss strengthening laws over Grok controversy – The Journal #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #BreakingNews #BreakingNews #Cabinet #Éire #ElonMusk #FeaturedNews #FeaturedNews #Grok #Headlines #IE #Ireland #LatestNews #LatestNews #MainNews #MainNews #MichealMartin #News #NonConsensualImages #SexualImagery #TopStories #TopStories #X

Dick Pic Culture: How do Teenage Girls Navigate it?

As I sit to write this, I’m experiencing something I never anticipated in my professional life. I just wrote the phrase “Dick Pic Culture” in the headline.

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Beyond just my blog, I can’t believe I’ll be writing about a study from a respected, peer reviewed scientific journal with the words Dick Pic in the title.

When I started working with problematic sexual behavior nearly 20 years ago, I did not foresee this. Yet here I am, writing, again, about research involving young women being sent pictures of men’s penises. And just how often those pictures are sent without consent.

Enough Shock. Now the Study.

I recently came across this study, published in 2021, by researchers in the United Kingdom. It addressed the experiences of teenage girls being sent “dick pics” and it was done in a rather creative way.

The study examined a number of situations. The first was the unwanted receiving of the pictures from older men on Snapchat. Then they asked the girls (aged 11 to 18) about their experiences receiving these images from their same aged peers.

In the United Kingdom where the study took place, sending a picture of your genitalia to someone under the age of 18 is a sexual offense.

A 2018 survey in the UK of women aged 18 to 24 found that 47% of those women had received an unsolicited image of a man’s penis.

46% of those women received the image from an adult man before they were 18 years old. Therefore, nearly half of the women in that study were a victim of a criminal offense.

For this study, the authors ran focus group discussions combined with an arts-based method of social media post drawing to provide a space for the girls to share their experiences. The researchers worked with 144 girls between the ages of 11 and 18 who were all in school.

Are you looking for more reputable, data-backed information on sexual addiction? The Mitigation Aide Research Archive is an excellent source for executive summaries of research studies.

The Results

76% of the girls in the study had received a dick pic and, for the most part, these images were not requested.

However, despite these images being unwanted, the girls did not usually report the sender either to the social medial platform or their school. They stated that it was easier to block or ignore the sender than to report them.

Additionally, 70% of the girls had been asked to send nude images of themselves. The standard manner in which this is done is by sending an unsolicited dick pic in an attempt to solicit a trade of nude images.

The researchers refer to this as a transactional dick pic. Images sent by peers are often sent to be transactional.

How Does Dick Pic Culture Reflect on the Victim?

The study’s respondents reported stigmatization if it becomes public knowledge that they received a dick pic. There is an assumption that the girl would have sent an image in return, even if they didn’t. If the trade is refused, she may be subject to the anger of the sender. Or the sender might outright lie about getting a nude image in return.

When someone that the girls thought was a friend sends an unsolicited image, the respondents reported their reaction goes from feeling disgusted, to feeling awkward around the friend to the process being normalized.

Many reported that it was more “of a big deal” when they received a dick pic from someone they thought of as a friend.

When the sender was a friend, it brought up trust issues in the friendship and awkwardness when they would see the sender as they could not unsee the images.

The authors of the study do point out that not all girls are bothered by the receiving of unsolicited sexual images. Some girls have come to associate being sent these images as a sign of desirability.

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What do the Authors Think About Dick Pic Culture?

The authors conclude that apps such as Snapchat have been integral in the increase in prevalence of unsolicited penis pictures.

In talking to the girls, they also found that they did not consider receiving these images a form of sexual harassment and, because of this, they more often than not, did not report the senders either to the app platform or to school officials.

In their conclusions, the authors suggest adopting the concept of online sexual harassment and image based sexual harassment. Doing so will help everyone involved better understand what happens when image sharing becomes a nonconsensual practice. Whether that be an unsolicited dick pic or the nonconsensual re-sharing of a consensually shared image.

A Perspective for the US

In the US, we tend to only take the sending of unsolicited sexual images seriously if the recipient of the images is a minor. This is a criminal offense.

When the recipient of the images is an adult, there appears to be little legal recourse.

This brings to mind an article recently published by the Canadian Lawyer Magazine, where Michael Spratt argues that the unsolicited dick pic should be criminalized, but with care.

Reference: Ringrose, J, Regehr, K. & Whitehead, S. (2021). Teen Girls’ Experiences Negotiating the Ubiquitous Dick Pic: Sexual Double Standards and the Normalization of Image Based Sexual Harassment. Sex Roles, 85, 558-576.

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For an in-depth guide on talking to your adolescents about cybersex and pornography, check out Dr. Jen’s book. Amazon | BookBaby

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Do you feel your sexual behavior, or that of someone you love, is out of control? Consult with a professional.