In recent years there has been a rapid deterioration of individual privacy, aided in large part by emerging media technologies. The boundaries between the public self and the private self have blurred to near transparency as we are encouraged to share information about our day-to-day lives online. What this means for the rights of women and girls, whose bodies were already treated as public property prior to this ongoing erosion of privacy, is a myriad of new methods for turning female flesh, and even the very identity of women ourselves, into intellectual property.
This is why all pornography should be illegal. No paywalls. No ID verification. Illegal.
I can only imagine the horror of a young woman or a parent, sibling, or friend stumbling across one of these videos. All for what? For some degenerate to get a few seconds of pleasure?
This is one of your most important articles, Genevieve. You have distilled the essence of the threat that these technologies present to civil society and presented it in cogent, powerful prose. It really is technological terrorism against women and girls and it must be stopped. Thanks for all of your work.
Horrendous: "In 2020, research team Sensity reported that over 680,000 women in Russia and Eastern Europe had unknowingly had their image stolen and turned into porn through a deepfake bot freely available via Telegram. Users could upload a photo and receive a nude version within minutes. According to Giorgio Patrini, CEO of Sensity and co-author of the report, “Usually it’s young girls. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s also quite obvious that some of these people are underage.”
Sensity discovered that a Telegram group which swapped the deepfake porn content had over 100,000 members, 70% of whom appeared to reside in Russia or Eastern Europe."
Thank you for writing this and for all the work you do! It is crazy that we live in a society where the protection women and children is not at the forefront of law makers/influential peoples minds.
As always, thanks for highlighting this real and present danger to children & women, Genevieve. I hope you are taking good care of yourself… Constantly wading through this cesspit can’t be easy for you… Mind yourself.
Instead of moving humanity forward, we women are constantly busy fighting for basic human status. In order to move humanity forward, we must forcibly strip men of their privileges over us, over living things, and over everything else. They will never give them up voluntarily.
Would it be okay if Nicolas and I translated this important piece into French and posted it on le Partage?
This is so incredibly depressing. It makes excellent sense of the burkah and veiled women as protective camouflage for women against the sex-obsessed and demeaning Male Gaze: and even of Victorians dressing bulbous piano legs in frills to avert male sexual fantasising -- if it ever really worked that way, rather than sexualising frills?
Repressive laws against pornography might only drive it underground. But that, plus women accepting the self-protective rationale of dressing more "modestly", seems preferable to this technology-enabled flood of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls, given free rein. And now much, much too late to put back in the box.
The arguments of pornographers that free access to porn is a substitute for women and children "actually" being harmed in its making, is cynical in the extreme. First, as it's increasingly untrue: when any "real" photo can be so easily turned into "deepfake" porn -- with the resulting suicide of even one girl so abused.
And pornographers must know better than anyone that addiction to porn results in desensitisation: driving the demand for ever more extreme porn. And correspondingly also makes it MORE likely for sexual abuse viewed obsessively on screens, and normalised by desensitisation, to spill over into the "real" world. The collapse of policing and legal systems under an increased load of sexual violence driven by online porn, has already resulted in rape being effectively legalised in the UK.
Crazy. Men who access these images should be charged with rape. The laws need to catch up with the technology of our times. I’d gladly join a group to advocate for this kind of legislation.
Do not give up hope: this might provide a huge opportunity to women! If men could be caught and charged accessing these online, we could actually start making a dent in the number of sexual predators walking free in the world.
There might never be proof of what happens in a bedroom- but there is proof of what happens online via what content men possess!
This is why all pornography should be illegal. No paywalls. No ID verification. Illegal.
I can only imagine the horror of a young woman or a parent, sibling, or friend stumbling across one of these videos. All for what? For some degenerate to get a few seconds of pleasure?
This is one of your most important articles, Genevieve. You have distilled the essence of the threat that these technologies present to civil society and presented it in cogent, powerful prose. It really is technological terrorism against women and girls and it must be stopped. Thanks for all of your work.
Horrendous: "In 2020, research team Sensity reported that over 680,000 women in Russia and Eastern Europe had unknowingly had their image stolen and turned into porn through a deepfake bot freely available via Telegram. Users could upload a photo and receive a nude version within minutes. According to Giorgio Patrini, CEO of Sensity and co-author of the report, “Usually it’s young girls. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s also quite obvious that some of these people are underage.”
Sensity discovered that a Telegram group which swapped the deepfake porn content had over 100,000 members, 70% of whom appeared to reside in Russia or Eastern Europe."
Your work is invaluable. Thanks.
Thank you for writing this and for all the work you do! It is crazy that we live in a society where the protection women and children is not at the forefront of law makers/influential peoples minds.
As always, thanks for highlighting this real and present danger to children & women, Genevieve. I hope you are taking good care of yourself… Constantly wading through this cesspit can’t be easy for you… Mind yourself.
An amazing, and amazingly thorough, article. The only thing that's more amazing is the depths of the depravity you've documented and described.
It's revolting.
Instead of moving humanity forward, we women are constantly busy fighting for basic human status. In order to move humanity forward, we must forcibly strip men of their privileges over us, over living things, and over everything else. They will never give them up voluntarily.
Would it be okay if Nicolas and I translated this important piece into French and posted it on le Partage?
Brilliant piece, Genevieve - well done!
This is so incredibly depressing. It makes excellent sense of the burkah and veiled women as protective camouflage for women against the sex-obsessed and demeaning Male Gaze: and even of Victorians dressing bulbous piano legs in frills to avert male sexual fantasising -- if it ever really worked that way, rather than sexualising frills?
Repressive laws against pornography might only drive it underground. But that, plus women accepting the self-protective rationale of dressing more "modestly", seems preferable to this technology-enabled flood of sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls, given free rein. And now much, much too late to put back in the box.
The arguments of pornographers that free access to porn is a substitute for women and children "actually" being harmed in its making, is cynical in the extreme. First, as it's increasingly untrue: when any "real" photo can be so easily turned into "deepfake" porn -- with the resulting suicide of even one girl so abused.
And pornographers must know better than anyone that addiction to porn results in desensitisation: driving the demand for ever more extreme porn. And correspondingly also makes it MORE likely for sexual abuse viewed obsessively on screens, and normalised by desensitisation, to spill over into the "real" world. The collapse of policing and legal systems under an increased load of sexual violence driven by online porn, has already resulted in rape being effectively legalised in the UK.
Crazy. Men who access these images should be charged with rape. The laws need to catch up with the technology of our times. I’d gladly join a group to advocate for this kind of legislation.
Do not give up hope: this might provide a huge opportunity to women! If men could be caught and charged accessing these online, we could actually start making a dent in the number of sexual predators walking free in the world.
There might never be proof of what happens in a bedroom- but there is proof of what happens online via what content men possess!
Let’s turn this to our advantage!