In his article, ‘How do erotica differ from pornography?’ For centuries.Psychology Today), Leon Seltzer has suggested that “if the subjects are presented in such a way that their inner and outer radiance, their fleshly vitality, and the work itself show a passionate and powerful affirmation of life and the pleasures of this world, then I think we are talking erotic”. Written long before the growing popularity of AI and text-to-image ‘art’, Seltzer describes pornography as the reduction of subjects to “so many body parts” that their beauty (if any) “seems subordinate to the greater purpose of arousal”.
In this context, drawing from my experience as a subscriber to an AI text-to-image community ‘art’ platform, I’ve found my fears will—more often than not—be generated by a word gesture including ‘woman’, or in clothing that shows exaggerated curves. Which – depending on the viewer’s ‘taste’ in women – could be considered erotic.
With that in mind I direct your attention to the online ‘galleries’ of two community ‘art’ platforms that you can search any browser for ‘Most Popular AI Community Art Platforms for Beginners’ or ‘Most Popular AI Community Art Platforms with Open Public Galleries’. Deviantart and Night Cafe are likely to feature prominently in the results. And they are accessible to everyone, including children.
So, be prepared for a shock if you use the search facility on each of these websites to find ‘girl’ images. Because that’s when you’ll see a disturbing mix of generated images of ‘sexy’ AI women, early teenage baby girls and innocent preemie girls. On each platform, the number of innocuous images of girls varies from day to day, but they usually outnumber erotica.
Over time – in the context of objectifying women – could it have been a thoughtful, completely innocent facial expression and intended to be deliberately provocative? Because, if you look closely at the array of photos of women accessible on both of these platforms, you’ll notice that some of them are smiling (especially in a sweet, innocent way).
In fact, on every community platform used to determine how women are stimulated, most AI images of female figures depict them with blank facial expressions – although the ‘here look’ is also popular. Some even resemble the ‘childlike sex dolls’ that caused such public outrage in France (time)
Of course. , it hardly needs to be added that Erotica sells – and both AI community ‘art’ platforms mentioned in this article are commercial ventures. This is why we need regulators to step in and clamp down. Now… before it’s too late.