Cybersex, Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Sex Robots, Sex Dolls

Open Access: No.

Abstract

AI-powered “undressing” apps generate sexually explicit deepfakes from authentic images without consent, representing a profound escalation in image-based sexual abuse. This study analyzes 29 such apps, examining their technical affordances, marketing strategies, revenue models, and privacy policies. Findings reveal that these platforms facilitate and encourage the creation of nonconsensual intimate images (NCII), normalize women’s objectification, and contribute to a culture in which women’s privacy and autonomy are undermined. By framing deepfake abuse as a form of gender-based violence, this research underscores the urgent need for regulatory interventions to mitigate NCII-related harms and protect victims from exploitation in digital spaces.

Relevance

All 29 websites analyzed by the researchers were designed to ‘undress’ images of women. But “only 12 were able to do the same to images of men” since the AI models that drive these platforms “are primarily trained on data limited to the bodies and body parts most commonly associated with women and other feminine-presenting people,” such as rounded breasts, curved waists, and vulvas.

Most of the websites display only images of women, and not men, who are white or Asian and in their late teens of early 20s.

“By design, these apps reduce women to sexual objects that can be stripped, redressed in provocative costumes, posed in lascivious ways, and made to simulate sexual acts against their will – all for male gratification and entertainment.” The apps, too, trivialize and even glorify the violation of subjects’ privacy, autonomy, and dignity, while framing women as objects existing primarily for male sexual pleasure.”

Citation

Williams K. (2025). “There Are No Limits!”: AI Undressing Apps and the Normalization of Nonconsensual Intimate Deepfakes. Violence Against Women. https://doi.org/1077/8012251397966