Headless Women: The growing impact of deepfakes on the adult entertainment industry

Women’s faces are being taken and manipulated to create nonconsensual sexual deepfakes, but porn stars’ bodies are too.

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Feature Image Credit: Another Body Documentary.

The spread of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes has received increased public attention, especially in instances of celebrities’ faces being inserted into pornographic material. 

But what about the bodies featured in these videos?  

In most explicit deepfakes, there are at least two victims: the woman whose face is taken and replicated without consent, and the adult performer whose face is erased, and their content repurposed. 

That is the untold, or lesser mentioned, side of deepfake creation: the headless bodies of adult performers. 

“It’s an increasing scenario, one that both the performers and the women targeted can do very little about”

Chandell Gosse, a Senior Research Officer with expertise in tech-facilitated abuse at Cape Breton University, has spoken out on the need to include adult performers in conversations around deepfakes. 

“When we do focus on the harm, we focus on the target whose face has been put into it, but it’s still the body of somebody else,” she said, “that’s content that they’re creating and that they should have some ownership over.” 

A photo in the bathtub posted to Instagram by performer Sydney Leathers was taken and claimed to be of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in an attempt to undermine her political reputation. 

Adult performers’ content is repeatedly being taken and repackaged as a tool to abuse other women. 

Porn performer Grace Evangeline told journalist Samantha Cole that their work is often spread around free sites without their permission, but the advent of deepfake technology has created new issues, like nothing they’ve ever seen before.  

It’s an increasing scenario, one that both the performers and the women targeted can do very little about.  

“The rise of deepfake tools and technology raises questions for the future of the porn industry”

Journalists like Cole have been writing about this for a while, but there is still a general lack of acknowledgement of the rights of adult performers in conversations surrounding deepfakes and moves to legislate the issue.  

Goose said: “There is such a stigma attached with sex work and it’s not something that people are comfortable focusing on or speaking to. 

“If it was any other type of content, I think the conversation would be really obvious and people would be talking about copyright, but there’s less discussion about the protection that we should be offering those folks as well.” 

A venn diagram. The title reads 'Nonconsensual sexual deepfakes: creating a hybrid human.' The first circle is blue and contains the words "women whose images are taken and put through algorithms which learn their facial features and expressions, creating a model that can be superimposed onto explicit content." The second circle is red and contains the words "Female adult performers whose images and videos are taken and their faces erased, so the content can be repurposed with another woman's face inserted." The crossover of the two circles has an arrow pointing down to text that reads "victims of nonconsensual deepfakes made using women's images and likeness." The diagram is intended to show the fact that both women whose images are taken and inserted into pornographic videos AND the adult performers who originally made said videos are both victims in the creation of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes.
There are at least two victims of each nonconsensual sexual deepfake: the woman whose face is used, and the woman whose body is used.

So, what about copyright? Can adult performers use copyright law to have deepfake videos using their content removed?  

Allegedly Me(dia) asked Durham University law professor Clare McGlynn, who has openly campaigned for deepfake legislation. 

She explained: “If they own that copyright, yes, they could take action against that deepfake video and get it removed, but many of those porn actors will not own the copyright, so they can’t.”  

Beyond the appropriation of adult performers content, the advancement of AI technologies is posing other problems for the porn industry.  

If tools are available for people to generate any kind of sexual content they want, tailored to their fantasies and specific desires, why would they need ‘normal’ porn.  

Could AI technology be threatening the industry as a whole?  

Or, could people in the adult entertainment industry use AI technology in their work?  

Some already are. An influencer in Berlin who goes by the name Sika Moon uses AI to create explicit content. She calls it a “creative process.”  

A screenshot from instagram of an account named 'sika.moon.ai' - her profile has 181 posts and 36.3k followers. Her bio reads "Virtual influencer. Model, Berlin Girl, Artist. Yes, I'm real. This is about merging real content and art creations about me. Why? Because I love it!"
“Why? Because I love it!” Sika Moon is an influencer using AI openly as part of her modelling, and she has over 30,000 followers.

The rise of deepfake tools and technology raises questions for the future of the porn industry.  

There are two visions. One where sex workers have control, choosing to use AI in their work, as many other industries have started to do; and the other, where their work is stolen and repurposed to create something nonconsensual and abusive.  

The important distinction is consent and bodily autonomy.  

What the rapid development of AI will mean for the porn industry going forward is still yet to be determined. What is clear, though, is that in cases of nonconsensual sexual deepfakes the harm to the women whose face is taken and the performer whose body is used, both need to be considered. 

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