While Grok has introduced belated safeguards to prevent sexualised AI imagery, other tools have far fewer limits
“Since discovering Grok AI, regular porn doesn’t do it for me anymore, it just sounds absurd now,” one enthusiast for the Elon Musk-owned AI chatbot wrote on Reddit. Another agreed: “If I want a really specific person, yes.”
If those who have been horrified by the distribution of sexualised imagery on Grok hoped that last week’s belated safeguards could put the genie back in the bottle, there are many such posts on Reddit and elsewhere that tell a different story.
And while Grok has undoubtedly transformed public understanding of the power of artificial intelligence, it has also pointed to a much wider problem: the growing availability of tools, and means of distribution, that present worldwide regulators with what many view as an impossible task. Even as the UK announces that creating nonconsensual sexual and intimate images will soon be a criminal offence, experts say that the use of AI to harm women has only just begun.
I don’t believe this is true at all. A vast number of sex crimes are things like spousal rape which, in the minds of many offenders, isn’t a crime at all. They see sex with their partner as their right, and I think it’s unrealistic to impute into them the sophistication of thought required to use it as a means of exerting power when they don’t even understand it as a violation, when it is the violatry aspect of rape which gives it power.
My understanding is that this meme comes from studies done on prison populations as an explanation for the prevalence of male-on-male rape perpetrated by straight-identifying men.
Martial rape is also very much all about being in control and having power more than sexual gratification.
Why should I believe you? We all understand that sex is gratifying and so people are motivated to have it. Why does rape require the motive of power over the victim when there is already this obvious motive? Do you have any evidence or argument? You’ve not tried to make one, and nor has anyone else.
If I said that theft was mainly about power over the victim, not motivated by the acquisition of valuable property, would you believe me without argument? You would not, obviously.
How can someone in a society which generally believes that marriage is consent even conceptualise that rape gives them more control than they already have? In their mind they are merely taking what has already been given to them (and for some reason they cannot understand, their partner is unreasonably trying to withold it)
Researchgate
There’s one of many. You could also ask the next psychiatrist or psychologist of your choice what’s the current status quo in science.
OR you could just ignore that and stick to your just-horny-theory.
Also, did you consider a thing can be both? One primarily wants to excert control and also gets off of it “on the side”.
I could give you a beating because I love violence, but it would also be a nice workout. But rarely anyone would do that AS a workout.
Erm… thank you for the article, I found it very informative. But did you read it? From the conclusion:
The article is from 1988, so not the latest, and didn’t conduct its own research so much as pointed out flaws in other research, but it did so quite effectively. Remember the claim I replied to:
If that were the case, then why did Groth (cited as 1979a) find multiple quotes which he attributed to power but which explicitly expressed a sexual motivation, for instance:
(There’s a more graphic quote as well which is more convincing but which I won’t reproduce here). In examining the use of violence in rape, Geis (1977) reported that 78% of the rapists in the study “wanted the victim to cooperate”, and similarly the Queen’s Bench Foundation (1978) reported that 71.2% in their study “stated that they were hoping the victim would comply”, 61.7% said “they had not intended to use violence.”
The author cites a couple of instances of an argument that rape is about power and/or violence because it uses the vulnerability of the victim, which explains why the elderly are raped in spite of their assumed lack of physical sexual attractiveness, which would appear to contradict a sexual motivation. Yet the author points out that the age distribution of rape victims is inversely proportional to vulnerability, with young women being far more likely to be victims than are the elderly or children.
The most concrete counter-argument is that about recidivism rates amongst rapists who are castrated. If rape is simply a violent crime performed in a sexual way, then we would expect that castrating a rapist, while it might prevent future sexual violence, would not prevent the one-time rapist from enacting their violent tendencies in other ways. But the paper cites a Danish study which found that violent recidivism rates among rapists, once sexual crimes were removed, were 8.8% among those castrated, and 21% among those who weren’t. It was a small study and was not recent when the paper you linked was published, but it is still quite powerful because it doesn’t rely on reports by rapists nor on indirect evidence like demographic data.
Certainly - though this conversation has been crucial in understanding the depth of this aspect. But remember, I argued back against the claim that “sex crimes are almost always about power and not about sexual gratification.”
I would say in light of the article you linked I am more certain now that that statement was wrong.
No,i did not read it, I just threw in the very first thing to find. Obviously, that was not very helpful in my argument.
I don’t know why this distinction is so important to you. I hope it’s just scientific obsession with data and facts.
Anyhow, I’d argue that the majority of rapists are from the spectrum of personality disorders in the range of NPD and the classical ASPDs. All those need to be in control. By definition. So even if one say “I just wanted to fuck her”, doesn’t really mean it’s just for sexual gratification. If you had ever worked with victims you’d know that sex is the byproduct of control for those.
And anyone who JUST needs instant sexual gratification right now, and hence rapes ONLY for the sole reason because the woman doesn’t want to (and would have the exact same.“fun” with clear consent) is clearly antisocial anyway (and/or of some archaicly weird (religious) belief, like women were not people but property). Which then circles back to the aforementioned.
absolutely ridiculous
Is it my job to educate? I don’t like work, Do your own research.
The broader topic is important and emotive, but I also generally find it fascinating when people consider something that I find completely counter-intuitive to be taken as read, and so clearly true as to not even require argument (see other replies). I assume I find it interesting and important for the same reason as the author of the article you linked.
Clearly anyone who commits rape is anti-social on some level. (Perhaps via a repressive culture which normalises marital rape - it’s anti-social on some level even though the culture in question finds it normal). But I don’t think from that you can “circle back” to personality disorders and thereby declare that sex is merely a byproduct of control. I’m not sure if that’s what you meant by “circle back” though.
I do wonder if there is is something going on here though, where on some level people feel that if you allow that rapists partly or wholly rape out of sexual motives, then that brings rape within a more normal scope than if you insist that almost all rape is entirely the product of deviant motives for power or anger. And I wonder if that is why you ask “why this distinction is so important to you” - because you’re worried that my position is an attempt (maybe subconscious, maybe only on a small scale) to normalise rape and therefore to excuse it.
Certainly that’s not the case; rape for mainly sexual motives is not in any way excusable. I’d be interested to know if that was where your question was aimed, and how you think that links back to your understanding of rape motives; do you feel any push to believe what you do because to believe otherwise might in some way diminish the crime’s severity?
I’d say, that’s anti-social on every level. Just because everyone does it and it was always “normal” before (culture…), doesn’t make it any less anti-social or wrong. At least in my book. And yes, that is indeed the circle-back. As in that all of those personality disorders show a serious obsession with control. Besides that the act itself is pure control by force. Sure, there will be many examples where sheer animal lust ranks higher than the lust for control, but it’s a spectrum and rarely just on the “just horny!”-side but probably often far to the control-side.
That seems to be the case indeed. The notion that it seems so, not that it actually is.
As a misanthropist dealing daily with victims of abuse, how could I not? (besides it being anecdotal evidence: 100% of every of those stories resolves around control, sex is just ONE of the things)
Totally not. Doesn’t even matter how I see it or not, even my motivation would not matter in the end. It’s simply wrong/evil in an absolute way without any added layers of society/religion/belief/group-dynamics/whatever. In my worldview at least, which is usually not the same as most people’s. The layers explain, but not excuse. I can understand/empathise with sociopaths or religious nutjobs. I see how they could end up with such a conclusion. But not excuse. In the end, we’re all capable of reflection. Some more, some less. We don’t just do, we rationalize.
Don’t believe me. Believe all the studies about what motivates rape that conclude it often is about power and control more than it is about sexual pleasure.
Just to let you know that the other person who replied to my first comment is doing a much better job than you.
It’s not a competition, so that’s irrelevant.
Not saying it is, just that your replies are a waste of time and you could not be wasting your time (and mine)
Pot, meet kettle.
I waste time replying to you in the vain hope you’d be a better discussion partner than you are and have some reason for believing what you day.
Such an optimistic approach is worth it for the occasions when someone actually backs up what they believe, which unfortunately hasn’t panned out with you.
I continue to reply because, optimistically, I believe I might be able to show you how you can contribute positively to a discussion. Whether that’s a waste of time is entirely in your power. I look forward to a future reply where you say why someone else is wrong rather than just telling them that they are.
(But I don’t hold my breath)
Wow
Found the rapist
If you actually thought you’d find a rapist, presumably you’d find my analysis of rape motivation convincing 🤔
🤦
I’m going to assume you don’t find my analysis of rape motivation convincing at all and just throw out horrible accusations like that at people saying stuff you don’t like to try and shut them down.
It requires 0 sophistication of though to revel in simple brutish enjoyment of tormenting the weak
You are simply mistaken
Marital rape is common. Psychopathic enjoyment of the suffering of others is uncommon. Enjoyment of sex is nearly universal.
If I said that theft was mainly about power over the victim, not motivated by the acquisition of valuable property, would you believe me without argument? You would not, obviously: it should take serious evidence to reject the obvious conclusion that rape is usually carried out for sexual gratification.
I take it you’ve just not done any research then?
According to rapists themselves the dominant reasons for rape are always to express power or anger. Please show me your research suggesting it’s about sexual gratification instead of you just making intuitive logical conclusions that are in fact wrong
https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/ajp.134.11.1239
I was pretty explicit about the intuitive background of my position, and request for anything except a just-so story. Your article already accommodates another explanation than power, so we have already moved to a better understanding than you or the OP expressed. And I certainly acknowledge that it challenges my intuition; clearly power and anger are important motivations that I wasn’t really considering. However, I don’t think the article or what I’ve now been reading really support that “almost all rapoe is about power and not sexual gratification.”
This thesis provides a broader survey and importantly when it talks about rape and power, it talks about power rape used to “conquer and sexually dominate” the victim. That to me says there is a key element of sexual gratification at play, because sexual domination is itself about sexual gratification.
The other aspect the author surveys that hasn’t come up yet is hostility towards women as a key predictive factor. We know from the whole incel phenomenon that a key factor in men becoming hostile towards women is in difficulty finding a sexual partner, so this is a whole side to the story which, simmering below it, has sexual gratification as an important influence.
And I still don’t understand how rape through the use of date rape drugs can truly be an expression of anger, or a means of exerting power: these rapes are often intended to remain secret from the victim, so cannot be used in that way. I worry that there’s a tendency when throwing out these sweeping generalisations to ignore high numbers of rape enabled by drink and drugs
So, you’ve certainly helped evolve my view on this, but I don’t agree with the original statement still.
It baffles me how you fail to connect rendering a victim unconscious to be manipulated as the perpetrator sees fit with an expression of power
You additionally fail to connect hostility toward women to anger rapes and continue to insist it is actually sexual gratification at the root of the issue
Best of luck
I supposed I shouldn’t have expected you to actually read what I wrote. Curse my unbridled optimism.
I don’t have time to respond properly, but see that this thread has differing definitions of terms like power and gratification. Yes, those two blur together when looked at in a certain way, but you are asking for academic rigour without applying it yourself. Terms need definitions. People think you are conflating gratification with power blithely.