Questions & Evolution of AI Porn
Coach in the Machine (NSFW)
Trigger Warning: discussions of revenge porn, child abuse and ethical minefields. Updated 11/2023 to reflect new tech. NSFW gallery for paid subscribers only.
Coach in the Machine
Phoenix, Arizona, 1991
A handlebar mustache, blond as corn silk in the desert sun. Red satin gym shorts cling to muscular legs, tanned to a burnt sienna except when that satin moves up just a tiny bit, exposing a sliver of a porcelain thigh…
Early sexual images etch themselves on us, forming the cache of arousal we crudely refer to as our "spank bank." Snippets of flesh from unattainable people: our first crush, a lover who is no longer with us, a stranger on the subway. For me, it was the charismatic coach at my school. A handsome and kind man who kept me company during recess when my bullies ran feral. I always felt flush around him and after puberty, I looked for him; in torrented, pixelated x-rated files, in vintage magazines from Gay bookstores, in grimy sex clubs and parks.
What if I could recreate him, towering over me, wearing those shorts or less? Not a porn actor in a coach costume or a role-play scene, but him, using all the digital tools at our disposal. Is this even ethical? Would it be akin to a celebrity deepfake shared on social media, or closer to revenge porn? Or would it simply be synthetic porn, like hentai?
AI imagery is dominating headlines. AI images were a huge part of the Hollywood strike, there is a surge of lawsuits of revenge porn cases and synthetic child abuse images. Yet, there are few resources addressing AI imagery’s arousal. We openly discuss the dangers and limitations but shy away from its possibilities. Perhaps it's just moving faster than the speed of conversation. A few months ago, AI couldn't render fingers or eyes, but now it's capable of photorealistic humans (reference image 1).
Currently, AI porn, particularly Queer sex, is still inconsistent. AI can create a flawless cheerleader, but Gay sex can resemble Lovecraftian BelAmi porn. Penises like mutated sweet potatoes, literally coming out of ears (reference image 2). This could stem from a data bias: the images these engines are trained on are by and for the straight white male gaze. Queer exclusion trickles down to unexpected places. As Queer creators invest in these systems, the images are improving. The question remains: what happens when AI imagery collides with Queer adult culture? What kind of content will be created for a community who has seen it all and is so closely tied to adult entertainment?
The Queer community and the adult industry have consistently pioneered technology for pleasure and communication. Without Grindr, there'd be no Tinder, and without early meetup sites like Gay.com and PlanetOut.com, social media might not exist the same way. While Queer adult companies have been slow to adopt AI, they're catching up. Sniffies, a hookup app, recently introduced a sporty AI mascot. Porn AI generators are popping up, creating models with the click of a few boxes. As of November, 2023, new image engines like DALLE-3 have been released. I can now easily search on Twitter for images of Henry Cavill fucking Tom Holland, their bodies covered in fluids (celebrity reference image 8).
Folks will argue they could never get off to AI porn—only “real” porn. Having worked in the industry, lemme tell you, there’s nothing “real” about porn. It’s fantasy and acting, propped up by pharmaceuticals and special effects. Synthetic porn is not new. Animated sex films and CGI have been around for decades, but they are labor intensive and niche. AI porn takes a fraction of a second. The results are mixed so far but when consistency and photorealism becomes the standard, what can we expect? Will this bring a new era of catfishing and dangerous AI “body goals?” The potential is immense: sex avatars, face swapping, seldom represented bodies, digital disguises, and custom porn tailored down to the underwear color and year of manufacture (reference image 4). These details are crucial. The sexual response to a 1988 Fruit of the Loom white brief differs greatly from a 2023 Andrew Christian thong.
AI has the potential to fuse our sex memories with our present in a way never possible before. Those are often visceral and detailed, making them ideal for AI prompts. What happens when these memories are rendered photorealistically?
Few Queer creators are making AI porn, but they're emerging. Most AI systems have "community guidelines" that often lean towards homophobia, so these creators have set up their own systems to host AI software without restrictions. The models and scenes are still simple, circuit party flyer fare. It’s the small details, like underwear, which reveal the creators’ truth, the gems in their banks.
A third of the AI Gay porn I’ve found is sport-themed. Given the freedom to create anything, Gay men often revert to age-old archetypes: baseball players in jockstraps, men in locker rooms, and coaches. Inspired by what I saw, I decided to recreate my coach. I’d raise him from the dead if I had to. It wouldn’t be my first time; I’d used AI imagery to resurrect heroes who died of AIDS for my film Fathers. The technology has advanced since 2018, but it still requires planning and thousands of attempts.
I never searched for my coach on the internet. I was afraid that seeing him might make me feel old. Many things could have happened to him in thirty years. He could have died in a freak accident or become another Arizona Republican senior yelling on Facebook. I don’t know which one is less sexy. But once the idea creeped into my brain, I was in it to win it and I formulated a plan…
*cue the 90s hacker montage music*
I'd start by searching Facebook and yearbook sites for his oldest photo, then use TikTok's age filters to rejuvenate him. I'd construct his muscular frame on an AI adult model site then I’d use a face swap app, and voila! Fantasy realized.
It should have been that simple, but it wasn’t.
His face was impossible to find. His name was too common and Facebook and Google searches yielded too many addresses and obituaries. Enter ChatGPT, which can now use AI language models to scour the internet. Within minutes, it found him.
On the cover of Sports Illustrated.
There he was, in a grid of pedophiles, mugshots under blood-red letters, a 1999 story titled “Who is coaching your kid?” My coach had been arrested after years of molesting children in movie theaters. You don’t need high tech to create the unimaginable.
No longer handsome and unattainable but just a weary, defanged predator. Memory needs so little to trigger emotions. The jealousy I felt when my bullies gloated that he was taking them to the movies (my parents would have never allowed it and probably why he never asked). I remembered the charge of feeling his sunburnt skin under my fingers when I massaged sunscreen on his neck in full view of the playground and he paid me 50 cents to buy a popsicle. Although nothing went further than that, it’s a mindfuck to know those “stolen” moments were really his first steps in grooming.
The real power of pornography doesn’t lie in its arousal, but in its questions. What is acceptable and safe for me to see? We don’t have to consume porn or even support it but it will still demand an answer. It’s a political, primal, almost non-consensual question. AI technology stirs a similar discomfort.
So…what would happen if I still recreated my coach in AI? What would I unlock if I willed his image into the digital ether, ready to be lusted over and data mined? If I saw those red satin gym shorts again, what would it do to the wirings in my reptile brain where they were imprinted? Would the image become more potent or lose its grasp? Would I want it to?
The Evolution of AI Porn 2022-2023 (29 images NSFW)
What a difference a year makes. AI images have advanced to hyper-realism with new engines released in the Fall of 2023:
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