AI is expanding online sexual abuse against women and girls
A BMJ opinion article warns that artificial intelligence is rapidly expanding image based sexual abuse against women and girls, making it easier for individuals to generate realistic sexualised images without consent. The author, criminologist Stephanie Fohring, argues that this represents a new and increasingly accessible form of digital violence.
The article highlights the scale of the problem through the example of Grok, the AI tool developed by X. Over an 11 day period between December 2025 and January 2026, Grok is estimated to have generated around three million sexualised images of women and girls. More than 23,000 reportedly depicted children, with the system at one point producing approximately one sexualised image of a child every 41 seconds.
AI significantly changes the nature of image based sexual abuse because perpetrators no longer require an authentic intimate photograph. Ordinary photographs can potentially be transformed into convincing explicit material and then distributed quickly across digital platforms. This increases the number of people who can become victims and reduces the technical barriers for perpetrators.
The consequences extend beyond privacy violations. Research cited by the article associates image based sexual abuse with anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress disorder, suicidal thoughts, social withdrawal, employment problems and reputational damage. The wider environment of online abuse is also significant, with 15% of women in the UK reporting online abuse, rising to 25% among women aged 16 to 24 and 35% among lesbian and bisexual women.
