This is an article that shouldn’t have to be written. In a saner world, there would be no reason for it, but we don’t live in a sane world. We live in a corrupted world, and sometimes the corruption of human nature takes us into areas that even the distortions of reason should realize are out of bounds.
I’m referring to the rise of sexually provocative images and videos of young women whose facial features have been modified with artificial intelligence so that they appear to have Down syndrome. These sensual images and videos first began to appear in late 2024 as bait to entice people into pornographic websites like OnlyFans. Through these AI-modified images and the salacious slogans that accompany them, women who appear to have Down syndrome are portrayed as sexually available. Consequently, real women with Down syndrome are being exploited to arouse the perversity of a certain segment of the population that is sexually attracted to and fetishizes disability. The common name for this variety of fetish is devotism. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition calls it a type of paraphilia.
I can’t help noting the correlation between the rise of these provocative images and a video CoorDown—an Italian Down syndrome advocacy organization—created for World Down Syndrome Day on March 21, 2024. As I wrote at the time, the “Assume That I Can” video featured a character who was “crass, hedonistic, foul mouthed, and lustful,” who made it clear to viewers “that she can drink, curse, have sex, and hit a punching bag just like everyone else.” These videos that CoorDown produces each year for World Down Syndrome Day are created with financial support from other advocacy organizations like the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS) and the Global Down Syndrome Foundation (GDSF) in the US and Down Syndrome International (DSI) based in the UK. It is hard to get comparative numbers of views for each of CoorDown’s videos, but by March 18, three days before World Down Syndrome Day that year, it was reported that the video had 4.1 million views on TikTok and 5 million on Instagram. Most of CoorDown’s videos are not nearly so “successful.”
Of course, correlation is not causation, but could it be possible the success of a video of a powerful and pretty young woman who really does have Down syndrome talking about how she likes to go to bars, party, and have sex led the way to AI-generated avatars of women with Down syndrome selling and promoting pornography? Maybe, or maybe not—but the strong correlation in time and content is impossible to ignore. One news article even quoted a slogan under a picture from one of these sites that said, “A girl with Down syndrome can go clubbing to flirt!”
It seemed obvious to me that protecting vulnerable women—whom statistics show are at an increased risk of sexual violence than others—should take priority over concerns about infantilization.
Regardless of the validity of my suspicion, these are examples of bald, unconscionable, and dangerous exploitation of women with disabilities—women who are already at greater risk of becoming victims of sexual violence than other women. A thirty-five-year-old woman with Down syndrome who works as a program associate at the NDSS expressed her concern in The New York Post. Her comment regarding this trend of AI-generated images was that “I just feel as if it’s putting people with Down syndrome at risk of sexual abuse and sexual assault.”
Maybe there’s a difference between CoorDown’s video and these AI-generated images, but in my opinion, not by very much. The video creators—and those who funded it—should have known better. I wrote to the NDSS, GDSF, and DSI with my concern after viewing “Assume That I Can.” I am grateful NDSS replied, but it was the only one. Its reply was that “we absolutely respect that some aspects of the video with Madison [the actress] won’t resonate with everyone in our community. Everyone has unique belief systems, and we appreciate that! This video was meant to start conversations around individuals with Down syndrome’s autonomy and how they have historically been limited or infantilized by society.” Take that as you will, but I think it was a limp response to a seriously expressed concern about exploitation and victimization.
Autonomy is such a difficult word to manage when it applies to individuals with intellectual disabilities. My response to the reply from NDSS was that the natural boundary for autonomy is providing reasonable protection. It seemed obvious to me that protecting vulnerable women—whom statistics show are at an increased risk of sexual violence than others—should take priority over concerns about infantilization. People with Down syndrome tend to be highly impressionable, and they do want to be like other people. Encouraging them to place themselves in harm’s way by imitating the behavior of the actress featured in the video isn’t encouraging a healthy autonomy, nor is it encouraging a healthy lifestyle—morally or physically.
Statistics vary, but according to The ARC, “People with IDD [intellectual and developmental disability] are sexually assaulted at seven times the rate of people without disabilities.” Parents understand this danger and struggle to find where the line must be drawn between autonomy and protection. That line is not the same for everyone, and it is complicated by the reality that individuals with IDDs experience loneliness and disempowerment, making them especially vulnerable to the advances of those who would groom them for sex with promises of love or even marriage. Yes, that happens, and it raises difficult questions of capacity to consent when the abuse is discovered and these cases go to court.
Families who have loved ones, both women and men, are challenged to exercise some level of reasonable protection based upon what they understand about their children or adults with intellectual disabilities and their ability to process situations that may put them in danger. What is not reasonable is to promote videos that reinforce the fetishization of the vulnerable and send a message to predators that these young women are available or even desire to have sex with them.
This year, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops updated its 2015 document on the dangers of pornography, Create in Me a Pure Heart: A Pastoral Response to Pornography. Hopefully, later this year the bishops will also release an updated pastoral statement on disability. Who might have ever thought that the two topics would come together thanks to the near magic of AI? Pope Leo’s concern for where AI might lead has one perilous example in how it is being used to exploit and endanger vulnerable young women with Down syndrome.
“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:6). Those are fearful words. Wisdom is to be attentive. Families be aware. Protect your loved ones. Pray!