“I have barely figured out how to talk to my kids about viewing online porn,” a parent shared with me recently. “It’s so overwhelming to think about them or their friends creating sexual content. The AI stuff is just so overwhelming. Can I just opt out of this altogether? I want to opt out!” she repeated for emphasis. It was as if saying it over and over might actually vanquish the existence of nudify apps. Her frustrated expression showed that she was simultaneously tempted to move off the grid while at the same time reckoning with the digitally connected reality of her teens.

“I can relate to your impulse to opt out,” I said, imagining myself and my two teenagers tucked peacefully away in a remote tech-free cabin. But before I could finish the rest of my thought she added, “I realize that fleeing is not realistic, so what do I need to know?”

Teens, AI, and Sexual Deepfakes

I admired this parent’s ability to pivot so quickly from “opt out” to “let’s get started.” When it comes to all things sex and sexuality, avoidance is a tempting default for many parents. After all, weren’t our kids just in kindergarten? Do they really need us to talk about this stuff already? 

Yes. Yes they do. 

A mountain of evidence reminds us that setting boundaries or delaying devices or apps are not substitutes for ongoing open communication with our kids about tough topics – including sex, porn, and, yes, AI-generated sexual content.

In 2023, Common Sense Media released data indicating that young people are first exposed to porn well before high school and that less than half of teens had discussed pornography with a trusted adult. With their new report called Teens in the AI Era: Pornography and Sexual Content, we have a more up-to-date picture of how AI is changing our kids’ sexual worlds all over again. Unlike traditional pornography, AI tools now allow users to easily create non-consensual sexually explicit imagery of real people. This includes using the likeness of friends, classmates, or themselves. 

What do we need to know? 

If you have already retreated mentally into either panic or opt-out mode, I encourage you to pause here and take a deep breath. Then take another. Any time we are talking about kids, sex, and tech, it takes effort to resist the impulse to either catastrophize, as in “All the teens are doing all the bad things all the time,” or to minimize, as in “I am sure no kids I know are doing that.”

Instead, after taking those deep breaths, let’s start with the data:  

• • First exposure to porn is aging down slightly. More than half of kids first encounter online pornography by age twelve.
  • Many teens encounter AI-generated sexual content. Almost half of teens (44%) have seen sexual content they believe was AI-generated.
  • Teens encounter this content on popular platforms. This content shows up across platforms that teens use every day, including TikTok, Instagram, X, and others.
  • This content can be personal. Among teens who have seen this kind of AI-generated content, 24% report having seen content of themselves or someone else they know personally
  • Some teens are creating this content themselves, or know someone who has. It’s important to remember that the majority of teens are not creating this kind of content. Roughly one in twelve teens has personally created this kind of content and 13% know someone who has. Of the teens who fall into either group, 63% say it targeted people they know. 
  • Gender shapes experiences of AI-generated sexual content. Boys are more likely than girls to create this content (11% for boys vs. 4% for girls) or know someone who has (27% vs. 18%). Girls are more likely than boys to be worried about being depicted in deepfakes without consent (71% for girls vs. 62% for boys).
  • Teens agree that this content shapes attitudes and beliefs. Nearly two-thirds of teens think AI-generated sexual content is distorting how peers see bodies, relationships, and intimacy. 
  • Teens aren’t talking to adults about it. Only one in five teens have ever discussed AI-generated sexual content with a trusted adult.  

In other words, many young people are encountering AI-generated sexual content and are largely left to make sense of it on their own. 

Barriers to Communication

This set of issues, in many ways, creates the “perfect storm” for silence. According to the Rithm Project, over half of young people aren’t talking about general AI use with parents, caregivers, or teachers. When adults do talk to kids about AI, they tend to focus on academics and cheating rather than the relational use of AI. Compounding the silence, recent research from Thorn indicates that one in six minors who experience an online sexual interaction never disclose it to anyone. Shame, embarrassment, fear of getting in trouble, or fear of not being believed get in the way of disclosure. 

This is not just a youth education issue. Young people are being left to navigate the fallout while tech companies and policy-makers fall short. Social media platforms are not doing enough to detect, block, and take down this content. Responding after harm occurs is also not enough. Writers Bruna Santos and Shirin Anlen argue that tech companies “must treat nonconsensual sexualized imagery as a design-level risk, not a downstream moderation problem.”

The barriers to creating and encountering sexual content online have never been lower. Yet the barriers to talking to adults remain high for many teens. This combination means that it is the right time to do everything we can to pivot from opting out to getting the conversations started.

A Window of Opportunity

Adolescence is a time of extraordinary transformation. The teen brain is built to get out into the world to figure out who they are and where they belong. This is why simplistic advice like, “Just don’t use an undressing app” is woefully insufficient. It misses a powerful opportunity to help young people navigate the complex dynamics of relationships, peer pressure, sexuality, and power unfolding in an AI-integrated world.

Parenting teens is about embracing the protective power of two messages: “For your health and safety and the safety of your peers, my expectation is that you do not engage in this activity,” AND, “Let’s talk about what to do if you find yourself in a tough spot.” Nesting conversations about AI into ongoing dialogue about consent, coercion, and communication ensures that they have a broader toolkit to pull from when confronted with emotionally intense situations. 

Getting Started

• Ask your teen if and how kids their age are talking about AI porn or deepfake nudes.
• Drop the judgment and shame. Avoid saying things like, “What kind of kid would ever do or look at something like this?” 
• Skip the lectures. If your teen shares things with you, do your best to stay curious, and non-judgmental. The goal is to keep the conversation going over time, not shut it down after the first exchange.
• Normalize sexual curiosity. It is developmentally right on time for adolescents to be curious about bodies, sex, and relationships. Sexual curiosity is not the problem – harmful actions and interactions are.
• Share your values and expectations. Root expectations in conversations about healthy relationships. “What is your ideal kind of relationship? What would it look like and feel like?”
• Talk about potential consequences without relying on catastrophic warnings. For example, instead of “Create one of these and you could land in jail” We can say, “What do you think the impact of creating or sharing this kind of image would be?” or “How often do you worry about your own image being used in this way?”
• Correct misinformation. Start with their understanding. “When this content features kids under the age of eighteen, it’s considered child sexual abuse material. That isn’t meant to terrify you, but it’s important information for you to have for your own health and safety.”
• Don’t focus just on getting caught. It’s tempting to try to prevent teen behaviors by threatening consequences: “If I ever catch you doing this…!” Not only does that make it less likely that they will come to us after a mistake, but it communicates that the focus is on getting caught, not the harm to self or others. Adolescent psychologist Lisa Damour suggests that focusing on safety is more helpful. “This isn’t about getting caught or not, it’s about making decisions that will keep you and your friends safe.”
• “Come to me for help.” Many teens report turning to friends or a chatbot to process these experiences. Reinforce that they can come to you first. “No matter what happens, I will never make you sorry for coming to me. I will believe you, I won’t blame you, and we can work together to figure out next steps, okay?”

If there is a theme this summer as data on AI and teens rolls in, it is this: Let’s not leave them to navigate this alone. Let’s get started.

If your child is a victim of deepfake nudes, organizations like Thorn, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Stop NCII can help.