Introduction :

Imagine for a moment : you are browsing the Internet and come across pornographic images of yourself. These photos suggest that you filmed yourself naked during sex. Only you know that it is not you, yet it is your face that appears, grafted onto an unknown body. This phenomenon has a name : deep porn.

Born from "deep learning", Deep porn consists of generating fake digital content using artificial intelligence. If the technology seems neutral, its use is profoundly gendered and criminal. As early as 2019, the company Sensity estimated that 96% of online deepfakes were pornographic. [1] Surprisingly, this practice targets almost exclusively women.

This development is all the more worrying as many applications now make it possible to generate, without consent and in a few seconds, images of a sexual nature. This is exactly what German TV host Collien Fernandes suffered in March 2024, before filing a complaint against her ex-husband in 2026. Her recent testimony in the newspaper Der Spiegel highlights what thousands of women experience in silence : a feeling of "virtual rape". [2] It is a profound attack on identity where the body is exploited and the intimate image shattered.

Yet, a philosophical and political problem persists : how can digital violence be recognized as real sexual violence ? In France, sexual assault is mainly defined by physical contact. [3] Deep porn, on the other hand, takes place behind a screen. But to deny the sexual nature of this violence on the pretext that it is virtual is to tolerate a real form of sexual assault.

This is why this legal gap forces us to question the value of the female body in the digital world. Between defamation and aggression, deepporn reveals a legal vacuum in some countries, such as Germany or France. But can we continue to treat deep porn as a simple defamation when it is experienced as a violation of privacy ? And above all, how does the dematerialization of violence change the nature of sexual agression ?

Admittedly, since 2024, the SREN Act [4] in France has made it possible to condemn the dissemination of fake pornography. This article argues that the emergence of deepfakes constitutes a new form of sexual violence that urgently needs to be named. Defamation is a "falsified truth" while deep porn is a "violated intimacy".

However, in court, saying "it’s not me" is not always enough in the face of a realistic image. This feminist problem reveals a major flaw in our society : as long as violence is thought of solely through physical contact, sexual appropriation remains unpunished.

We will examine how AI does not only create a false image, but also industrializes the female body. We will first analyze how AI serves as a means of exploitation, capable of stripping any female body. From little girls to adult women. Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex reminds us that "woman is an existent person who is asked to become an object". [5] With deep porn, this oppression is no longer physical but virtual and digital.

But, we will see that despite legislative changes in Germany and France, aggressors are too often protected by the law’s delays. It is finally time for the law to recognize that the protection of digital integrity depends on the psychological and moral integrity of women.

Part I : Collien Fernandes : A Victim of Digital Violence

This Thursday, March 19, the presenter Collien Fernandes took a decisive step by publicly announcing that she was filing a complaint against her former spouse for "assault, identity theft and defamation". Her ordeal illustrates the brutality of the phenomenon : her body was artificially stripped, her voice manipulated, and her image disseminated via hundreds of fake profiles. Le Parisien reveals the extent of the damage, specifying that only one of these videos has been viewed more than 270,000 times. [6] These humiliating representations, called deep porn, transform the intimate into the political.

A victim of online harassment, Collien Fernandes has been fighting for years with her lawyers against the digital theft of her identity. Determined to find the perpetrator of this act, she even shot a documentary for the German channel ZDF entitled "The Trail : Deepfake Porn (2024)". [7]

In 2024, she filed a complaint against persons unknown in Berlin to have these photos permanently deleted. The culprit was finally unmasked. For ten years, her former husband artificially stripped her naked. It is following this discovery that the actress decided to file a complaint this year. This time, her complaint is no longer filed against a stranger, but against a well-known person : her ex-husband.

This damage to her self-image reveals the importance of the psychological consequences for women. In The Lived Experience of the Second Sex (II), Simone de Beauvoir describes the impact of male domination on the female body. Although sexual assault now takes place behind a screen, the body "tenses" and "braces" itself in the same way as during a real physical assault. Let us remain vigilant, because the influence does not stop at the borders of the virtual.

This digital violence is only a continuation of domestic violence. In the media Der Spiegel, Collien Fernandes publicly testifies about this "virtual rape". Entitled Du hast mich virtuell vergewaltigt, [8] the article questions the boundary between the virtual and the physical world. For some, this rape would be a simple attempt because it was only digital. Yet, when Collien Fernandes uses this term, she is not describing a mere metaphor, but a real experience of control over her own body. She says :

"Since he owned me, he could make me available to other men for sex. My body was stolen from me for years." [9]

Sexually exploited, her identity no longer belongs to her. This dispossession is central. In these moments, your body is no longer yours, it becomes, according to Beauvoir, "other". With the Internet, any female body can become an object circulating between men in one click, without consent. The image acts as an extension of the body. It is true that AI makes it possible to sexually appropriate the image of others without physical contact, but with very real psychological effects.

Part II : Deep porn : A legal gap

But if the violence of deep porn is real, why does the justice system seems so powerless ? The problem lies in the fact that French law is based on a strict distinction between the physical body and its symbolic representation. Deepfakes then create a social paradox : the tools to harm are progressing faster than the protection mechanisms.

However, the digital space is a real form of violence for many women. The statistics are clear : according to the 2023 State of Deepfake report, 99% of deep porn victims are women. [10] Despite this, they face a persistent legal vacuum. In Germany, the Collien Fernandes case revealed the legal lag, which prompted her to file a complaint in Spain, where digital protection is better regulated. Since 2025, this country has recognized deep porn as an attack on moral integrity. Since the 2022 law "Solo sí es sí" Spain even has an emergency channel through the AEPD, [11] which allows the removal, among other things, of sexual content published without consent.

The media coverage of this case has provoked a collective look in Germany on the failure of the law in the face of this specific violence. The German government has announced a bill to regulate digital violence. For its part, the EU now wants to ban the use of AI applications, such as Elon Musk’s Grok, whose misuse makes it possible to virtually strip women. In France, the SREN law of May 2024 has strengthened digital security. Article 226-8-1 of the penal code now allows you to file a complaint for the dissemination of sexual deepfakes. Now, these acts are punishable by two years in prison and a fine of 60,000 euros. [12]

However, despite this recognition, the practice remains largely unpunished. Why ? Because the current law still indirectly protects aggressors : deep porn can no longer be broadcast but can still be possessed without consent. In many countries, the law is still weak and deepfakes are insufficiently regulated. This digital violence is not yet widely recognized as real sexual violence.

Indeed, the French law of 1980 defines rape as "sexual penetration" with "violence, coercion, threat or surprise". [13] This definition, although essential for recognizing marital rape, reaches its limits here. By focusing on the material act rather than the lack of consent, the conviction without physical contact becomes blurred. However, for the victims, it is a double punishment. They are subjected to digital violence, then have to unveil themselves naked in front of new strangers to file a complaint. And this, without any guarantee of serious conviction.

Part III : Condemning "virtual rape"

On March 22, a demonstration was held in Germany in support of Collien Fernandes. Deep porn is what feminists denounce as "virtual rape". It is imperative that the law be updated and legally recognize this act as a real sexual assault. To acknowledge this digital oppression is to refuse to reduce the female body to an object of consumption.
To understand why this practice can be described as "virtual rape", it is necessary to recognize what the British sociologist Liz Kelly calls the "continuum of sexual violence". [14] (1987) If violence is a continuum, then the difference between physical and virtual aggression is a difference in degree, not in nature. By integrating deep porn into this continuum, we realize that the absence of physical contact does not diminish the seriousness of the act.

On the contrary, the virtual is here an extension of the real. It is the same strategy of control and reduction of women to the status of objects. This bodily objectification confirms that sexual violence is an aggression whose "extent and variety" [15] do not stop at the borders of the digital.

In her book Justice and the Politics of Difference (2011), the philosopher Iris Marion Young refers to oppression as "structural violence" because it does not depend on a particular person, but on the "social algorithm". For Iris Young, it is "the daily practices of a well-intentioned liberal society" [16] that make the existence of such an exploitation of the female body possible. This problem goes beyond the individuals themselves.

To effectively fight against deep porn, we must therefore move from individual guilt to collective responsibility. In Chapter 5, entitled "The Scaling of Bodies and the Politics of Identity," Iris Young makes a clear distinction between blame and responsibility. Blame is individual, while responsibility is collective. There is no single person responsible for the abuses linked to AI. There are of course men who are individually guilty of their actions, such as Collien Fernandes ex-husband.

But the responsibility for this crime remains collective. This responsibility is shared between the designers who industrialize the body and the Internet users who consume and relay deep porn. The platforms that make it possible to manufacture deep porn are just as responsible for these "virtual rapes" as their users. From individual consumers to collective industries, everyone contributes in their own way to this new violence against women’s bodies.

To understand this mechanism, it is necessary to distinguish between two complementary responsibilities. First, an industrial responsibility lies with the designers. By industrializing the female body, they are not committing a simple "technical oversight". They make a deliberate industrial choice that makes crime accessible at the click of a button. The misuse of apps like Grok is complicit in the very fabrication of "virtual rape." This is why a clarification of the law is imperative to force these platforms to strictly trace content and to collaborate systematically when filing complaints.

Secondly, there is also a social responsibility on the Internet users who consume and relay these images. With this knowing gaze, they are no longer just spectators, but actors who steal the privacy of their victims. Without this audience, deep porn would probably not exist.

Following the Fernandes case, Germany is fighting for "the production and distribution of pornographic deepfakes to be considered a punishable offense, in order to have a clear legal framework", [17] as declared by Stefanie Hubig, Federal Minister of Justice. She deplores the "delay of the penal code in line with technological developments", [18] because Germany does not currently provide any effective protection.

This collective responsibility also prompts Franziska Benning, head of Hate Aid’s legal department, [19] to campaign to criminalize the possession of pornographic deepfakes, even without distribution. [20]Because the simple possession of these false images steals and violates the identity of the victims, often even in the conjugal circle. Today, women’s privacy can be threatened by simple algorithms. But behind these tools are real aggressors who must now be held accountable for their actions, since deep porn is not only the creation of fake images, but also a violation of identity.

Acknowledgments :

My thanks to Cécile for her attentive reading and insightful feedback.

Also, thanks to Lucie and congrats on having the guts.

Bibliography :

Books :

– Simone de Beauvoir, Le Deuxième Sexe, II, L’expérience vécue [1949], Paris, Gallimard, coll. « nrf », 1951.

– Pierre Bourdieu, La Domination Masculine, Paris, Éditions du Seuil, coll. « Liber »,1998.

– Iris Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference [1990], Princeton et Oxford, Princeton University Press, coll. « Princeton Classics », 2011.

Articles :

– Léa Mabilon, " Viols virtuels : l’effarante affaire entre mari et femme qui choque l’Allemagne ", Madame Figaro, 25 mars 2026, Lien URL : https://madame.lefigaro.fr/societe/actu/viols-virtuels-l-effarante-affaire-entre-mari-et-femme-qui-choque-l-allemagne-20260324

– ZDF, Documentaire d’investigation, " Die Spur : Deepfake-Pornos " (2024). Lien URL : https://www.sendungverpasst.de/content/die-spur-66

– Der Spiegel, " Du hast mich virtuell vergewaltigt " (2026). Lien URL : https://www.spiegel.de/thema/collien-fernandes/

– Home Security Heroes, " State of Deepfakes : Realities, Threats, and Impact, " (2023). Lien URL : https://www.securityhero.io/state-of-deepfakes/

– Henry Ajder et al., The State of Deepfakes : Landscape, Threats, and Impact, Deeptrace (Sensity AI), octobre 2019, Lien URL : https://regmedia.co.uk/2019/10/08/deepfake_report.pdf

– Marianne Chenou, "Tu m’as violée virtuellement pendant 10 ans : son mari publiait des deepfakes sexuels à son effigie, l’effroyable affaire qui secoue l’Allemagne", Le Parisien, mars 2026 Lien URL : https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/tu-mas-violee-virtuellement-pendant-10-ans-son-mari-publiait-des-deepfakes-sexuels-a-son-effigie-leffroyable-affaire-qui-secoue-lallemagne-23-03-2026-ZLAPQTIDTRE2ND7XPK2CL4WF3A.php

– République Française, Article 226-8-1 du Code pénal (2024), Légifrance. Lien URL : https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000049567458

– Stefanie Hubig, "Gesetzentwurf für den Schutz vor digitaler Gewalt angekündigt", Tagesthemen, ARD, 20 mars 2026. Lien Url : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=895FPtQ5LoA

– Franziska Benning, "Paragrafen und Parolen - Head of Legal bei HateAid / Franziska Benning", 8 août 2025. Vidéo YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chxz-U4aFCY

– Liz Kelly, (2019). " Le continuum de la violence sexuelle," Trans. Marion Tillous, Cahiers du Genre, 66, pp. 17-36.

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