“As the moon rose high in the sky, casting a silvery glow upon the beach, Emma found herself lost in a world of sensation and desire. The night whispered secrets to her, inviting her to explore the depths of her sensuality, to revel in the beauty of her own femininity.”

For our series on the female perspective, we did some research by digging around on social media, google, literature, films, and so on. One of the more hilarious encounters we had was with generative AI. If you think society gives us a skewed perception of femininity and female sensuality – think porn, Hollywood, influencers – our tech heroes aren’t exactly objective either.

For instance: in many cultures, women shave their body hair to fit the stereotype of femininity. But when you ask Dall-E to make a photo-realistic picture of an unshaven woman’s leg, it seems to have a really hard to time breaking through that stereotype:

We also tested ChatGPT and got some interesting results.

“Hey ChatGPT, can you write a short story about sensuality from the female perspective?” Here’s a sample of its answer:

Emma closed her eyes once more, letting her fingertips trace patterns in the sand. She reveled in the touch of her own skin, tracing her curves and contours. She felt the sensuality of her own body, a temple of pleasure and desire, awakened by the enchantment of the night…

Is this female sensuality? Can you confirm or deny because we weren’t exactly convinced at SG (male and female colleagues alike).

We did however ask ChatGPT to write the same story but from a male perspective, so we could compare and contrast. This is what we got:

What do you think the story would have been like? Apparently the programmers created standards of decency that prompted ChatGPT to censor itself. So perhaps it was typical, male-pleasure centered porn? We can only guess.

Anyways, this is just to show that gender stereotypes are around wherever you look. Perhaps you’ve run into them yourself, or you want to learn more. If so, check out our art installation at the Nook in the Library to see more examples, a selection of books, or to leave behind your own examples and experiences on the comment wall.

Sanne Helbers and Klaas P van der Tempel – Studium Generale program makers