20 / 08 / 2025
5 Minute Read

Deepfake: How is it changing the dynamic escorts/clients in the sex industry?

 

Deepfake is a synthetic media technique that uses artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning to create or manipulate images, videos, or audio to make them appear real but are actually fake. The Deepfake phenomenon affects all sectors of activity, mainly those in which access to visual media is an important step prior to the purchase/consumption of a service. The sex industry is therefore directly affected by this issue, which tends to complicate matters for many escorts and their clients.

 

How does Deepfake work?

The term comes from "deep learning" + "fake." To cut a long story short, Deepfakes are typically created using Artificial Intelligence models which analyze and reconstruct facial features from real footage to swap faces convincingly. They are commonly used for face swapping (e.g., putting a celebrity's face on another person's body), voice cloning (imitating someone's voice), lip-syncing (making it seem like someone said something they didn’t) and altering expressions (changing emotions or words in a video).

It is not always easy to recognize a video generated with Deepfake because the tool is often undetectable. Nevertheless, you can always rely on the following aspects to determine whether or not you are dealing with a Deepfake visual: unnatural blinking or facial movements, mismatched lighting/shadows, blurry edges around the face, strange voice tones or lip-sync errors.

 

Why is Deepfake a threat for the escort industry?

In the sex industry, the rise in popularity of Deepfake poses a real problem because it makes it even more difficult for clients to believe in the legitimacy of the photos of escorts they see on escort websites.

There has been already a lot of girls working with fake photos or fake profiles. The bad news is that with Deepfake, there will be even more in the future. Indeed, Deepfake not only undermines trust in an escort, but it also fosters non-consensual Pornography (also known as Revenge Porn). Many women (including escorts and those who aren’t Sex Workers) have seen Deepfake explicit content published on the internet without their consent, leading to reputation damage. The victims (often women) face blackmail, harassment, psychological trauma and may suffer abuse anxiety, depression, and social stigma.

As the Deepfake technology improves, escorts ‘clients may doubt real videos and audio, leading to a "liar’s dividend"—where guilty parties dismiss real evidence as "fake." A man who sees escorts regularly will then become more skeptical and divided due to the inability to distinguish truth from fiction.

 

How escorts’ behavior change resulting to Deepfake?

Since the arrival of Deepfake, it is clear that more and more escorts who previously worked with their faces uncovered have chosen to work with their real photos while completely hiding their faces.

Others don't even bother and, without a guilty conscience, work exclusively with fake photos or with selfies that are so heavily filtered that these girls become unrecognizable. But for them, it doesn't matter, as long as they are still able to make some money. What matters to these sex workers is never being recognized, nor having their faces associated with the sex industry and then spread all over the internet, thanks to technologies like Deepfake.

As a result, Deepfakes are creating fear among escorts, prompting them to conceal or lie about their appearance so as not to leave any traces on the internet. These traces, which are freely available online, could then be reused against their will or without their knowledge.

This situation weakens the escort market by making it less dynamic and more prone to mistrust.

 

How is the attitude of escorts’ clients changing in the face of Deepfakes?

At the same time, the attitude of the client—whose biggest concern is avoiding bait-and-switch and making the best choice so that the girl he chooses really looks like the photos—towards sex workers is changing.

Men visiting escorts are becoming more suspicious and less inclined to take risks because they have even less guarantee than before that the girl they see in the photo is the one they will actually meet. Deepfake is increasing clients' mistrust of the paid sex industry. They still have very few ways of verifying whether the profile presented to them is legitimate or not. And the larger the escorts websites are, the less they prioritize these kinds of criteria/verifications. Because the vast majority of girls working in this industry use fake profiles/photos, requiring them all to verify their appearance would significantly reduce the revenue of these sites. These sites therefore prefer not to get involved in any of this and continue to sell their advertising space at high prices, at the cost of a total lack of transparency towards the consumers of these sites, thanks to whom they owe their online traffic.

In the future, the sites that choose to be honest with their users and provide them with real added value in terms of legitimacy are the ones that will win the trust of their customers. Soon, escorts clients will favor a limited but reliable choice over a wide but risky one.

But in the meantime, this Deepfake dynamic—resulting in girls who are less and less honest about their appearance and clients who are increasingly reluctant to spend their money without being sure they're not being ripped off—makes the escort market very, very complicated. Girls are earning less money, some are significantly lowering their rates, and clients are becoming even more demanding, increasingly turning to girls who, despite everything, choose to work openly and do everything they can to prove their credibility.  This makes the market more competitive for all the new girls starting out in the industry. Indeed, they find it much harder to make a name for themselves when faced with those who have been around for a long time and have a regular clientele (Swiss clients preferring safe bets).

 

Deepfake and the escort industry: What to keep in mind?

While Deepfake technology has positive uses (in filmmaking, education, and AI research), its malicious applications pose severe risks to privacy and security in the sex industry mainly because it spreads false narratives and does manipulate faces into unwanted explicit content. 

Being aware of the power of technologies such as Deepfake is key to avoiding deception. Soon, detection Tools (AI-based Deepfake detectors) and watermarking and authentication will have to be implemented in escorts websites for fear of seeing their conversion rate fall apart. As for independent escorts who want to continue earning money in this competitive industry, they need to understand now that in the future, it will be the degree of authenticity/credibility and the uniqueness of their profile that will make the difference for clients.

 

Janet – The Velvet Rooms

 

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