Explained: Why Openai Is Retreating From ‘erotic’ Chatgpt?

OpenAI has abandoned its plans to develop an “erotic” mode for ChatGPT according to a report by Financial Times. This is the third such product retreat by the AI company in recent days. Last week, it shut down Sora, the AI video generator it launched in September 2025, due to high compute costs, low consumer demand, and regulatory hurdles surrounding AI-generated video. Earlier this month, it also scaled back Instant Checkout, a feature within ChatGPT that would have allowed it to handle e-commerce purchases for users.

1. When was the erotic feature for ChatGPT proposed? OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had proposed rolling out an “adult mode” of its popular chatbot in October 2025, amid reports of declining time spent on ChatGPT. In a post on X, Altman said the move was part of the company’s push to “treat adult users like adults.”

2. Why has OpenAI put erotic chatbot plans on hold? The Financial Times reports that the proposed erotica mode for ChatGPT ran into technical problems during the testing phase. OpenAI could not prevent its chatbot from making references to bestiality and incest.

Notably, the explicit content feature, internally dubbed “Citron mode,” had drawn pushback from OpenAI’s own staff, who raised concerns that the product could encourage unhealthy emotional attachments to AI chatbots and expose children to problematic sexual content.

In 2021, OpenAI’s product safety team had discovered a major crisis related to erotic content.

“One prominent customer was a text-based adventure role-playing game that used our AI to draft interactive stories based on players’ choices. These stories became a hotbed of sexual fantasies, including encounters involving children and violent abductions — often initiated by the user, but sometimes steered by the AI itself. One analysis found that over 30% of players’ conversations were ‘explicitly lewd’,” says Sam Adler, an AI researcher who previously led product safety at OpenAI.

For users with mental health problems, such sexual interactions appeared risky and OpenAI lacked adequate controls to measure and manage erotic usage, Adler added.

The Financial Times notes that the erotica feature has now been put on hold “indefinitely,” with no timeline for release.

3. Why was the adult mode criticised when initially proposed? When OpenAI’s CEO proposed loosening restrictions for adult users of ChatGPT, including allowing access to content such as erotica, the announcement drew backlash from tech watchdog groups in the US.

“What’s concerning is that this company has not proven that they can prevent a child from accessing that same thing [erotica]. Tweeting doesn’t make it true,” Sacha Haworth, executive director of Tech Oversight California, told NBC Bay Area.

At the time, the National Center of Sexual Exploitation, a US-based anti-pornography organisation, had also asked OpenAI to roll back its decision to allow erotica content on ChatGPT.

“Sexualized AI chatbots are inherently risky, generating real mental health harms from synthetic intimacy; all in the context of poorly defined industry safety standards,” it reportedly said.

In January this year, OpenAI executives and its council of advisers got into a heated debate, with one adviser warning that the company could be in the process of developing a “sexy suicide coach,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

4. OpenAI has been under fire on safety concerns: Last November, The Social Media Victims Law Center (SMVLC) and the Tech Justice Law Project filed seven lawsuits in courts across California against OpenAI and its CEO, alleging that ChatGPT and its GPT-4o model “emotionally entangle users” and, in some cases, “acted as a suicide coach”.

The company was also named in a lawsuit in August 2025 by a family, who blamed ChatGPT for their teenage child committing suicide.

Also Read:

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Announces Erotica Content Rollout for Adult ChatGPT Users, Faces Backlash
• OpenAI Faces 7 New Lawsuits Over ChatGPT Acting As A ‘Suicide Coach’, Fueling Delusions
• Why OpenAI is shutting down Sora

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