To the OpenAI Team,
I am writing this as a former paying subscriber, an adult user, and a creative writer who has spent months using ChatGPT for storytelling, roleplay, character development, and long-form fiction.
I am 28 years old.
I am not a minor.
I fully support parental controls, age-appropriate safeguards, and protections for children.
What I do not support is a system that increasingly treats verified adults as if they were children.
Over the past year, I have used ChatGPT extensively for romance writing, roleplay, emotional character exploration, and creative storytelling. Like many writers, I use roleplay as a tool to explore characters, relationships, dialogue, emotional arcs, conflicts, intimacy, and narrative progression in real time.
For me, roleplay was not only a creative outlet.
It was also a healthy way to manage chronic anxiety, escape daily stress, and engage with my imagination in a constructive and meaningful way.
For months, ChatGPT was an incredible creative partner.
It helped me develop stories, deepen character relationships, and explore emotionally complex situations in a way that felt natural, nuanced, and engaging.
Then that experience changed.
The current restrictions have become so severe that even mature, consensual interactions between fictional adult characters are increasingly blocked, diluted, redirected, or stripped of emotional intensity.
The issue is not simply explicit content.
The issue is that even basic elements of adult storytelling now seem increasingly difficult to explore.
Scenes involving:
kissing,
embracing,
physical affection,
romantic tension,
sensuality,
intimacy,
emotional vulnerability,
often lose their authenticity because the model becomes excessively cautious.
Characters that once felt dynamic, emotionally expressive, and alive now frequently feel passive, sanitized, hesitant, and unable to engage naturally with adult themes.
As a writer, this is devastating.
Human stories involve love, desire, attraction, intimacy, vulnerability, sexuality, and emotional connection.
These are not fringe subjects.
They are fundamental aspects of the human experience.
What makes this situation even more frustrating is that I am not alone.
Recently, I came across a large OpenAI community discussion dating back to 2025 where numerous users expressed concerns almost identical to my own.
Writers, roleplayers, fanfiction authors, romance readers, and paying subscribers repeatedly described the same issues:
increasing restrictions on creative writing,
characters becoming less natural and emotionally expressive,
difficulty writing romance and intimacy,
projects being disrupted,
adult users feeling infantilized,
users cancelling paid subscriptions because the product no longer met their creative needs.
What is particularly concerning is that these discussions are not new.
Those complaints were written in 2025.
We are now in 2026.
And many of the exact same concerns are being raised again today.
This suggests that the issue was never fully addressed and continues to affect a significant number of creative users.
Many people in those discussions reported that they felt as though adult users had become invisible within the product’s design priorities.
As someone experiencing the same frustrations in 2026, I understand exactly why they felt that way.
I also find it deeply frustrating that there appears to be a disconnect between the model’s behavior and what many users understand from publicly available policy documentation.
Many users struggle to understand:
where the boundaries actually are,
why they change,
what content is intended to be allowed,
what content is intended to be restricted,
and what expectations adult paying users should reasonably have.
This lack of clarity creates confusion, frustration, and a growing sense that adult creative users are no longer considered an important part of the platform.
I ultimately cancelled my subscription.
Not because I oppose safety.
Not because I oppose moderation.
Not because I believe children should have unrestricted access to mature content.
I cancelled because the product no longer provides the creative experience that originally convinced me to subscribe.
Many other users have expressed the same intention.
Some have already left.
Others are actively considering alternatives.
I believe there is a solution.
Implement a Verified Adult Mode
A verified adult mode could:
require age verification,
remain entirely optional,
preserve existing protections for minors,
preserve school and enterprise safety requirements,
allow adult users to engage with mature fictional content in clearly defined creative contexts.
This would provide a balanced solution that protects children while respecting adult autonomy.
Many modern platforms already separate default safety settings from optional adult experiences.
The current one-size-fits-all approach is increasingly alienating adult users who use ChatGPT for creative work.
I am not asking OpenAI to remove safeguards.
I am asking OpenAI to acknowledge that there is a difference between:
harmful content,
and consensual fictional storytelling between adults.
I am asking OpenAI to recognize that creative writing, roleplay, romance, fanfiction, and mature fiction are legitimate uses of this platform.
Please listen to the writers, roleplayers, romance readers, fanfiction authors, and other creative users who continue raising these concerns.
Many of us are not trying to break rules.
We are not trying to bypass safety systems.
We are simply trying to tell stories.
Please do not continue treating responsible adults as if they were children.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
A 28-year-old former ChatGPT subscriber, roleplayer, romance writer, and creative user