Introduction

Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry?

In 2013 former UCLA researcher Nicole Prause began openly harassing, libeling and cyberstalking Gary Wilson. (Prause has not been employed by an academic institution since January, 2015.) Within a short time she also began targeting others, including researchers, medical doctors, therapists, psychologists, a former UCLA colleague, a UK charity, men in recovery, a TIME magazine editor, several professors, IITAP, SASH, Fight The New Drug, Exodus Cry, NoFap.com, RebootNation, YourBrainRebalanced, the academic journal Behavioral Sciences, its parent company MDPI, US Navy medical doctors, the head of the academic journal CUREUS, and the journal Sexual Addiction & Compulsivity (See – Numerous Victims of Nicole Prause’s Malicious Reporting and Malicious Use of Process)

While spending her waking hours harassing others, Prause cleverly cultivated – with zero verifiable evidence – a myth that she was “the victim” of most anyone who dared to disagree with her assertions surrounding porn’s effects or the current state of porn research (See: Nicole Prause’s fabrications of victim-hood exposed as groundless: she is the perpetrator, not the victim). To counter the ongoing harassment and false claims, YBOP was compelled to document some of Prause’s activities. Consider the following pages. (Additional incidents have occurred that we are not at liberty to divulge – as Prause’s victims fear further retribution.)

In the beginning Prause employed dozens of fake usernames to post on porn recovery forums, Quora, Wikipedia, and in the comment sections under articles. Prause rarely used her real name or her own social media accounts. That all changed after UCLA chose not to renew Prause’s contract (around January, 2015).

Freed from any oversight and now self-employed, Prause added two media managers/promoters from Media 2×3 to her company’s tiny stable of “Collaborators.” (Media 2×3 president Jess Ponce describes himself as a Hollywood media coach and personal branding expert.) Their job is to place articles in the press featuring Prause, and find her speaking engagements in pro-porn and mainstream venues. Odd tactics for a supposedly impartial scientist.

Prause began to put her name to falsehoods, openly cyber-harassing multiple individuals and organizations on social media and elsewhere. Since Prause’s primary target was Gary Wilson (hundreds of social media comments along with behind the scenes email campaigns), it became necessary to monitor and document Prause’s tweets and posts. This was done for her victims’ protection, and crucial for any future legal actions. Note: within months of this page going live, Prause became embroiled in two defamation lawsuits (Donald Hilton, MD & Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes), a trademark infringement case, and a trademark squatting case.

It soon became apparent that Prause’s tweets and comments were rarely about sex research, neuroscience, or any other subject related to her claimed expertise. In fact, the vast majority of Prause’s posts could be divided into two overlapping categories:

Indirect support of the porn industry : Defamatory & ad hominem comments targeting individuals and organizations that she labeled as “anti-porn activists” (often claiming to be a victim of these individuals and organizations). Documented here: page 1, page 2, page 3. Direct support of the porn industry : direct support of the FSC (Free Speech Coalition), AVN (Adult Video News), porn producers, performers, and their agendas

countless misrepresentations of the state of pornography research and attacks on porn studies or porn researchers.

This page contains a sampling of tweets and comments related to #2 – her vigorous support of the porn industry and its chosen positions. After years of sitting on the evidence, YBOP is of the view that Prause’s unilateral aggression has escalated to such frequent and reckless defamation (falsely accusing her many victims of “physically stalking her,” “misogyny,” “encouraging others to rape her,” and “being neo-Nazis“), that we are compelled to examine her possible motives.

This page is divided into 4 main sections:

Please note: There is unequivocal evidence that the porn industry funded the sexology profession for decades. Sexology’s agenda still appears to serve the porn industry. Thus, the evidence on this page should be viewed in a larger context. See Hugh Hefner, the International Academy of Sex Research, and Its Founding President to understand how porn-industry friendly sexologists influenced the Kinsey Institute. Prause is a Kinsey grad.

Update (November, 2019): Finally, some accurate media coverage on serial false accuser, defamer, harasser, trademark infringer, Nicole Prause: “Alex Rhodes of Porn Addiction Support Group ‘NoFap’ Sues Obsessed Pro-Porn Sexologist for Defamation” by Megan Fox of PJ Media and “Porn wars get personal in No Nut November”, by Diana Davison of The Post Millennial. Davison also produced this 6-minute video about Prause’s egregious behaviors: “Is Porn Addictive?”.

Update (August, 2020): Gary Wilson wins lawsuit against serial harasser, defamer, cyberstalker Nicole Prause. Details – Prause’s efforts to silence Wilson foiled; her restraining order denied as frivolous & she owes substantial attorney fees in a SLAPP ruling.

SECTION 1: Nicole Prause & the porn industry

Falsely accusing others of saying the porn industry funds some of her research

One of Prause’s favorite tactics is to falsely accuse others of saying that the porn industry has funded some of her research (all of which reaches pro-porn conclusions). This unfounded accusation plays well to her Twitter followers (many of whom are in the industry) and feeds into her fabricated mythology of victimhood. However, Prause has never provided any actual documentation of anyone stating that she is funded by the porn industry.

Here are a few examples of this ruse before we expose Prause’s cozy relationship with the porn industry. First, an excerpt from a baseless cease & desist letter sent to Linda Hatch PhD:

Linda Hatch never said Prause was funded by the porn industry, and Prause provided no documentation in support of either of her allegations. See: Prause silencing people with fake “no contact” demands and spurious cease & desist letters

Another bogus cease & desist letter, to Gary Wilson:

All four claims in the above cease & desist letter are groundless. Completely fabricated by Prause. See: October, 2016 – Prause publishes her spurious October, 2015 “cease and desist” letter. Wilson responds by publishing his letter to Prause’s lawyer.

Prause has posted many tweets like this one, claiming that “activists” say she or other scientists are funded by the porn industry (Prause has never linked to a single example):

Another such tweet:

Notice how she never provides documentation to support her assertions.

Finally, several 2018 tweets targeted FTND containing the same text and same two screenshots: 1) an excerpt from a Politico article asserting that FTND was “seeded with millions of dollars from the Mormon Church”; 2) an excerpt from an email that may or may not have been sent by FTND:

Over the years we have seen FTND state that it has received no funding from the Mormon Church. Not surprisingly, Politico provided no documentation for this assertion (not even a link to another hit piece). Was it simply fabricated, or fed to Politico by one of the two press relations experts on the tiny staff of Prause’s company?

Apart from offering no support for her Mormon-funding assertion, Prause’s screenshots of the purported email are a bit curious. Instead of providing a screenshot of an entire email , Prause provides a screenshot of a letterhead, and a second screenshot of an out-of-context paragraph.

The letterhead:

The out-of-context paragraph, which did not, in fact, state that Prause’s research was funded by the porn industry:

Instead of saying Prause’s research was funded by the porn industry, the email wondered if Prause had been “influenced by someone within the porn industry.” Mind you, this email is dated April, 2016, before Nicole Prause exponentially increased her harassment and libel (as documented on the pages listed above).

While there’s no evidence of any of Prause’s victims stating that Prause receives funding from the porn industry, anyone might be forgiven for wondering if she is indeed influenced by the porn industry. The Prause pages on this website are just the tip of a very large Prause Iceberg. She has posted thousands of times, attacking everyone and anyone who suggests porn might cause problems. (Prause recently purged her twitter account of 3,000 or more incriminating tweets.) She has defended the industry at every turn, much as a paid industry thought-leader could be expected to do.

Clearly Prause, who lives in LA, enjoys a cozy relationship with the pornography industry. See this image of her (far right) apparently taken on the red carpet of the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) awards ceremony. According to Wikipedia,

“The XRCO Awards are given by the American X-Rated Critics Organization annually to people working in adult entertainment and it is the only adult industry awards show reserved exclusively for industry members.[1]“

Photos taken at the 2016 XRCO awards (Prause & hall of fame porn star Melissa Hill at bottom-left):

In 2015 the Free Speech Coalition offers Prause assistance, she accepts and immediately attacks California’s prop 60 (condoms in porn).

California Proposition 60 (2016 election) would have mandated condom use in porn films. It was supported by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), a nonprofit HIV/AIDS care and advocacy organization, and vehemently opposed by porn producers and interestingly enough, Nicole Prause and colleague David Ley. In the run up to the 2016 election, Prause and Ley seemed obsessed with defeating Prop 60, while relatively unconcerned about graver issues such as health care, immigration, or jobs. Both Prause and Ley spent considerable effort tweeting and re-tweeting attacks on Prop 60, and support for the Free Speech Coalition, the lobbying arm for the porn industry (tweet1, tweet2, tweet3, tweet4, tweet5, tweet6, tweet7, tweet8, tweet9, tweet10, tweet11 – NOTE: Prause deleted many of these tweets in April, 2016).

On October 1, 2015 the FSC (which has spent millions on lawsuits that benefit the porn industry) offered Prause assistance with respect to her so-called “bullies.”

The real bully here was Prause, who had her first Twitter account permanently banned for harassment and cyber-stalking. (In violation of its own rules, Twitter allowed her to create a second Twitter account.) Instead of revealing the facts, Prause fabricated a tall-tale that John Adler MD (Stanford) somehow got her kicked off Twitter. Adler had nothing to with this. Lies upon lies.

Prause emailed the FSC to accept their “help” with her imaginary bullies. Prause then promptly begins to discuss with another industry account why condoms in porn are a bad idea (the porn industry’s position):

Prause then offers help to the FSC (is this the beginnings of a mutually beneficial relationship?):

Since then, Prause has publicly assisted the FSC multiple times, including for example, supporting the FSC’s campaign against California’s ill-fated Proposition 60 (calling for condom use in porn):

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Here she retweets FSC propaganda. (Again, dozens of Prause’s incriminating pro-FSC tweets have since been deleted.):

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Smearing the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, while taking the side of porn industry reps:

Another Prop 60 tweet:

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Yet another tweet in which Prause promotes AVN’s position on Prop 60:

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Prause retweets XBIZ propaganda, attacks AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which supports condoms in porn (prop 60): https://twitter.com/AIDSHealthcare

In support of the porn industry, Prause retweets porn-producer propaganda. Prause attacks AIDS Healthcare Foundation (which supports prop 60):

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Tagging FSC, retweeting porn industry propaganda about prop 60:

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Tagging FSC while attacking a UCLA medical doctor who supported the use of condoms for porn performers (prop 60):

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More about Prause’s pro-FSC actions in this section: November, 2016: Prause asks VICE magazine to fire infectious disease specialist Keren Landman, MD for supporting Prop 60 (condoms in porn). In a series of tweets, Prause joins an “adult actor” in attacking a Keren Landman, a medical doctor specializing in infectious disease.

Here’s what is most egregious: Prause tells VICE magazine to fire expert Dr. Landman for writing an article supporting Prop 60:

Freelancer? While Prause’s degree is in statistics, Keren Landman MD is a researcher, medical epidemiologist, and infectious disease specialist who once worked for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV infection is one of her specialties, having published several papers in the field. Once again, we have Prause personally attacking experts in a field, while simultaneously failing to support her position with empirical evidence. (Does anyone believe Prause’s claim that “every independent scientist opposes Prop 60″?) Whatever anyone thinks about Prop 60, Dr. Landman’s position is supported by research, and Nicole Prause’s is not.

Prause tells the world how she voted:

Prause enters a thread where Gary Wilson had already tweeted, bragging about her role in defeating prop 60 (Prause and her presumed alias RealYBOP often troll Wilson’s twitter threads – even though Wilson has blocked both accounts):

The Free Speech Coalition allegedly provided subjects for a Nicole Prause study that she claims will “debunk” porn addiction.

Does Prause’s relentless support for the porn industry arise from a quid pro quo, or more than one? Certainly, a public exchange of favors occurred in 2015 when the Free Speech Coalition (porn industry lobby) offered Prause assistance and she accepted. Immediately she attacked Prop 60 (condoms in porn, which the industry didn’t want).

A second possible quid pro quo occurred in 2016. Prause was given a bucket-load of money to produce a hired-gun study on the heavily tainted and very commercial “Orgasmic Meditation” scheme (now apparently under investigation by the FBI). Orgasmic Meditation, an MLM pseudo-cult that charges big bucks to teach men how to stroke a partner’s clitoris.

We are not sure, but the clitoris diddling study (OM) may have hit a predictable snag: the challenge of finding female subjects who want their genitals rubbed while being hooked up to machines and monitored by researchers. To reach her target of 250 OM couples, it appears that Prause may have obtained porn performers as subjects through porn industry interest group, the Free Speech Coalition. The favor to the FSC? Then, almost two years later, Prause publicly began exclaiming that her upcoming OM study (which previously had nothing to do with porn) would debunk porn addiction. As of this writing (June, 2020) the OM study has yet to appear.

All the details and documentation:

Adult performer Ruby the Big Rubousky, vice president of the Adult Performers Actors Guild, stated that Prause obtained porn performers as study subjects through the most prominent porn industry interest group/lobby, the Free Speech Coalition. (Prause has since deleted this Twitter thread).

The study (or studies) in question is said to be funded by OneTaste, a for-profit company that charged $4,300.00 for a 3-day workshop to learn clitoral manipulation. As described in this Bloomberg.com expose, OneTaste offered several different packages:

Currently, students pay $499 for a weekend course, $4,000 for a retreat, $12,000 for the coaching program, and $16,000 for an “intensive.” In 2014, OneTaste started selling a yearlong $60,000 membership, which lets buyers take all the courses they want and sit in the front row.

The official description of the OM study:

“Neurological effects and health benefits of orgasmic meditation” Principal Investigator, Direct costs: $350,000, Duration: 2 years, OneTaste Foundation, co-Investigators: Greg Siegle, Ph.D.

More on it from the Institute of OM Foundation:

In the 2018 Bloomberg article Chief Executive Officer Joanna Van Vleck pretty much says that OneTaste was now dependent on Prause’s upcoming EEG studies about OM:

The newish CEO is betting that the study OneTaste has funded on the health benefits of OM, which has taken brain-activity readings from 130 pairs of strokers and strokees, will draw fresh crowds. Led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, the study is expected to yield the first of multiple papers later this year. “The science that’s coming out to back what this is and what the benefits are is going to be huge in terms of scaling,” Van Vleck says

Put simply, Prause was hired to bolster the commercial interests of the heavily tainted and very controversial company (another article: The ‘fingering’ cult: A reader’s experience of OneTaste – is not very tasteful at all).

Again, to conduct the OM study Prause needed willing participants comfortable with being hooked up to machines, and having their genitals exposed and masturbated by a man as researchers observe their responses. It’s not hard to imagine it’s challenging to locate females willing to act as sexual guinea pigs in Prause’s office. Whatever the reasons, Ruby insisted that Prause obtained subjects for her OM study via the FSC, and that Prause had an ongoing relationship with the FSC:

If the above is true, it reveals a very cozy working relationship between Prause and the FSC. A relationship that may have started in 2015, when Prause was publicly offered (and apparently accepted) assistance from the deep-pocketed FSC. This was immediately followed by Prause throwing her scientific weight behind some the FSC’s major agendas (Proposition 60, ‘porn stars are not damaged goods’, ‘porn addiction is a myth’, ‘porn is not public health crisis’, ‘watching porn is mostly beneficial’, etc.)

The plot thickens. Originally, the study was funded to explore only the benefits of “Orgasmic Meditation” – but it then mysteriously transformed into a study to debunk porn addiction (which would certainly serve the FSC’s interests)!



Although the study is still not out as of June, 2020, in 2017 Prause began crowing that her yet to be published Orgasmic Meditation study “falsified” porn and sex addiction. Yet the study appear to have had nothing to do with porn use and likely did not involve any actual porn addicts.



In her tweets and comments Prause revealed that she showed her clitoris-stroking couples “sex films” and the results (in her opinion) debunked the porn addiction model. In short, Prause’s OM study has apparently magically morphed from a “partnered sex” investigation into an anti-porn addiction, pro-porn industry paper. Below are a few examples of Prause claiming her upcoming “partnered sex” (OM) study debunks porn addiction.

Background: In spring of 2019, the World Health Organization released a new edition of its diagnostic manual, the ICD-11, with a diagnosis called “Compulsive sexual behavior disorder.” Prior to the release of the “implementation version,” a beta draft of the ICD-11 was put online, and made available for interested parties to comment on. (A simple sign-up is needed to view and participate.)

Astonishingly, Prause posted more comments in the beta-draft comment section than every other commenter combined. In the comments section under this new proposal, Prause posted three times about her OM study (partnered sex, N=250). Here are her comments asserting that her OM study found no evidence of sexual compulsivity (she never does, even when neuroscientists say she has):

Another ICD-11 comment:

Another ICD-11 comment:

Her attempt failed, and the new ICD-11 contains a new diagnosis suitable for those suffering from porn addiction: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.”

But she tried her hardest to head off the ICD-11’s CSBD diagnosis. In July, 2018, Prause let WHO, the APA, and AASECT know that her lone Orgasmic Meditation study had “falsified” the porn/sex addiction model:

What legitimate researcher would ever claim to have debunked an entire field of research and to have “falsified” all previous studies with a single study that did not recruit porn addicts and wasn’t designed to assess the signs, symptoms and behaviors of an addiction? Prause had trumpeted similar claims of “falsification” in 2015 based on her own dubious work, and was ultimately greeted with 9 peer-reviewed analyses saying she misinterpreted her findings.

In this tweet Prause says her upcoming OM study will correct all the “lies” by sex addiction therapists:

In this 2018 SLATE article, “Why Are We Still So Worried About Wat­­ching Porn?” by Marty Klein, Taylor Kohut, and Nicole Prause, we were even told that the World Health Organization should wait for Prause’s OM study:

More importantly, we have no laboratory studies about actual sexual behaviors in those who report this difficulty. The first study of partnered sexual behaviors in the laboratory, which tests the compulsivity model, is currently under peer review at a scientific journal. (Disclosure: One of this article’s co-authors, Nicole Prause, is the lead author of that study.) The World Health Organization should wait to see if any science supports their novel diagnosis before risking pathologizing millions of healthy people.

There several more examples of Prause telling the world that her upcoming “partnered sex” study will debunk porn and sex addiction…for all time.

After all her crowing that her upcoming Orgasmic Meditation study would debunk porn addiction, Prause pre-registers the OM study on March 27, 2018 as now assessing “addiction models of sex film viewing.” Most irregular.

Contrary to what Prause did here, pre-registration means that prior to collecting actual data , you share the introduction and methods section of your paper with others. Prause is pre-registering her OM study 2 years after collecting data, and a year after boasting that her “findings’ debunked porn addiction. The journal that eventually publishes Prause’s OM study needs to look very closely into the unprofessional behavior surrounding this paper. So do ethics organizations.

What Prause is not telling anyone is that she may have used porn performers supplied by the lobbying arm of porn industry, the FSC. The same FSC that offered her help 3 years earlier when her Twitter account was permanently banned for harassment. (The victim of Prause’s Twitter-based harassment? The lead author of one of the most cited reviews of the literature on the porn addiction model: Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update (2015).)

Bottom line: Prause was offered, and appears to have accepted help from the FSC. Immediately, Prause used social media (and emails) to promote porn-industry interests, while simultaneously attacking research that reflected poorly on porn. Since then, she has waged an extensive war on individuals and organizations she labels as “anti-porn activists.”

Question: Does the University of Pittsburgh know how Prause has turned its study into a propaganda tool for the porn industry? The OM study apparently received its IRB approval through Pittsburgh and co-researcher Dr. Greg J. Siegle. Does the University know that Prause allegedly obtained subjects via the Free Speech Coalition? Does the University of Pittsburgh know about Prause’s close ties to the porn industry? Is the University of Pittsburgh aware of Prause’s long history of unethical, and sometimes illegal, behaviors (false police reports, defamation, false reports to governing boards) in support of the porn-industry agenda?

Prause’s direct support for porn industry (FSC, XBIZ, Xhamster).

A few examples of Prause directly supporting the FSC, AVN, porn producers, and porn websites (many more examples are in the section devoted to the Prause/Daniel Burgess twitter alias: RealYourBrainOnPorn).

Very important and revealing update. In April of 2019 Prause and Daniel Burgess created a trademark infringing site (“RealYourBrainOnPorn”) and its accompanying Twitter account. The RealYBOP prominently features porn addiction deniers who openly function as an agenda-driven collective (RealYBOP “experts”)

In July of 2019 three of the better known RealYBOP “experts” began openly collaborating with the porn industry: David Ley, Justin Lehmiller and Chris Donaghue. All 3 are on the advisory board of the fledgling Sexual Health Alliance (SHA). In a blatant financial conflict of interest, David Ley and the SHA are being compensated by porn industry giant xHamster to promote its websites (i.e. StripChat) and to convince users that porn addiction and sex addiction are myths! See “Stripchat aligns with Sexual Health Alliance to stroke your anxious porn-centric brain.” In the xHamster/SHA maiden voyage Ley is going to tell xHamster customers what “medical studies truly say about porn, camming and sexuality”:

Will Ley tell xHamster customers that every study ever published on males (about 65) links more porn use to less sexual and relation satisfaction? Will Ley tell them that all 45 neurological studies on porn users/sex addicts report brain changes seen in drug addicts? Will he inform his audience that 50% of porn users report escalating to material they previously found uninteresting or disgusting? Somehow I doubt it. In their promotional tweet we are promised a slate of SHA brain experts to soothe users’ “porn anxiety” and “shame” (Ley and other SHA “experts” are light years away from being brain experts).

The official StripChat Twitter account reveals the true reason for paying SHA “experts”: to soothe their anxieties to prevent the loss of paying customers. The SHA will accomplish this by “talking about the latest research on sex, camming and addiction,” that is, cherry picking the work done by “their” researchers. Will Ley/SHA mention that hundreds of studies link porn use to myriad negative effects?

Another talk by David Ley, disparaging No-NutNovember (the real target is Nofap), and promoted by RealYBOP: Look how RealYBOP (Nicole Prause alias) is tagged by Stripchat. Nothing suspicious here, folks: Put simply, the Prause/Burgess site contains members who are compensated by the porn industry to tell porn users porn addiction doesn’t exist and porn use never causes problems. Prause’s alias account (RealYBOP) promotes David Ley’s porn website chats. On to tweets by Prause’s official twitter account.

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Prause tags the FSC in her tweet attacking unfavorable research on porn performers:

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Informs the ACLU that she is ready to present research in support of porn industry’s position:

Follows it up with this tweet:

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Retweeting an XBIZ article (which was tweeted by porn producer @MOXXX)

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In a series of tweets Prause tags @XBIZ (The world leader in adult industry news), lending her support to their agendas:

Prause retweets XBIZ, celebrating the demise of The Pink Cross Foundation (which was hated by the porn industry):

YBOP has no opinion on the Pink Cross Foundation.

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Once again, Prause enters threads of porn performers to bolster their arguments:

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Prause tweet attacking studies reporting greater trauma in porn performers:

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Once again retweeting the FSC, and lending her spin to the mix. As usual, any science Prause disputes is disreputable, while her own heavily criticized research is indisputable, even when it opposes the preponderance of expert evidence:

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Retweeting an FSC blog post and crowing about how she signed the FSC petition:

Eric Paul Leue is Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition

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Tweeting a dubious study:

Goes hand in hand with this. Below is a screenshot of Prause’s original answer posted in response to this Quora question (Prause has since deleted her answer): How can I overcome masturbation and/or porn addiction? What are the best methods? Prause’s suggestion to visit a prostitute is in the last paragraph:

As far as we know it is a violation of ethics code for a California licensed psychologist to advise a patient to visit a prostitute. Prause lied in the Hilton defamation suit that she never posted the above.

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Prause re-tweeting AVN, who was complaining about Dallas rejecting their convention:

In this tweet, Prause attacks a grad student who is trying to gather data about porn performers:

Prause reported her to the university.

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Retweeting AVN news:

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Again, citing a single outlier study, with a very small sample, to support the porn industry’s contention that performers are doing fine:

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Retweeting porn industry propaganda, telling the world that there is no sexism in the porn industry:

Prause contends that porn-recovery sites are sexist – as is everyone who disagrees with her or anyone who critiques her studies or assertions.

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Prause’s obsessive cyber-stalking and defamation of Alexander Rhodes and Nofap continue. Apparently, Prause’s expensive PR firm and query bombardment of media outlets resulted in yet another hit piece, published by Fatherly.com (written by Lauren Vinopal). The “journalist” did little more than copy and paste Prause’s Twitter threads, quoting her as the world’s expert on everything related to Nofap.com, reddit/nofap, and men trying to quit porn. First, here’s the barrage of unprovoked tweets, which mirrors previous unsupported drivel in this same “quitting porn causes fascism” (huh?) press campaign. Prause’s first tweet is on the Xhamster thread smearing Nofap. Prause falsely states that Rhodes “worked with” VICE founder Gavin McGinnes:

Rhodes was interviewed once, years ago, by McGinnes – before the existence of “Proud Boys.” (McInnes has since publicly divorced himself from Proud Boys.) In any case, as Alexander Rhodes explained on Twitter, at the time of the interview, as far as he and others knew McGinnes was simply the co-founder of VICE Media. Rhodes never promoted or worked with McGinnes – or Proud Boys.

On the other hand, Prause joined Xhamster’s thread with the above tweet. Does this mean she is “working with” a major porn site to attack a porn-recovery forum (again)? This occurred after Xhamster complained to the world that NoNut November was affecting its bottom line:

Here’s a second Prause tweet in the Xhamster thread, where she spreads more of her toxic misinformation and tells Xhamster to Direct Message her:

The FBI confirmed that Prause has been lying about her claims to have filed FBI reports: November, 2018: FBI affirms Nicole Prause’s fraud surrounding defamatory claims. Prause is also lying when she says Gary Wilson physically stalked her: Los Angeles Police Department and UCLA campus police confirm that Prause lied about filing police reports on Gary Wilson.

What is true? Nicole Prause appears to be “working with” Xhamster to spread falsehoods about Nofap, Alex Rhodes, and Gary Wilson.

On the same day Prause repeats her lies on a Sarah Manavis‏ thread promoting the Manavis article attacking Nofap, supporting Xhamster, and parroting everything Prause has tweeted in the previous 3 weeks:

It’s highly suspicious that Sarah Manavis somehow knew about a random xHamster Twitter thread, that her hit piece closely mirrors Prause talking points, and that Manavis did not contact Alexander Rhodes for comment. Did Prause “work with” Sara Manavis behind the scenes?

A few days later Prause crows about the Fatherly.com piece she helped with:

Thus, the Fatherly.com article rests on Ley & Prause’s Psychology Today article labeling porn recovery forum as fascists, Sarah Manavis’s hit-piece, and all of Prause tweets and Psychology Today comments. The Fatherly.com hit-piece liberally quotes Prause as the world’s expert on Nofap.com and men who quit porn:

“I think ‘No Nut November’ is largely anti-science,” psychophysiologist and neuroscientist Nicole Prause, told Fatherly. “The new designation, and it is hardly a tradition, appears supported most by the for-profit NoFap company, some religious organizations, and groups like Proud Boys. These are largely known for their very young male members and misogyny.”

More lies as NoFap.com had nothing to do with NoNutNovember, and claims that there’s a link between quitting porn and misogyny are the exact opposite of what the research shows and what men on the forums report.

Gotta give it up to Prause. It appears that with the aid of her PR firm, and apparently Xhamster, her tireless work paid off. It all started with Ley’s (and her) inflammatory Psychology Today blog post… and eventually mushroomed into a propaganda meme that “the little ol’ porn industry is the victim of evil younguns who no longer watch porn.” Sadly, this fabricated meme has now been recklessly pumped up by irresponsible “journalists” who are able to disregard facts, common sense, and peer-reviewed studies.

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Prause tagged by PornHub. Very buddy-buddy convo:

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Prause offers to testify on the side of porn producers, against a proposed Utah bill opening porn producers to lawsuits:

Note: One can be funded (or supported in alternative avenues) without direct funding of research (such as access to subjects willing to engage in sex while being monitored in a lab).

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More direct support for porn industry views:

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Retweeting xHamster:

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Supporting the porn industry’s agenda once again, Prause says August Ames’s depression was not related to her work (she died by suicide). Whether it was or wasn’t why does Prause feel compelled to defend the porn industry?

Prause also states that she will help adult performers locate “providers who have the proper training” (code for never saying that working in porn might lead to poorer emotional outcomes). Note that Prause tells performers to report any therapist who suggests that working in porn might cause problems.

The next day Prause continues to support the porn industry on this same thread:

The back and forth continues, with Prause claiming she receives zero money from porn (why did she feel compelled to announce this?):

Prause continues the debate, adding that “it is extremely rare for studies to include even an assessment of benefits of sex films viewing or participation.“ Prause’s assertion is nonsense. Many studies assess correlations between porn use and positive outcomes…. but they rarely find such correlations. For example, greater sexual or relationship satisfaction is clearly a positive outcome, yet, as far as we know all studies involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction: Over 75 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction.

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In a twitter thread where Prause defamed Gary Wilson and Alexander Rhodes, an individual responded with a link to this very page (Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry?), and tweeted a screenshot of Prause and her porn-star buddies. Prause responded with disingenuous gibberish to explain away her close relationship with so many names in the porn industry:

Prause is not studying, and has never studied, an aspect of the porn industry – including the performers. Propaganda.

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RealYBOP trolling the New York Times OBGYN Jen Gunter because she’s not a fan of porn. RealYBOP links to an article by Free Speech Coalition employee Lotus Lain. Helping out the porn industry whenever possible:

RealYBOP claims that “Many viewers also experience improved body image” are debunked here: Body Image Section.

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Prause & Ley disparaging the Gottman’s, while supporting porn industry

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Support for BackPage:

No surprise that Prause and Daniel Burgess’s legal counsel is Wayne B. Giampietro, who was one of the primary lawyers defending backpage.com. Backpage was shut down by the federal government “for its willful facilitation of human trafficking and prostitution.” (see this USA Today article: 93-count indictment on sex trafficking charges revealed against Backpage founders). The indictment charged backpage owners, along with others, of conspiring to knowingly facilitate prostitution offenses through the website. Authorities contend some of the trafficked people included teenage girls. For details on Giampietro’s involvement see – https://dockets.justia.com/docket/illinois/ilndce/1:2017cv05081/341956. In an odd turn of events, backpage.com assets were seized by Arizona, with Wayne B. Giampietro LLC listed as forfeiting $100,000.

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Comments on a retweet of porn industry lawyer disparaging actor Jon Hamm who opened up about his experience working in the porn industry.

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RealYBOP promoting this porn studio’s films: https://twitter.com/adulttimecom

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Direct promotion of porn industry: chummy with well known porn star & director Tommy Pistol

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RealYBOP retweeting article (i.e. propaganda) by XBIZ (note how RealYBOP/Prause calls everyone anti-porn extremists):

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RealYBOP (an alias) – Direct support of former porn site owner, turned pro-porn activist Barnett:

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Support for prostitution:

No surprise that Prause and Daniel Burgess’s legal counsel is Wayne B. Giampietro, who was one of the primary lawyers defending backpage.com. Backpage was shut down by the federal government “for its willful facilitation of human trafficking and prostitution.” (see this USA Today article: 93-count indictment on sex trafficking charges revealed against Backpage founders). She continues to defend her lawyer’s former client (BackPage.com):

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PornHub was under tremendous scrutiny in early March, with a petition gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures:

People have been calling on me to start a petition to shut down Pornhub and hold its executives accountable. Here it is. Please sign and share. https://t.co/llzoBsr1Jd — Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) February 11, 2020

Politicans started getting involved, asking for an investigation

“Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are criticizing the adult video giant Pornhub[‘s]…role in perpetuating sex trafficking on the internet.”Pornhub’s failure to remove nonconsensual pornography from its website is destroying lives,"⁦@RepSpeier⁩ https://t.co/60vKLhArpv — Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) March 11, 2020

RealYBOP and its members went to twitter in support of PornHub. First, it begins with RealYBOP misrepresenting the study it cited (the table tweeted is irrelevant to the study’s findings) to say that porn is not abusive.

The abstract with the actual findings:

We found that the films either directly or indirectly supported several sexual scripts: Explicit Verbal Consent Isn’t Natural, Women are Indirect/Men are Direct, Sex Can Happen Without Ongoing Communication, Lower-Order Behaviors Don’t Need Explicit Consent, and People Receiving Sexual Behaviors Can Consent by Doing Nothing. Further research is needed to examine whether viewers are acquiring, activating, or applying these scripts. Sex education programs could benefit from acknowledging how consent communication is modeled in pornography and by teaching about pornography literacy.

RealYBOP continues. In response to Laila’s efforts, RealYBOP tweets a Tracy Clark-Flory hit piece. Why is RealYBOP concerned with poor little ol’ Porn Hub and not with Pornhub posting videos of trafficking victims being raped and abused? Because RealYBOP is a shill for the porn industry. PornHub is involved with actual misogyny, not the fabricated misogyny conjured up by RealYBOP.

March 10: legislators from the US and Canada ask for an investigation of Pornhub

Yesterday, Senators & Members of Parliament in Canada & the US wrote to their governments about MindGeek & #childexploitation, #sextrafficking, & sexual assault. This reflects the urgency of this across borders & parties. pic.twitter.com/n1giZ5F3Lr — Arnold Viersen, MP (@ArnoldViersen) March 10, 2020

Guess who comes to PornHubs defense? RealYBOP twitter and RealYBOP members! First, RealYBOP member and close Prause ally, David Ley defends PornHub (even a sex worker castigates Ley – but he knows where is bread is buttered)

RealYBOP retweets another David Ley tweet in support of Pornhub:

RealYBOP tweets RealYBOP member Taylor Kohut’s support for Pornhub:

Here are some gems by Kohut from the CBC article:

I don’t believe there is any woman that would willingly expose herself to today’s pornography, which is very brutal,” said Walker. “I want the government to indicate that there’s no difference between trafficking, prostitution and pornography. They’re all one and the same.” That’s an idea that Taylor Kohut, a research associate in the Department of Psychology at Western University, calls “profoundly ridiculous.” Kohut studied how pornography influences the way people feel, think and behave for more than a decade. “I don’t think porn is inherently evil or exploitive or dehumanizing or degrading. I don’t think it must contribute to anti-woman attitudes and acts,” he explained. “If the real goal is to reduce trafficking of women and children, I think focusing on pornography is rather naïve and misguided and erotophobic … There are definitely alternative ways to get at the issue.” Though his own research doesn’t reveal a connection between porn use and anti-woman outcomes, Kohut said some correlations have been reported by others. “The field lacks methodological rigour and there are clear political influences that have likely contributed to a degree of confirmation bias, on all sides,” he explained. “Putting it all together, there is no clear evidence that pornography causes negative attitudes toward women or sexual violence. And my personal interpretation of the available evidence is that it does not.” He suggests the solution to outlaw or extremely censor pornography would be unrealistic and a “tremendous loss.” He compares Pornhub’s struggle to the one Facebook has with disseminating false information. “How do you control and regulate that when your customers are essentially building your content? It’s a difficult and technical social challenge.”

Kohut is dead wrong about porn use and negative attitudes about women. As mentioned numerous times, RealYBOP member Taylor Kohut’s paper contained some very creative methodology apparently employed to produce the desired results. In reality, Kohut’s findings are contradicted by nearly every other published study. See this 2016 review of the literature: Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015. The abstract:

The goal of this review was to synthesize empirical investigations testing effects of media sexualization. The focus was on research published in peer-reviewed, English-language journals between 1995 and 2015. A total of 109 publications that contained 135 studies were reviewed . The findings provided consistent evidence that both laboratory exposure and regular, everyday exposure to this content are directly associated with a range of consequences, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, greater support of sexist beliefs and of adversarial sexual beliefs, and greater tolerance of sexual violence toward women. Moreover, experimental exposure to this content leads both women and men to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality, and humanity.

Real simple: RealYBOP and its “experts” are taking the side of Pornhub over sex-trafficking victims. RealYBOP’s true allegiance is not in doubt – the porn industry.

RealYBOP attacks Exodus Cry. Propaganda 101 – if you can’t defend your position, defame the messenger. RealYBOP calling anti-porn activists “hate groups” while supporting Pornhub’s disgusting practice of allowing videos of sex trafficking victims.

Note that Prause has defamed and harassed Exodus Cry and Laila Mickelwait in the past: February, 2019: Prause falsely accuses Exodus Cry of fraud. Asks Twitter followers to report the non-profit to the Missouri attorney general (for spurious reasons), Appears to have edited the CEO’s Wikipedia page.

RealYBOP propaganda in support of pornhub continues

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A tweet in support of porn site “YouPorn”:

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While PornHub is being exposed as having videos of sex trafficking victims, RealYBOP is out there defending MindGeek:

More love for PornHub:

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March 25, 2020: A second tweet attacking NoFap. This one features a hit-piece by XBIZ (revealing once again RealYBOP’s close alliance with the porn industry). Is it coincidence that a few hours before the XBIZ article RealYBOP disparaged the National Review and NoFap on twitter? Did RealYBOP have anything to do with XBIZ writing this article? Inquiring minds want to know.

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Tweeting about the AVN convention in Las Vegas

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Retweeting XBIZ hit-piece, in support of the porn industry:

XBIZ article is a convoluted mess trying to discredit theguardian.org. But what XBIZ neglects to mention is that the nefarious theguardian.org is not only supported by Humanity United but a host of other players including none other than the Open Society Foundation. I doubt if any entity on the plant has done more to normalize commercial sexual exploitation than OSF/Soros. So the article is built on a house of cards.

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Promoting pornhub, who has been monetizing rape and sex trafficking videos on its platform:

Pornhub was the first account to tweet about RealYBOP!

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Promoting Pornhub, even when it is under investigation for regularly hosting child porn and rape videos! The ever loyal RealYBOP.

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RealYBOP trolling a feminist who is critical of Pornhub for monetizing sex trafficking & actual rape videos:

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RealYBOP pushing the propaganda envelope for the porn industry:

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Talk about supporting the porn industry agenda. Laughable.

How about categories like these RealYBOP – https://twitter.com/LailaMickelwait/status/1251171998895652867

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RealYBOP directly supporting Mindgeek, owner of Pornhub. Here’s Laila’s original tweet which RealYBOP attacks:

The CEO of Mindgeek who owns Pornhub just started following me. After I tweeted about it he immediately changed his name and location. #Traffickinghub pic.twitter.com/9NhOMMMFxZ — Laila Mickelwait (@LailaMickelwait) April 19, 2020

Here RealYBOP attacks Laila & defends Mindgeek’s CEO (RealYBOP lies when she claims the account isn’t Mindgeek’s CEO (we have additional evidence that it is!)

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April 23, 2020: WOW. Direct support for Pornhub, while attempting to disparage NoFap (who is suing RealYBOP for defamation):

Damn, RealYBOP scouring PornHub as if she is a moderator.

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Tweets XBIZ propaganda by XBIZ news editor Gustavo Turner

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Tweets a “sex worker’s ” propaganda in support of PornHub:

Uhh, nope, there are now 50 neuroscience-based studies providing strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.

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Continued support for pornhub (which is being outed as hosting numerous child porn videos):

It’s clear that Prause and Ley are chums with many porn industry insiders. Yet, ee have always suspected that both communicate behind the scenes, assisting the porn industry with its propaganda and its attacks on Prause usual targets. This January, 2020 XBIZ hit-piece by RealYBOP buddy Gustavo Turner is proof positive that RealYBOP (run by Prause) is collaborating directly with the porn industry: The XBIZ article acknowledges RealYourBrainOnPorn as their source for lies about YBOP. XBIZ claims that YBOP is “murkily funded”. Pure bullshit, as I have stated for 10 years that YBOP receives no funding or ad revenues. In addition, my share of the proceeds from my book go to charity.

Oh, as for the XBIZ/RealYBOP claim that YBOP is “unscientific”, see the main YBOP research page containing links to about 1,000 studies reporting myriad negative outcomes related to porn use. In reality, porn industry shill RealYBOP is the unscientific “organization”. This page exposes RealYBOP’s so-called research page as nothing more than a handful of cherry-picked, often irrelevant papers (many are not real studies), and its egregious omissions.

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Spreading porn industry propaganda

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Retweeting propaganda from XBIZ.

RealYBOP complicit in covering up the truth:

Racism is rife in porn so don't believe Pornhub's latest propaganda about being onside with #BlackLivesMatter. Dr. @GailDines of @CultureReframed speaks with Dr. Carolyn West about how common racism is in porn. https://t.co/9SqSIwTel8 — Liz Walker (@LizWpresents) June 11, 2020

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RealYBOP directly supporting PornHub’s criminal activity (hosting child porn and sex trafficking videos):

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Prause’s intimate relationships with porn industry performers, directors, producers, etc.



Section exposing Prause’s close relationships with porn performers and producers. Prause’s “lab” and residence are in the heart of Los Angeles.

Prause posing, sandwiched by two well known porn stars:

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Well-known porn actor/producer welcomes Prause to Twitter (July, 2014). Several hashtag comments on her looks (why didn’t she call him out for misogyny?)

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July, 2014: Porn producer saying it was so nice to meet Nicole Prause. Prause’s tweet is unavailable because her old twitter account was permanently banned for harassment.

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August, 2014: Porn actor/producer (Tim Woodman) tagging Melissa Hill & Prause, saying he wished he could have gone.

Prause’s tweet is unavailable because her old Twitter account was permanently banned for harassment.

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Porn producer/writer flirting with Prause (why didn’t she call him out for misogyny?). RedditIAmA – I’m Adam Christopher / Tarantino XXX Adult Film Writer/Director for TarantinoXXX.com and I have a challenge for the real Quentin Tarantino AMA.

Prause’s tweet is unavailable because her old Twitter account was permanently banned for harassment.

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Porn producer/director again, with an intimate exchange:

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Prause presents “Science over Stigma” to an adult performers gathering:

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Prause describing her time spent with another pornography legend:

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Why would a supposedly impartial researcher be tweeting about a porn performer union?

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Prause provides advice to an adult performer:

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Again interacting with performers, as if she has inside connections:

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Prause tweeting an article where she defends porn & sex workers, and lets us know about the true nature of being in porn:

Retweeted by FSC and porn producers.

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On the Twitter thread of two porn performers, Prause tells them that porn stars do not have more emotional problems and that performing porn is not harmful (as if causation could be demonstrated):

Note: Prause cites no studies to support her assertions.

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Major porn producer calling Prause “our superheroine.” Prause takes a bow for her noble services.

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Close Prause ally David Ley also admits to knowing several porn producers (we have many more Ley tweets confirming his close ties to the porn-industry)

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In a very personal tweet, Prause sends her condolences to the family of William Margold, the former director of the Free Speech Coalition who was a co-founder of X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO):

FYI – During the initial broadcast of NBC’s Tomorrow Coast-to-Coast with Tom Snyder, Marigold said he would consider performing a sex scene with his own daughter. When asked if he would allow his daughter to enter the porn business, Margold replied, “Not until she’s eighteen. And then I might even work with her myself.”

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Convo with porn performer/producer claiming that “anti-porn” is misogynist, yet porn performers are not:

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Prause tweets an article by porn producer “Ms Naughty.”

The porn producer (Ms Naughty) is attempting to smear Susan McLean, a federal government cyber-safety ­adviser, who is concerned about young people mimicking what they see online. The Daily Mail article covering this. Prause calls it a “panic story.”

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Promoting AVN/porn show:

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In 2017, she claims to be “an (unpaid) board member for the porn performers union“:



My goodness. On the board of a porn star union. Talk about an intimate relationship with the porn industry

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Prause cheers on porn director Mike Quazar (over 500 porn films), telling him to “PREACH” the truth about porn’s effects:

Prause’s link goes to her lone, flawed anomalous EEG study: Prause et al., 2015. The results: Compared to controls “individuals experiencing problems regulating their porn viewing” had lower brain responses to one-second exposure to photos of vanilla porn. Prause claims these results “debunk porn addiction.” What legitimate scientist would claim that their lone anomalous study has debunked a well established field of study? Lower EEG readings mean that subjects are paying less attention to the pictures. Put simply, frequent porn users were desensitized to static images of vanilla porn. They were bored (habituated or desensitized). See this extensive YBOP critique. Eight peer-reviewed papers agree that this study actually found desensitization/habituation in frequent porn users (consistent with addiction): Peer-reviewed critiques of Prause et al., 2015.

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As stated in the introduction, Prause began openly harassing, libeling and cyberstalking Gary Wilson in 2013. In one of her most egregious, yet revealing incidents, Prause prepared a libelous blog piece, which she posted on an adult industry website. (Original url: http://mikesouth.com/scumbags/dr-nicole-prause-destroys-yourbrainonporn-dont-fall-22064/). The site describes itself as follows:

Mike South adult industry blog, the premier destination for adult industry news since 1998. Mike South was a small-time porn producer, who won two AVN awards, turned adult news blog pioneer. South was cited on a host of major news sites, and Gawker.com acknowledged him as “the gonzo king of porn gossip.”

Below is screenshot of Prause’s defamatory post, which was removed from MikeSouth.com right after Wilson tweeted this. Prause working directly with Mike South provides clear evidence of Prause’s porn-industry connections.

On the same day, Prause also posted this same porn-industry blog post on Quora. This resulted in her being permanently banned for harassment. In her defamatory piece, she knowingly, falsely stated that,

[Gary Wilson] claims to have been a “professor in Biology.” In reality, he was supposed to be an undergrad instructor, not a professor, for a lab section at Southern Oregon University. He was fired without pay immediately before completing even a quarter.

In her defamatory articles, tweets, and Quora posts Prause has knowingly and falsely stated that Gary Wilson claimed to be “professor in biology” or a “neuroscientist,” or otherwise “faked” his credentials. These 2 sections have already exposed Prause’s claims as lies:

In short, Gary was an Adjunct Instructor at Southern Oregon University and taught human anatomy, physiology and pathology at other venues. Although careless journalists and websites have assigned him an array of titles in error over the years (including a now-defunct page on a website that pirates many TEDx talks where anyone can describe a speaker without contacting them first) he has always stated that he taught anatomy, pathology and physiology (YBOP About us page). He has never said he had a PhD or was a professor.

More details on this page: Libelous Claim that Gary Wilson Was Fired (March, 2018)

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May, 2019: tweet to porn performers, also acting as an intermediary between porn performers and national publication.

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Prause promotes her interview on EAN (“Europe’s first choice for the erotic trade”):

Screenshot: Prause interview featured on the EAN front page:

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More promotion of the porn industry:

One of the first to retweet was PornHub.

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Prause twitter alias “RealYBOP” retweets pornography producer’s tweet, and tweets emotional support:

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Porn performers ask Prause for assistance and she responds:

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Tweet to one of the most prolific porn producers in LA – Mike Quasar.

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Back ground on Prause tweet: On May 8, 2019 Donald Hilton, MD filed a defamation per se lawsuit against Nicole Prause & Liberos LLC. On July 24, 2019 Donald Hilton amended his defamation complaint to highlight (1) a malicious Texas Board of Medical Examiners complaint, (2) false accusations that Dr. Hilton had falsified his credentials, and (3) affidavits from 9 other Prause victims of similar harassment (John Adler, MD, Gary Wilson, Alexander Rhodes, Staci Sprout, LICSW, Linda Hatch, PhD, Bradley Green, PhD, Stefanie Carnes, PhD, Geoff Goodman, PhD, Laila Haddad.)

It’s important to know that much of Prause’s “justification” for defaming Don Hilton arises from Hilton stating that Prause attended porn-industry awards (which Prause denies). Because Prause and Ley chronically cite Hilton’s religious faith as disqualifying him from commenting on science, Hilton (the author of multiple peer-reviewed papers) felt it was necessary to point out their biases (in hopes of refocusing the debate on the research evidence). While thousands of social media postings substantiate Prause’s pro-porn biases, Hilton chose the time-saving route in his presentations: tweets of Prause attending porn industry awards or indicating she had or would attend in the future (the screenshots are in the next section: Evidence that Nicole Prause attends porn industry awards (XRCO, AVN)).

In Prause’s false account from her Motion to Dismiss the Hilton Lawsuit she claimed that image of her attending 2016 X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) awards ceremony was really taken a year later “at the premier of the documentary film After Porn Ends 2”. Prause is lying, yet she seems to be resting her entire defense on this already falsified fairy tale. In one of her twitter rampages (where she threatened numerous accounts with lawsuits), Prause pinned a tweet announcing all the porn industry groups and individuals that were coming to her aid:

If any bit of evidence shows Prause intimate relationship with the porn industry, the above certainly does. She has all the big porn players at her beck and call.

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1/1/20: Friendly conversation with well-known porn performer/producer Tim Woodman:

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1/26/20: Prause alias twitter account congratulating “Wicked Pictures” on its AVN awards:

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Evidence that Nicole Prause attends porn industry awards/events (XRCO, AVN)

There is no doubt that Prause attended 2016 X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) awards ceremony. According to Wikipedia,

The XRCO Awards are given by the American X-Rated Critics Organization annually to people working in adult entertainment and it is the only adult industry awards show reserved exclusively for industry members.[1]

You can see photos and read more about the 2016 XRCO awards in this AVN article. From the article:

If there’s one thing the 32nd annual XRCO Awards Show proved, it’s that porn has not forgotten how to party. A major contingent of the industry’s biggest luminaries packed OHM nightclub at the Hollywood & Highland complex to sardine-like capacity for what was easily the organization’s most jubilant gala in years. Harking back to the free-wheeling porn megabashes of the pre-recession era, it was a genuine celebration for the ages and a rousing reminder that the commonwealth of adult is very much alive and vibrantly kicking

Another pic of Prause with porn industry buddies:

Good times at the 2016 XRCO:

Prause at a reserved table with porn industry friends:

Watch this 20-minute video of the 2016 XRCO awards (pretty racy). Prause can be seen around the 6:10 mark sitting at a table with porn star buddy Melissa Hill:

UPDATE: Deletion of the above 4-year old XRCO awards video occurred not long after it was placed on this YBOP page. Nothing suspicious about that. We are wondering if Prause asked XRCO officials to remove the video? Did XRCO help her out? After all, Prause attending the 2016 XRCO is a hotly disputed item the Hilton defamation suit. It’s important to note that the XRCO awards video was originally found and tweeted by Diana Davison in response to Prause threatening Davison with a lawsuit (largely because Davison exposed Prause as lying about attending the 2016 XRCO Awards):

That she lied about attending the XRCO event and she's threatening to sue people who say they've seen a picture of her there. Also, falsely accusing people of stalking just for doing research and defending themselves. — Diana Davison (@d2davison) November 25, 2019

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From her tweets, it appears that Prause has also attended the Adult Video News Awards:

In June, 2015 Prause describes hearing Jeanne Silver’s (a porn star) story “at AVN” (we must assume the Adult Video News Awards, because a Google search for Adult Video News returns mostly the AVN awards; second was the AVN expo).

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Trolling PornHarms, Prause offers free t-shirts to others willing to troll with her. The t-shirts are a tasteless parody of the FTND porn kills love t-shirts. The 3 winners are porn stars!

One of the porn stars (Avalon) is from Australia. She tells Prause that it’s too expensive to ship a t-shirt to her. Prause asks Avalon if she would like to pick up her t-shirt at “the AVN” (we must assume the Adult Video News Awards, because a Google search for Adult Video News returns mostly the AVN awards; second was the AVN expo). The only logical conclusion is that Prause will be attending AVN awards, the AVN EXPO, or both.

Avalon tells Prause to have an amazing time at the AVN.

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And on and on it goes with Nicole Prause and the porn industry.

Is it any surprise that FTND, or anyone else, might wonder if Prause, a former academic with a long history of harassing authors, researchers, therapists, reporters and others who dare to report evidence of harms from internet porn use, who lives in LA, who has obtained study subjects through the FSC, who hangs out with big names in the industry, who attends porn industry award ceremonies, and who has publicly been offered (and accepted) support by the FSC, might be influenced by the porn industry?

Again, no one has claimed Prause receives direct funding from the FSC or the “porn industry”. In fact, it seems most unlikely that the FSC would make any such arrangements directly, let alone make them public, even if they did exist. Nor has anyone stated that Prause is “in the porn industry” or “has, herself appeared in pornography“, as she falsely asserted in her bogus cease and desist letters, and in her response to Don Hilton, MD’s defamation lawsuit against her. Sections documenting these false assertions:

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Update: In her thread supporting pornhub and attacking NoFap, RealYBOP (Prause alias account) tweeted an XBIZ article targeting Julie Bindel. RealYBOP falsely claims that Julie Bindel attended XRCO. This is a bald-faced lie as Bindel attended the XBIZ awards, which is open to the public. Funny that RealYBOP’s tweet exposes her lie as the screenshot says that Bindel attended the XBIZ awards.

Context: Julie Bindel is a prominent anti-porn, anti-prostitution, rad feminist. In her filings in the Don Hilton defamation suit against her, Prause perjures herself on numerous occasions, claiming she has never attended a porn awards show.

It’s important to know that much of Prause’s “justification” for defaming Don Hilton arises from Hilton stating that Prause attended porn-industry awards (which Prause denies). Because Prause and Ley chronically cite Hilton’s religious faith as disqualifying him from commenting on science, Hilton (the author of multiple peer-reviewed papers) felt it was necessary to point out their biases (in hopes of refocusing the debate on the research evidence). While thousands of social media postings substantiate Prause’s pro-porn biases, Hilton chose a time-saving route in his presentations: tweets of Prause attending porn industry awards or indicating she had or would attend in the future (the screenshots were obtained from this page: Evidence that Nicole Prause attends porn industry awards (XRCO, AVN)).

The purpose of RealYBOP’s tweet is to give the impression that anyone (incuding anti-porn feminists) can attend the XRCO awards. RealYBOP is lying as Bindel did attend XRCO, Prause did attend, and the “X-Rated Critics Organization annually to people working in adult entertainment and it is the only adult industry awards show reserved exclusively for industry members”.

Notice how RealYBOP, Ley, and JamesF often work as a defamation team:

Lying comes easy for these guys.

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SECTION 2: Was Nicole Prause “PornHelps?” (PornHelps website, on Twitter, comments under articles) All accounts deleted once Prause was outed as “PornHelps.”

Nicole Prause created a username called “PornHelps,” which had its own Twitter account (@pornhelps) and a website promoting the porn industry as well as outlier studies reporting the “positive” effects of porn. “PornHelps” chronically badgered the same people and organizations that Prause also often attacked. In fact, Prause would team up with her apparent alias PornHelps to attack individuals on Twitter and elsewhere in tandem with her other identities. Some of the Prause/PornHelps coordinated attacks are documented in these Prause-page sections:

The @pornhelps twitter account and PornHelps website were suddenly deleted when it became apparent to everyone that Prause was behind both. While many of us being attacked knew “PornHelps” was really Nicole Prause, the following @pornhelps tweet left no doubt:

Prause, a Kinsey grad, calls herself a neuroscientist, and appears to have started college about 15 years earlier than the above 2016 tweet. In response to several ad hominem attacks by “PornHelps,” which perfectly mirrored many of Prause’s usual comments, “PornHelps” was confronted in the comments section of Psychology Today with this and other evidence: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/comment/887468#comment-887468

Within a few days of the above Psychology Today comment the PornHelps website and @pornhelps Twitter account vanished without a trace. All that remains of PornHelps are a smattering of comments on various sites and this abandoned disqus account, listing 87 comments. (80-page PDF of numerous aliases Prause used to defame and harass Gary Wilson).

Want more confirmation that PornHelps was really Prause? The following comments, tweets, and coincidences make it apparent. PornHelps disqus account posted 87 times:

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Here Prause and Russell J. Stambaugh simultaneously comment under an article about porn. Prause & Stambaugh are close allies and often comment together in pre-planned assaults in comment sections.

A more recent coordinated attack by Prause, Stambaugh, and 3 other members of Prause’s harassment brigade is documented in this section: May 30, 2018 – Prause falsely accuses FTND of science fraud, and implies that she has reported Gary Wilson to the FBI twice. (Addendum: Gary Wilson filed a freedom of information request with the FBI and the FBI confirmed that Prause was lying. No report has ever been filed on Wilson. See – November, 2018: FBI affirms Nicole Prause’s fraud surrounding defamatory claims)

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Much of this Prause/PornHelps coordinated attack on researchers is chronicled here: June, 2016: Prause and her sock puppet PornHelps claim that respected neuroscientists are members of “anti-porn groups” and “their science is bad.” But let us re-examine the evidence that Prause is “PornHelps.”

Nicole Prause, a Kinsey grad, in a tweet about this study posted for commentary (since published in Neuropsychopharmacology), falsely claimed that its 9 researchers (including top researchers in the addiction neuroscience field) were members of “anti-porn groups,” and that their new study was “bad science.” Prause’s tweet (pictured here) appeared on the same page as the study (Can pornography be addictive? An fMRI study of men seeking treatment for problematic pornography use), but was later deleted.

At the same time that Prause tweeted the above, “PornHelps” began posting in the comments section below the paper. See a few of PornHelps’ comments below. How does PornHelps know so much about research methodology and statistics? (Prause’s PhD was in stats):

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And here’s more confirmation that PornHelps is Prause. The PornHelps comments under an NPR interview of Prause are nearly identical to Prause’s usual spin about the claimed benefits of porn:

Nearly identical in this article quoting Prause – with her usual spin:

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Now a taste of Prause (as PornHelps) attacking Wilson on various websites: promoting porn and misrepresenting the current state of the research. (Note: PornHelps was very busy attacking others on PT and other websites, and of course, via Twitter).

Here’s Pornhelps going after Wilson, mirroring Prause’s language in many comments (“stalker,” “massage therapist,” “fake,” etc.)

Look familiar? Prause is the only commenter who calls Wilson a cyberstalker and a massage therapist (other than her sidekick David Ley):

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Here PornHelps is discussing Prause’s EEG study – Modulation of Late Positive Potentials by Sexual Images in Problem Users and Controls Inconsistent with “Porn Addiction” (Prause et al., 2015)

Pornhelps knows an awful lot for a porn industry hack!

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This comment about Wilson can be found under Prause’s 2016 op-ed – Op-ed: Anti-porn school program misrepresents science.

Again, Prause is the only commenter who calls Wilson a cyberstalker and massage therapist (other chum David Ley). The truth of Prause’s op-ed – Op-ed: Who exactly is misrepresenting the science on pornography? (2016)

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The following are some of the over 20 comments under the Prause op-ed by PornHelps. Prause’s #2 obsession after Gary Wilson is FTND, which Prause posted numerous times. The comments perfectly mirror Prause tweets misrepresenting the research and attacking FTND. PornHelps “discus” account has posted 87 comments

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PornHelps mentions the same Australian study that Prause tweets all the time:

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Here PornHelps mirrors dozens of Prause tweets or comments – both naming the exact same findings from outlier studies.

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Another example of Prause/PornHelps attacking Wilson (while teaming up with David Ley). Many more examples can be found on this page.

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More evidence. We start with a tweet by the author of the TIME cover story, “Porn and the Threat to Virility,” Belinda Luscombe:

This was followed by @pornhelps calling both Alexander and Belinda liars. @NicoleRPrause eventually chimed in to call TIME journalist Luscombe a liar (more in the next section). The back and forth contains too many tweets to post here, but most can be found in these threads: Thread 1, Thread 2, Thread 3. Below is a sampling of @pornhelps’s unstable-sounding tweets falsely claiming that Alexander faked his story of porn-induced sexual problems (all later deleted):

@luscombeland @nytimes “Brave”? Faking a problem to promote his business? You failed to verify any part of his story

@GoodGuypervert @luscombeland exaggerating makes them money, esp in his case. These guys are mostly unemployed, no college…got $$$ somehow

@AlexanderRhodes & @luscombeland are creating fake panic to sell their wares. Disgusting.

@AlexanderRhodes @luscombeland @GoodGuypervert uh-oh, he’s gone full ad-hominem BC he got caught faking to make money off young scared men.

@AlexanderRhodes @luscombeland @GoodGuypervert then I await your proof that any of your claims actually happened to you, fake profiteer.

Alexander answered several times, with no resolution. Eventually Belinda tweeted the following:

Pornhelps responds, seeing if a lie will stick: “I heard you got blackballed for false reporting.” Eventually Prause’s “NicoleRPrause” Twitter account chimes in calling Luscombe a liar (below). Hmm…how did @NicoleRPrause know about this Twitter thread? Another bit of evidence suggesting Nicole Prause masqueraded as @pornhelps.

In this same Twitter thread Pornhelps (who is Prause) tweeted about a just published David Ley interview of Nicole Prause.

In the Ley interview Prause claims to have unpublished data falsifying any connection between “porn addiction” and penile injures (Prause also said she will never publish the data). It’s important to know that both Prause and Pornhelps had been saying that Alexander lied about his masturbation-induced penile injury and porn-induced sexual problems.

Is it any coincidence that 3 days after multiple @pornhelps tweets called Alexander a liar, Ley and Prause publish a Psychology Today blog post directed at one of Alexander’s complaints (that he injured his penis from excessive masturbation)? Interestingly, their own data apparently showed that a fifth of those surveyed had experienced similar injuries. But again, Prause refuses to publish the data, while claiming her data somehow (inexplicably) prove that Alexander must be a liar. In any case Prause’s blog claims remain unsupported as she did not assess “porn addiction” or compulsive porn use in her subjects (read the comments section of Ley’s post).

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Nicole Prause & “PornHelps” falsely accuse TIME editor Belinda Luscombe of lying and misquoting. Luscombe has been with TIME Magazine since 1995, becoming a senior editor in 1999. (See her Wikipedia page and her TIME page.) Luscombe spent a year investigating porn-induced sexual problems in young men, which resulted in the March, 31, 2016 TIME cover story “Porn and the Threat to Virility.” Both Prause and Ley have attacked the TIME article, even though both were featured in it and quoted (minimally).

Unfortunately for the public, usually Prause and Ley are the only “experts” featured in most mainstream porn-addiction articles, while the true addiction neuroscientists and their work are not even acknowledged to exist. Not this time. Two world renowned neuroscientists, who have published fMRI studies on porn users, were interviewed for the TIME article. So was a urologist, as well as several young men who have recovered from porn-induced erectile dysfunction. Put simply, the TIME article was more carefully researched than any other article on this subject, and its content reflected both reality and the (then) current state of the science. Since then, even more support for the possible link between internet porn use and sexual dysfunctions has come out in the peer-reviewed literature.

In response to Belinda’s earlier tweet (pictured above) about working the story for a year, we have @pornhelps, tweeting the following:

Pornhelps is psychic: she knows “for fact” how long Belinda worked on the story. Ten minutes later Prause tweets claiming Belinda misquoted her and “lied about her sources”:

As always, Prause provides no examples and no documentation. Not being tagged, how did Prause know about Belinda’s tweet or @pornhelps’s reply? Maybe Prause is psychic too?

Reality Check: It is Prause and @Pornhelps who are lying. As many can verify, Luscombe contacted Gary Wilson, Gabe Deem, Alexander Rhodes, Noah Church, David Ley, and others, during the year before the TIME cover story was published. In addition, Luscombe and several TIME Magazine fact-checkers contacted each individual several times to corroborate each interviewee’s claims.

We know that Wilson’s former employers were contacted, as were the girlfriends of the men with porn-induced sexual problems. Interviewees were also asked to deny or confirm claims given to TIME by David Ley and Nicole Prause. This was done in writing, often 2-3 times for each claim.

For example, Nicole Prause falsely claimed to TIME magazine that Gabe Deem masqueraded as a medical doctor to write this peer-reviewed critique of Prause & Pfaus 2015 (in fact written by a medical doctor/researcher). Even more astonishingly, Prause told TIME that UCLA had traced the “Richard A. Isenberg MD” critique (Letter to the Editor) to the young man’s computer. This outlandish attempt to defame Deem is all documented above.

In an attempt to end the conversation Belinda tweets the following on July 25:

“PornHelps” tweets two more unstable responses (Update – @pornhelps later deleted their twitter account as it became apparent that Prause often tweeted with this account):

No one responds to feed the troll.

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SECTION 3: Examples of Nicole Prause supporting porn industry interests via misrepresentation of the research & attacking researchers/academic journals



Introduction

While this section is rather large, it’s just the tip of the Prause iceberg when it comes support of the porn industry agenda. Much of Prause’s pro-porn efforts are directed at defaming and harassing those she disagrees with. These extensive pages chronicle some of Prause’s efforts in that arena:

This section concerns itself with Prause’s efforts in another arena – misrepresenting the research, and attacking researchers & academic journals.

As chronicled here and elsewhere Dr. Prause has a long history of misrepresenting her own and others research. In addition, she chronically mischaracterizes the current state of porn research, while repeatedly tweeting a few cherry-picked (and often flawed) outlier studies. If you want to judge for yourself, this page contains links to hundreds of studies and several reviews of the literature: current state of the research on Internet porn addiction and porn’s effects. As you will see below, Prause often states that the effects of viewing pornography (“sex films”) are overwhelmingly positive. As you will see, Prause’s 4 most-often repeated, and blatantly false, talking points are:

“Porn users are more egalitarian” “Porn has overwhelmingly positive effects on relationships” “Porn addiction has been falsified” “Porn viewing is associated with increased sexual response”

Nothing could be further from the truth than these assertions, as nearly every study reports the exact opposite. Moreover, Prause’s only support for these claims are 4 outlier studies (two by her, two by Taylor Kohut) that are not what they appear to be. Let’s examine each Prause assertion, the studies she cites, and what the research actually says.

1) “Porn users are more egalitarian”

Prause cites: Kohut et al., 2017. See Critique of “Is Pornography Really about Making Hate to Women? Pornography Users Hold More Gender Egalitarian Attitudes Than Nonusers in a Representative American Sample” (2016), Taylor Kohut, Jodie L. Baer, Brendan Watts

How did Taylor Kohut manage to achieve his anomalous results? His study framed egalitarianism as: (1) Support for abortion, (2) Feminist identification, (3) Women holding positions of power, (4) Belief that family life suffers when the woman has a full-time job, and oddly enough (5) Holding more negative attitudes toward the traditional family. Secular populations, which tend to be more liberal, have far higher rates of porn use than religious populations. By choosing these criteria and ignoring endless other variables, lead author Taylor Kohut knew he would end up with porn users scoring higher on his study’s carefully chosen criteria of what constitutes “egalitarianism.” Then he chose a title that spun it all.

Reality: nearly every study published links porn use to sexist or “un-egalitarian” views of women. Check out individual studies – over 25 studies link porn use to “un-egalitarian attitudes” toward women and sexist views – or the summary from this 2016 meta-analysis: Media and Sexualization: State of Empirical Research, 1995–2015. Excerpt:

The goal of this review was to synthesize empirical investigations testing effects of media sexualization. The focus was on research published in peer-reviewed, English-language journals between 1995 and 2015. A total of 109 publications that contained 135 studies were reviewed. The findings provided consistent evidence that both laboratory exposure and regular, everyday exposure to this content are directly associated with a range of consequences, including higher levels of body dissatisfaction, greater self-objectification, greater support of sexist beliefs and of adversarial sexual beliefs, and greater tolerance of sexual violence toward women. Moreover, experimental exposure to this content leads both women and men to have a diminished view of women’s competence, morality, and humanity.

2) “Porn has overwhelmingly positive effects on relationships”

Prause cites: Kohut et al., 2016. See Critique of “Perceived Effects of Pornography on the Couple Relationship: Initial Findings of Open-Ended, Participant-Informed, Bottom-Up Research” (2017), Taylor Kohut, William A. Fisher, Lorne Campbell.



The three main problems with this study are:

1- Kohut’s study was qualitative, not quantitative: it did not correlate porn use with any variable assessing sexual or relationship satisfaction.

2 – It did not contain a representative sample. Whereas most studies show that a tiny minority of females in long-term relationships use porn, in this study 95% of the women used porn on their own. And 83% of the women had used porn since the beginning of the relationship (in some cases for years). Those rates are higher than in college-aged men in studies around that time! In other words, the researchers appear to have skewed their sample to produce the results they were seeking. The reality? Cross-sectional data from the largest nationally representative US survey (General Social Survey) reported that only 2.6% of married women had visited a “pornographic website” in the last month. Data from 2004 (for more see Pornography and Marriage, 2014). While these rates may seem low, keep in mind that (1) it’s only married women, (2) represents all age groups, (3) it’s “once a month or more”: most studies ask “ever visited” or “visited in the last year.”

3- The study used “open ended” questions where the subject could ramble on and on about porn. Then the researchers read the ramblings and decided, after the fact, which answers were “important,” and how to present (spin?) them in their paper. In other words, the study did not correlate porn use with any variable assessing sexual or relationship satisfaction. Then the researchers had the gall to suggest that all the other studies on porn and relationships, which employed more established, scientific methodology and straightforward questions about porn’s effects were flawed. Is this really science? The lead author’s website and his attempt at fundraising raise a few questions.

Reality: In reality, over 70 studies have linked porn use to poorer sexual and relationship satisfaction (in the list of studies 1 & 2 are meta-analyses, study #3 had porn users attempt to quit using porn for 3 weeks, and studies 4 through 8 are longitudinal). While a few studies have correlated greater porn use in females to slightly greater sexual satisfaction, the vast majority of studies have not (see this list: Porn studies involving female subjects: Negative effects on arousal, sexual satisfaction, and relationships). As far as we know all studies involving males have reported porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction.



3) “Porn addiction has been falsified”

Prause cites: Her lone, flawed anomalous EEG study: Prause et al., 2015.

This study compared the 2013 subjects from Steele et al., 2013 to an actual control group (yet it suffered from the same methodological flaws named above). The results: Compared to controls “individuals experiencing problems regulating their porn viewing” had lower brain responses to one-second exposure to photos of vanilla porn. Prause claims these results “debunk porn addiction.” What legitimate scientist would claim that their lone anomalous study has debunked a well established field of study?

In reality, the findings of Prause et al. 2015 align perfectly with Kühn & Gallinat (2014), which found that more porn use correlated with less brain activation in response to pictures of vanilla porn. Prause et al. findings also align with Banca et al. 2015. Lower EEG readings mean that subjects are paying less attention to the pictures. Put simply, frequent porn users were desensitized to static images of vanilla porn. They were bored (habituated or desensitized). See this extensive YBOP critique. Nine peer-reviewed papers agree that this study actually found desensitization/habituation in frequent porn users (consistent with addiction): Peer-reviewed critiques of Prause et al., 2015

Because frequent porn users had lower EEG readings than controls, lead author Nicole Prause claims her anomalous study falsifies the porn addiction model. Prause proclaimed that her EEG readings assessed “cue-reactivity,” rather than habituation. Even if Prause were correct, she conveniently ignores the gaping hole in her “falsification” assertion: Even if Prause et al. 2015 had found less cue-reactivity in frequent porn users, 21 other neurological studies have reported cue-reactivity or cravings (sensitization) in compulsive porn users: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24. Science doesn’t go with the lone anomalous study hampered by serious methodological flaws; science goes with the preponderance of evidence

Aside from the many unsupported claims in the press, it’s disturbing that Prause’s 2015 EGG study passed peer-review, as it suffered from serious methodological flaws: 1) subjects were heterogeneous (males, females, non-heterosexuals); 2) subjects were not screened for mental disorders or addictions; 3) questionnaires were not validated for porn use or porn addiction. A valid addiction “brain study” must:

have homogenous subjects and controls, screen out other mental disorders and other addictions, and use validated questionnaires and interviews to assure the subjects are actually porn addicts.

Prause’s two EEG studies on porn users did none of these, yet she drew vast conclusions and published them widely.

Reality:

Note: In this 2018 presentation Gary Wilson exposes the truth behind 5 questionable and misleading studies, including Prause et al., 2015; Kohut et al., 2016; and Kohut et al., 2017: Porn Research: Fact or Fiction?

4) “Porn viewing is associated with increased sexual response”

Prause cites: Prause & Pfaus 2015. It wasn’t a study on men with ED. It wasn’t a study at all. Instead, Prause claimed to have gathered data from four of her earlier studies, none of which addressed erectile dysfunction. It’s disturbing that this paper by Nicole Prause and Jim Pfaus passed peer-review as the data in their paper did not match the data in the underlying four studies on which the paper claimed to be based. The discrepancies are not minor gaps, but gaping holes that cannot be plugged. In addition, the paper made several claims that were false or not supported by their data. Prause & Pfaus 2015 as these 2 critiques expose, it cannot support a single claim it made, including Prause’s claim that they measured sexual response:

We begin with false claims made by both Nicole Prause and Jim Pfaus. Many journalists’ articles about this study claimed that porn use led to better erections, yet that’s not what the paper found. In recorded interviews, both Nicole Prause and Jim Pfaus falsely claimed that they had measured erections in the lab, and that the men who used porn had better erections. In the Jim Pfaus TV interview Pfaus states:

We looked at the correlation of their ability to get an erection in the lab. We found a liner correlation with the amount of porn they viewed at home, and the latencies which for example they get an erection is faster.

In this radio interview Nicole Prause claimed that erections were measured in the lab. The exact quote from the show:

The more people watch erotica at home they have stronger erectile responses in the lab, not reduced.

Yet this paper did not assess erection quality in the lab or “speed of erections.” The paper only claimed to have asked guys to rate their “arousal” after briefly viewing porn (and it’s not clear from the underlying papers that this simple self-report was even asked of all subjects). In any case, an excerpt from the paper itself admitted that:

No physiological genital response data were included to support men’s self-reported experience”

In other words, no actual erections were tested or measured in the lab, which means that no such data or conclusions were peer-reviewed. “Sexual response” was never assessed!

The paper, Prause & Pfaus 2015, claimed to ask subjects to rate their arousal when watching porn – but even this could not have been accurately assessed. Dr. Isenberg’s Letter to the Editor (linked to above), which raised multiple substantive concerns highlighting the flaws in Prause & Pfaus , wondered how it could be possible for Prause & Pfaus to have compared different subjects’ arousal levels when three different types of sexual stimuli were used in the 4 underlying studies. Two studies used a 3-minute film, one study used a 20-second film, and one study used still images. It’s well established that films are far more arousing than photos, so no legitimate research team would group these subjects together to make claims about their responses. What’s shocking is that in their paper authors Prause and Pfaus unaccountably claim that all 4 studies used sexual films:

“The VSS presented in the studies were all films.”

This is false, as clearly revealed in Nicole Prause’s own underlying studies. This is another reason why Prause and Pfaus cannot claim that their paper assessed “arousal.” You must use the same stimulus for each subject to compare all subjects. Dr. Isenberg also asked how Prause & Pfaus 2015 could compare different subjects’ arousal levels when only 1 of the 4 underlying studies used a 1 to 9 scale. One used a 0 to 7 scale, one used a 1 to 7 scale, and one study did not report sexual arousal ratings. Once again Prause and Pfaus inexplicably claim that:

“Men were asked to indicate their level of “sexual arousal” ranging from 1 “not at all” to 9 “extremely.”

This statement, too, is false, as the underlying papers show. This is another reason why Prause and Pfaus cannot claim that their paper assessed “arousal” ratings in men. A study must use the same rating scale for each subject to compare the subjects’ results. In summary, all the Prause-generated headlines and claims about porn use improving erections or arousal, or anything else, are unsupported by her research.

Finally, Jim Pfaus is on the editorial board of The Journal of Sexual Medicine, which is the parent journal for “Sexual Medicine Open Access” – the publisher of Prause & Pfaus, 2015. Jim Pfaus spends considerable effort attacking the concept of porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. Co-author Nicole Prause is obsessed with debunking PIED having waged a 3-year war against this academic paper, while simultaneously harassing and libeling young men who have recovered from porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. Finally, it’s important to note that author Nicole Prause has close relationships with the porn industry and is obsessed with debunking PIED, having waged a 3-year war against this academic paper, while simultaneously harassing & libeling young men who have recovered from porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. See documentation: Gabe Deem #1, Gabe Deem #2, Alexander Rhodes #1, Alexander Rhodes #2, Alexander Rhodes #3, Noah Church, Alexander Rhodes #4, Alexander Rhodes #5, Alexander Rhodes #6, Alexander Rhodes #7, Alexander Rhodes #8, Alexander Rhodes #9, Alexander Rhodes #10, Alex Rhodes #11, Gabe Deem & Alex Rhodes together #12, Alexander Rhodes #13, Alexander Rhodes #14, Gabe Deem #4, Alexander Rhodes #15.

Reality:

Historical ED rates: Erectile dysfunction was first assessed in 1940s when the Kinsey report concluded that the prevalence of ED was less than 1% in men younger than 30 years, less than 3% in those 30–45. While ED studies on young men are relatively sparse, this 2002 meta-analysis of 6 high-quality ED studies reported that 5 of the 6 reported ED rates for men under 40 of approximately 2%.

Nine studies since 2010: Ten studies published since 2010 reveal a tremendous rise in erectile dysfunctions. This is documented in this lay article and in this peer-reviewed paper involving 7 US Navy doctors – Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports (2016). In the 9 studies, erectile dysfunction rates for men under 40 ranged from 14% to 37%, while rates for low libido ranged from 16% to 37%. Other than the advent of streaming porn (2006) no variable related to youthful ED has appreciably changed in the last 10-20 years (smoking rates are down, drug use is steady, obesity rates in males 20-40 up only 4% since 1999 – see this study).

Blatant misrepresentation is a long-standing pattern as Prause mislead everyone about the 2013 EEG study that thrust her into the public’s consciousness: Steele et al., 2013.

On March 6th, 2013 David Ley and spokesperson Nicole Prause teamed up to write a Psychology Today blog post about Steele et al., 2013 called “Your Brain on Porn – It’s NOT Addictive.” Its oh-so-catchy title is misleading as it has nothing to do with Your Brain on Porn or the neuroscience presented there. Instead, David Ley’s March, 2013 blog post limits itself to a single flawed EEG study – Steele et al., 2013. Ley’s blog post appeared 5 months before Prause’s EEG study was formally published. Prause’s carefully orchestrated PR campaign resulted in worldwide media coverage with all the headlines claiming that sex addiction had been debunked(!). In TV interviews and in the UCLA press release Nicole Prause made two wholly unsupported claims about her EEG study:

Subjects’ brains did not respond like other addicts. Hypersexuality (sex addiction) is best understood as “high sexual desire.”

Neither of those findings are actually in Steele et al. 2013. In fact, the study reported the exact opposite of what Nicole Prause claimed. These eight peer-reviewed analyses of Steele et al. describe the truth: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013

All agree that Steele et al. actually found the following:

Frequent porn users had greater cue-reactivity (higher EEG readings) to sexual images relative to neutral pictures (same as drug addicts do when exposed to cues related their addiction). Their brains looked exactly like addicts ! Individuals with greater cue-reactivity to porn had less desire for sex with a partner ( but not lower desire to masturbate to porn). This is a sign of both sensitization and desensitization.

Commenting under the Psychology Today interview of Prause, senior psychology professor emeritus John A. Johnson said:

“My mind still boggles at the Prause claim that her subjects’ brains did not respond to sexual images like drug addicts’ brains respond to their drug, given that she reports higher P300 readings for the sexual images. Just like addicts who show P300 spikes when presented with their drug of choice. How could she draw a conclusion that is the opposite of the actual results?”

The pattern of misrepresentation and false statements began in 2013 and continues to this day.

The below tweets and comments are limited to Prause’s biased representation of the science related to the effects of pornography. It provides a glimpse into Prause’s unwavering alignment with and support of the porn industry. Note: Prause has yet to tweet a single study reporting negative outcomes related to porn… even though the vast preponderance of pornography studies report negative outcomes (see for yourself – https://twitter.com/NicoleRPrause/with_replies ).

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Prause claimed porn addiction doesn’t exist, but 60 papers say otherwise.

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Prause, who has not been affiliated with any academic institution for years, attacks Professor Gail Dines in a Tweet:

This public insult was part of a thread where Prause scathingly assailed a university student in Sweden for endeavoring to study abuse of porn performers (later deleted by Prause).

Another tweet calling both Gail Dines and Fight The New Drug (FTND) liars and “anti-LGBT” and “anti-woman”:

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The same bogus falsification assertion:

Prause cited her lone, anomalous, severely flawed, EEG for her support for “falsification.” See – How to recognize biased articles: They cite Prause et al. 2015 (falsely claiming it debunks porn addiction), while omitting over 3 dozen neurological studies supporting porn addiction (April, 2016).

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This tweet concerns an internet porn study by Korean neuroscientists Seok and Sohn (PubMed indexed studies for Ji-woo Seok) – Gray matter deficits and altered resting-state connectivity in the superior temporal gyrus among individuals with problematic hypersexual behavior (2018). Prause falsely states that there were “no controls for literally any confound”:

Not so, but before we get to the truth it’s worth noting that her claim is very bold indeed, as 3 Prause studies on porn users failed to control for much of anything, including screening to establish that they were, in fact, addicted to porn (Prause et al., 2013, Steele et al., 2013, Prause et al., 2015). In fact, these 3 Prause studies chose to ignore numerous standard exclusion criteria normally employed in addiction studies, such as psychiatric conditions, other addictions, psychotropic medications, drug use, other compulsions, depression, religiosity, age, sexuality, gender, etc.

In reality, Seok & Sohn, 2018 carefully screened subjects for “sex addiction” (PHB). PHB was defined by two qualified clinicians based on clinical interviews using PHB diagnostic criteria set in previous studies, Table S1. Seok & Sohn also controlled for multiple variables. From Seok & Sohn, 2018:

We used the following exclusion criteria for PHB and control participants: age over 35 or under 18; other addictions such as alcoholism or gambling addiction, previous or current psychiatric, neurological, and medical disorders, homosexuality, currently using medication, a history of serious head injury, and general MRI contraindications (i.e., having a metal in the body, severe astigmatism, or claustrophobia).

In addition, Seok & Sohn 2018 assessed (controlled for) multiple psychological variables, including depression. From their study:

To identify comorbid tendencies among subjects with PHB, the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) (Beck et al., 1996), Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (Beck and Steer, 1990), and Barrett’s Impulsiveness Scale II (BIS-II), as adapted by Lee (1992) were administered. The score of BIS-II was used as a covariate to remove the effects of impulsivity. The BIS-II consists of 35 questions with dichotomized ‘‘yes” (1) or ‘‘no” (0) answers. The total score ranges from 0 to 35, with higher scores indicating greater levels of impulsivity. Information about the demographic and clinical characteristics of all participants is presented in Table 1.

Put simply, Prause lied outright.

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A tweet about this study posted for commentary (since published in Neuropsychopharmacology), Prause falsely claimed that its 9 researchers (including top researchers in the addiction neuroscience field) were members of “anti-porn groups,” and that their new study was