First, Steele et al. (2013) found that individuals with viewing of visual sexual stimuli (VSS) induced a greater amplitude of the P300 component when viewing erotic images than when viewing neutral images. The results seem to confirm the notion that online pornography leads to an individual’s hunger for online pornography, but Steele’s research lacks normal subjects for reference. In addition, LPP components appear later than P300. Late positive potential is associated with the stimulation of significant material processing and better reflects the individual’s desire to watch pornographic material (Hilton, 2014) (the greater the individual’s desire to watch pornography, the greater the LPP volatility). In this regard, Prause and Steele et al. (2015) added individuals who viewed less pornographic material to VSS individuals in the improvement experiment, and found that subjects who had excessively viewed pornographic material problems and reported more sexual desire were watching erotic images. The induced LPP amplitude is smaller, and this result seems to be contrary to the idea that online pornography-related clues induce a sense of craving. Actually, some scholars have pointed out that the erotic images used in the study by Prause and Steele may be an addiction in itself. Consumer goods, not addictive cues (Gola et al., 2017; Gola, Wordecha, Marchewka, & Sescousse, 2016). Therefore, according to the Theory of Incentive-Salience Theory (IST) in drug addiction, as the degree of addiction deepens, the cues of addiction can induce the addicted desire of addicted individuals to become more and more addicted. (Berridge, 2012; Robinson, Fischer, Ahuja, Lesser, & Maniates, 2015), but the addiction to the addicted individuals has gradually decreased, and the decrease in LPP amplitude indicates that CA may be addicted to drugs.
Comments: Steele et al., 2013 was touted in the media as evidence against the existence of porn/sex addiction. Not so. Steele et al. 2013 actually lends support to the existence of both porn addiction and porn use down-regulating sexual desire. How so? The study reported higher EEG readings (relative to neutral pictures) when subjects were briefly exposed to pornographic photos. Studies consistently show that an elevated P300 occurs when addicts are exposed to cues (such as images) related to their addiction.
In line with the Cambridge University brain scan studies, this EEG study also reported greater cue-reactivity to porn correlating with less desire for partnered sex. To put it another way – individuals with greater brain activation to porn would rather masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. Shockingly, study spokesperson Nicole Prause claimed that porn users merely had “high libido,” yet the results of the study say the exact opposite (subjects’ desire for partnered sex was dropping in relation to their porn use).
Together these two Steele et al. findings indicate greater brain activity to cues (porn images), yet less reactivity to natural rewards (sex with a person). That”s sensitization & desensitization, which are hallmarks of an addiction. Note – numerous other peer-reviewed papers agree with the current paper: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013
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).
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, and page 4.
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.
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 (January, 2021): Prause filed a second frivolous legal proceeding against me in December, 2020 for alleged defamation. At a hearing on January 22, 2021 an Oregon court ruled in my favor and charged Prause with costs and an additional penalty. This failed effort was one of a dozen lawsuits Prause publicly threatened and/or filed in the previous months. After years of malicious reporting, she has escalated to threats of actual lawsuits to try to silence those who reveal her close ties to the porn industry and her malicious conduct, or who have made sworn statements in the 3 defamation suits currently active against her.
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:
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.
“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.):
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.
We are not sure, but the study on clitoris diddling (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 proclaiming that her upcoming OM study (which previously had nothing to do with porn) would debunk porn addiction. As of this writing (November, 2020) the OM study has yet to appear.
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.
Here’s the official description this OM study and the funder, from page 3 of Nicole Prause’s 20-page CV (notice that Prause lists herself as “principal investigator”):
In court documents, tweets, and a lie-filled letter threatening me (Gary Wilson), Prause is now bizarrely stating that I defamed her by stating that her first Orgasmic Meditation study was funded by the OneTaste Foundation. Perhaps she is currently being funded by the newly created apparent-affiliate “Institute of OM Foundation,” but her CV doesn’t lie – even though Prause does.
Greg Siegle’s CV also lists OneTaste as funding their Orgasmic Meditation research:
As recently operational as May, 2020 the now defunct OneTaste website featured Prause & Siegle as “researching” Orgasmic Meditation:
It’s well established that Prause regularly lies, defames, and even perjures herself, but why tell such an easily debunked falsehood? She’s probably trying to distance herself from “OneTaste,” which funded her research and was exposed in the Bloomberg article as a shady operation, perhaps even a sex cult.
It appears that OM is trying to distance itself from the discredited “OneTaste.” In 2020, the OneTaste website disappeared (Internet archive version), and was replaced by the “Institute of OM.” The newer “OM” science page featuring Prause & Siegle closely resembles the former “OneTaste” science page:
Strategically, the new name contains neither “Orgasmic Meditation” nor “OneTaste,” two identifiers seen in numerous articles slamming OneTaste. It wasn’t just a new website as the hosts actually let “OneTaste” go, creating two new entities: INSTITUTE OF OM LLC and the “INSTITUTE OF OM FOUNDATION” (the latter of which apparently funds research). Interestingly, the Institute of OM Foundation was created 5 months after the Bloomberg expose’:
Bottom line: which ever entity is currently funding Prause’s Orgasmic Meditation research, OneTaste funded the initial OM studies by Prause & Siegle.
More on the Prause & Siegle study(s), now publicized on the newly formed Institute of OM Foundation website (with not a word on the site about discredited “OneTaste”):
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
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). Prause’s comments asserting that her OM study found no evidence of sexual compulsivity (she never does evidence of addiction, even when neuroscientists say that she has):
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 10 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:
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.
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 & sex industry (FSC, XBIZ, Xhamster, etc.).
This section contains a few examples of Prause directly supporting the FSC, AVN, porn producers, and porn websites
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Instead of using her own account to misrepresent the science, Prause almost exclusively used her alias shill account @BrainOnPorn during 2019 and 2020. Over 1,000 additional examples are on these 3 pages:
In April of 2019 Prause and Daniel Burgess created a trademark infringing site (“RealYourBrainOnPorn”) and its accompanying Twitter account. RealYBOP prominently features porn addiction deniers who openly function as an agenda-driven collective (RealYBOP “experts”)
Will Ley tell xHamster customers that every study ever published on males (about 70) links more porn use to less sexual and relation satisfaction? Will Ley tell them that all 55 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).
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)
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
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:
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:
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:
“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 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.
Here she answers again as if she is an expert on the porn industry. Prause’s propaganda is that porn industry is poor, and that many “harassers” say her research is funded by the porn industry:
Prause has never provided any documentation of anyone saying she is funded by the porn industry. The claim that her science has not been challenged is laughable as there are 14 peer-reviewed critiques of her flawed studies and her unsupported claims about them: Questionable & Misleading Studies.
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Add to the above examples, hundreds of social media attacks (many more examples in section 3 below) and behind the scenes harassment of any researcher, person, or organization reporting less than stellar effects of porn use or performing in porn. Just a few examples of 2,000 or more similar tweets (most of which have since been deleted):
Why does RealYBOP chronically posts tweets in support of the porn industry, when RealYBOP claims to be concerned about porn’s effects on the users?
The answer is obvious. RealYBOP is likely Prause.
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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
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
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
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.
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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. #Traffickinghubpic.twitter.com/9NhOMMMFxZ
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.
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.
Reteeting XBIZ hit-piece attacking many of NP’s usual targets:
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Celebrating the downfall of Sasse’s and Merkley’s bill, titled the Stop Internet Sexual Exploitation Act, would impose this restriction on all platforms and require consent forms to be uploaded for every individual appearing in the video. It would also mandate that sites hosting pornographic content prohibit video downloads, set up a 24-hour hotline for people to video removals, and require the removal of the videos within two hours of victims flagging them.
So, tubes sites, with hard core porn, have led to all sorts of wonderful benefits (cites nothing):
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2 tweets supporting decriminalization of prostitution:
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2 tweets supporting sex work, specifically camming:
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Lying that Laila was involved in claimed death threats. Why is Prause harassing Kristof, who exposed Pornhub’s illegal and vile activities?
How disgusting is it that Prause tweets lies under a video by a victim of Pornhub?
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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?)
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)
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.
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.
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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Supporting “sex work” (prostitution, porn, etc.)
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Evidence that Nicole Prause attends porn industry awards/events (XRCO, AVN)
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.
On the XRCO site, the 2016 awards show is described as an “ADULT INDUSTRY ONLY event – no tickets – no fans – admission is based on recognition at the door or via RESERVATIONS”
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.
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).
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:
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.
Months later:
Now that Prause’s porn-industry shill Twitter account (@BrainOnPorn) was permanently banned for targeted harassment and abuse. she is forced to tweet the same lies with her personal account. Here she is, gain, this time falsely claiming she was accused of attending XBIZ – when it was really the XRCO.
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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
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.
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:
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):
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.
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.
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 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.
“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.
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.
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”
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.
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, 25 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
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:
This page lists every neuroscience-based study published on porn users or sex addicts: 54 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). They provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction? This list contains 29 recent literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
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.
In addition to the studies below, this page contains articles and videos involving over 160 experts (urology professors, urologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, sexologists, MDs) who acknowledge and have successfully treated porn-induced ED and porn-induced loss of sexual desire.
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.
“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).
IMPORTANT TO NOTE: Instead of using her own Twitter account to misrepresent the science, Prause almost exclusively used her alias shill account (@BrainOnPorn) during 2019 and 2020. Hundreds of additional examples are on these 3 pages:
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”:
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.
As usual her claims are entirely unfounded. First, it’s an excellent study, now formally published despite all the incomprehensible resistance. Second, its authors received first prize for this very research at the European Society for Sexual Medicine conference in 2016. Third, the authors have no affiliation with Prause’s imaginary “anti-porn groups” (which Prause never names).
For example, the lead author is Dr. Mateusz Gola, who is visiting scholar at UC San Diego, and has 50 or so publications to his name. Another author is Marc Potenza MD, PhD, of Yale University, who is considered by many to be one of the world’s preeminent addiction researchers (way out of Prause’s league). A PubMed search returns over 460 studies by Dr. Potenza.
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Nothing in this tweet is true. The study did not assess “sex films.” It only assessed smokers, which had higher p300 readings for cues. This is exactly what Prause found in her first EEG study on porn users: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013
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Prause provides AASECT with talking points:
AASECT members don’t seem to know that Prause’s only evidence – her two EEG studies – have been critique 18 times in the peer-reviewed literature:
But there’s more. Prause presented a false picture of the state of the research to AASECT. Being overwhelmingly non-academics, AASECTers fell for it, and coughed up a press release declaring sex and porn addiction as officially debunked (!). Uh, no. First, AASECT is not a scientific organization and cited nothing to support the assertions in its own press release – rendering its support meaningless (not to mention the 55 neurological studies supporting the addiction model).
Finding AASECT’s tolerance of the “sex addiction model” to be “deeply hypocritical”, in 2014 Dr. Aaron set out to eradicate support for the concept of “sex addiction” from AASECT’s ranks. To accomplish his goal, Dr. Aaron claims to have deliberately sowed controversy among AASECT members in order to expose those with viewpoints that disagreed with his own, and then to have explicitly silenced those viewpoints while steering the organization toward its rejection of the “sex addiction model.” Dr. Aaron justified using these “renegade, guerilla [sic] tactics” by reasoning that he was up against a “lucrative industry” of adherents to the “sex addiction model” whose financial incentives would prevent him from bringing them over to his side with logic and reason. Instead, to effect a “quick change” in AASECT’s “messaging,” he sought to ensure that pro-sex addiction voices were not materially included in the discussion of AASECT’s course change.
Dr. Aaron’s boast comes across as a little unseemly. People rarely take pride in, much less publicize, suppressing academic and scientific debate. And it seems odd that Dr. Aaron spent the time and money to become CST certified by an organization he deemed “deeply hypocritical” barely a year after joining it (if not before). If anything, it is Dr. Aaron who appears hypocritical when he criticizes pro-“sex addiction” therapists for having a financial investment in the “sex addiction model”, when, quite obviously, he has a similar investment in promoting his opposing viewpoint
Several commentaries and critiques expose AASECT’s proclamation for what it truly is:
Another lie. The 2 neuroscientists were Prause and Valerie Voon of Cambridge University. Voon, who has published multiple brain studies on porn addicts, has published multiple reviews/commentaries where she stated that porn/sex addiction exists (see: Is excessive sexual behaviour an addictive disorder? 2017).
It didn’t fail to replicate anything as 1) the Kuhn subjects were not porn addicts (Voon’s were), and 2) the two studies looked at different parts of the brain.
Prause lied: 1) It did not cite “religious scholars,” 2) She does not have a dozen neuro studies, as all 40 neuro studies support the porn addiction model (even Prause’s own EEG study)
More instances of Prause attacking porn-induced sexual problems. Prause links to a lay article that quotes her:
Prause and Jim Pfaus cobbled together a weak attempt to debunk porn addiction (Prause & Pfaus, 2015). Prause & Pfaus 2015 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 did not support its claims as these 2 critiques expose:
Prause attacks, tagging porn industry supporter @PornPanic.
Next Prause calls the sex therapists “science illiterate” because they successful treat porn-induced sexual problems by having men stop using porn:
More from Prause, with a falsehood:
Daubney said that he got his material from a 29 page report by clinicians who treat young men. Prause replied that “we” (Prause & Pfaus 2015) also gathered data directly from clinicians who treat patients. That’s a lie. None were patients, and all were recruited via flyers! From Prause & Pfaus, 2015:
Nontreatment-seeking men (N = 280) reported their weekly average VSS viewing in hours.
Participants were solicited by flyers in the community and from psychology courses in Pocatello, Idaho and Albuquerque, New Mexico.
More. We are told that subjects and data for Prause & Pfaus were culled from four other studies, which have already been published:
Two hundred eighty men participated over four different studies conducted by the first author. These data have been published or are under review [33–36],
As noted, none of the four studies (study 1, study 2, study 3, study 4) assessed the relationship between porn use and erectile dysfunction. Only one study reported erectile functioning scores, for only 47 men. Lead author Prause tweeted several times about the study, letting the world know that 280 subjects were involved, and that they had “no problems at home.” However, the four underlying studies contained only 234 male subjects. While 280 appears once in this study’s Table 1 as the number of subjects reporting “intercourse partners last year,” so do the numbers 262, 257, 212 and 127. Yet, none of these numbers match anything reported in the 4 underlying studies, and only 47 men took the erection questionnaire.
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An old Tracy Clark-Flory article
Doesn’t say anything about “unfounded ED panic.”
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Prause calls Paula Hall a “pseudoscientist” and misrepresents Hall’s views on a study:
Known “pseudoscientist”? That’s not even a real word. A month after Prause’s tweet Paula Hall was listed as a coauthor on this Cambridge University brain scan study of porn addicts (published in the journal Human Brain Mapping): Compulsive sexual behavior: Prefrontal and limbic volume and interactions, 2016. Prause doesn’t care for Hall because she has been featured in several articles and TV & radio shows discussing porn and sex addiction. Hall is the author of 3 books on porn/sex addiction.
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Saying that Dan Savage killed Gail Dines (he didn’t, as he knows nothing about the research). Note how Prause goes to the extreme length of blaming masturbation for ED (no urologist agrees).
Prause makes it no secret that she vehemently opposes the concepts of sex and porn addiction. In the summer of 2014 Prause placed the following notice on her SPAN Lab website. You can read for yourself that Prause is encouraging all individuals being treated for sex addiction to report their therapists to the state board (it contains a handy hyperlink):
A month later Prause reminds us all again to report our local sex addiction therapist. It’s free and easy!
Prause doesn’t stop with tweets directed at a profession. She ups her game, falsely accusing psychotherapists of fraudulent therapy. Isn’t this rather reckless for a psychologist, especially given that (1) diagnoses of compulsive sexual behavior can be made using the World Health Organization’s ICD-10 and (2) Section F52.8 of the DSM itself recognizes the diagnostic validity of excessive sex drive as a valid, reimbursable disorder? In short, Prause is mistaken and behaving unethically.
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Prause and her expensive PR firm are very successful at placing articles in media outlets. In the Daily Dot article, Prause is the world’s expert on porn-induced ED. Guess what? It doesn’t exist:
Prause, Ley, and Justin Lehmiller of Playboy magazine, often collaborate to “debunk” porn addiction or porn induced problems. This April, 2018 blog post by Justin Lehmiller, has been tweeted multiple times by Prause and Ley. One example:
The story is long, complex and unbelievable – including Prause reporting all 7 doctors on the paper to their medical boards… with fabricated and spurious charges. The medical boards ignored Prause’s malicious harassment.
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Prause is falsely claiming that ED rates for men under 40 have not increased in the last 10-15 years. She does this because widespread internet porn is the only variable that could account for this change. Prause’s motto is “anything but porn”:
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%. The 6th study reported figures of 7-9%, but the question used could not be compared to the 5 other studies, and did not assess chronic erectile dysfunction: “Did you have trouble maintaining or achieving an erection any time in the last year?”
At the end of 2006 free, streaming porn tube sites came on line and gained instant popularity. This changed the nature of porn consumption radically. For the first time in history, viewers could escalate with ease during a masturbation session without any wait.
Nine studies since 2010:Nine studies published since 2010 reveal a tremendous rise in erectile dysfunctions. 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). The recent jump in sexual problems coincides with the publication of numerous studies linking porn use and “porn addiction” to sexual problems and lower arousal to sexual stimuli.
It is normal procedure to present yet-to-be-published data at conferences. Prause has done it several times. Check this out: 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. A month later (April 10th) Psychology Today editors unpublished Ley’s blog post due to controversies surrounding its unsubstantiated claims and Prause’s refusal to provide her unpublished study to anyone else.
Prause was so obsessed with the above US Navy conference presentation she fabricated a nonsensical “press release,” attempting to debunk data she hadn’t seen. Her “press release” has nothing to do with the Navy report or its data (yet she “debunked” it):
Prause falsely claims that her cobbled together, inconsistent data from 4 earlier studies showed causation (Prause & Pfaus, 2015). Absolute nonsense.
Prause and Jim Pfaus. Prause & Pfaus 2015 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 did not support its claims as these 2 critiques expose:
Prause tweets a Guardian article where she is quoted as saying ED rates in men under 40 have not increased:
Not only does Prause fail to cite any support for her claims, the experts (Prause is not an expert on ED and does not treat patients) believe otherwise. A few excerpts:
Many believe erectile dysfunction (ED), also known as impotence, is becoming more prevalent in young men. A recent study of 2,000 British men found that 50% of those in their 30s reported difficulties in getting and maintaining an erection…..
Medical professionals report that many more young men are coming to them complaining of ED. “I have been treating patients for 30 years, and there’s no doubt that we’re seeing more young men today than we used to,” says Dr Douglas Savage of the Centre for Men’s Health, based in Harley Street and Manchester. “Often, these are men who appear to be super-healthy: they’re slim, they exercise, they’re young, and you think: ‘Why on earth have these people got sexual difficulties?’”……
Again, there have been NO “experimental” studies debunking porn induced ED. Prause claims that studies prove that porn DOES NOT cause ED or anorgasmia. Not so, as no study can prove a negative.
Trying to smear an upcoming study by Josh Grubbs and Gola.
Again, there have been NO “experimental” studies debunking porn induced ED.
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Prause on Quora supporting pornography and attacking any suggestions of porn causing negative effects (before she was banned for harassing Gary Wilson). Prause falsely asserts that the effects of “sex films” (she’s the only human to use that term instead of “pornography”) are overwhelmingly positive:
Attacking YBOP and Gary Wilson’s TEDx talk, while saying that porn doesn’t cause ED or addiction.
Prause had another 30 comments about Gary Wilson, before she was banned for defaming him. By the way, here’s comprehensive empirical support for “The Great Porn Experiment” (2012), which is Gary’s TEDx talk.
Taylor Kohut framed egalitarianismas: (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 strategically chosen criteria for what constitutes “egalitarianism.” Then he chose a title that spun it all.
Sexually objectifying portrayals of women are a frequent occurrence in mainstream media, raising questions about the potential impact of exposure to this content on others’ impressions of women and on women’s views of themselves. 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.
That’s Prause: trolling social media outlets with a single flawed, cherry-picked study, while omitting every other study published on the subject.
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On Quora, supporting the industry’s agenda, while definitively stating that porn use is “overwhelmingly positive” for us all:
Prause cited 3 papers to support her assertions that porn use has overwhelming positive effects (not true):
1) Ley & her 2014 narrative review (not a genuine review of literature). The following is a very long analysis of paper #3, which goes line-by-line, showing all the shenanigans Ley & Prause incorporated in their “review”: The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Fractured Fairytale Posing As A Review. It completely dismantles the so-called review, and documents dozens of misrepresentations of the research they cited. The most shocking aspect of the Ley review is that it omitted ALL the many studies that reported negative effects related to porn use or found porn addiction! Yes, you read that right. While purporting to write an “objective” review, Ley & Prause justified omitting hundreds of studies on the grounds that these were correlational studies. Guess what? Virtually all studies on porn are correlational, even those they cited, or misused!
It does 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 various studies in college-aged men! 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 2000, 2002, 2004 (for more see Pornography and Marriage, 2014).
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, what 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.
In reality, almost 60 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.
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On Quora, porn use is overwhelmingly positive, again:
2) Prause claimed that Landripet & Štulhofer, 2015 found no relationships between porn use and sexual problems. This is not true, as documented in both this YBOP critique and the review of the literature. Also, Landripet & Štulhofer’s paper omitted three significant correlations they presented to a European conference (excerpts from their abstract):
Reporting a preference for specific pornographic genres were significantly associated with erectile (but not ejaculatory or desire-related) male sexual dysfunction.
Increased pornography use was slightly but significantly associated with decreased interest for partnered sex and more prevalent sexual dysfunction among women.
3) Citing this next paper really exposes Prause for what she is: Sutton, Stratton, Pytyck, Kolla, & Cantor, 2015 was a study on men (average age 41.5) seeking treatment for hypersexuality disorders, such as paraphilias and chronic masturbation or adultery. 27 were classified as “avoidant masturbators,” meaning they masturbated (typically with porn use) one or more hours per day or more than 7 hours per week. 71% of the compulsive porn users reported sexual functioning problems, with 33% reporting delayed ejaculation (often a precursor to porn-induced ED). What sexual dysfunction do 38% of the remaining men have? The study doesn’t say, and the authors have ignored repeated requests for details. Bottom line: Prause is citing a study where 71% of the compulsive porn users reported sexual problems – as evidence that porn use doesn’t cause sexual performance problems!
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On Quora, saying her lone, flawed study debunked porn addiction (Prause et al., 2015):
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 which is #13 in this list. Moreover, another EEG study found that greater porn use in women correlated with less brain activation to porn. 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. Ten 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 this paper reported less brain activation to vanilla porn (pictures) related to greater porn use, it is listed as supporting the hypothesis that chronic porn use down regulates sexual arousal. Put simply, chronic porn users were bored by static images of ho-hum porn (its findings parallel Kuhn & Gallinat., 2014). These findings are consistent with tolerance, a sign of addiction. Tolerance is defined as a person’s diminished response to a drug or stimulus that is the result of repeated use.
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: Regardless of her claims about Prause et al. 2015 finding less cue-reactivity in frequent porn users, 26 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, 25, 26, 27. Science doesn’t go with the lone, anomalous study hampered by serious methodological flaws; science goes with the preponderance of evidence (which does not support her claims).
One of Prause’s most ridiculous claims is that viewing puppies play is neurological and hormonally no different than masturbating internet porn:
No neuroscientist agrees with her assertion that watching puppies is neruologically no diferent than viewing streaming porn. Don Hilton, MD wrote an article debunking this and other baseless talking points: Correcting Misunderstandings About Neuroscience and Problematic Sexual Behaviors. Tweeting to same person that “they” (neuroscientists who publish studies on porn users and sex addicts) use no model. She falsey asserts that “reward = addiction”.
Utterly ridiculous as the four major brain changes induced by addiction are described by George F. Koob and Nora D. Volkow in their landmark review. Koob is the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and Volkow is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Their review was published in The New England Journal of Medicine: Neurobiologic Advances from the Brain Disease Model of Addiction (2016). The paper describes the major brain changes involved with both drug and behavioral addictions, while stating in its opening paragraph that sex addiction exists:
We conclude that neuroscience continues to support the brain disease model of addiction. Neuroscience research in this area not only offers new opportunities for the prevention and treatment of substance addictions and related behavioral addictions (e.g., to food, sex, and gambling)….
Results indicated that adult + deviant pornography users scored significantly higher on openness to experience and reported a significantly younger age of onset for adult pornography use compared to adult-only pornography users.
Finally, the respondents’ self-reported age of onset for adult pornography significantly predicted adult-only vs. adult + deviant pornography use. That is today, adult + deviant pornography users selfreported a younger age of onset for nondeviant (adult-only) pornography compared to the adult-only pornography users. Overall, these findings support the conclusion drawn by Seigfried-Spellar and Rogers (2013) that Internet pornography use may follow a Guttman-like progression in that deviant pornography use is more likely to occur after the use of nondeviant adult pornography.
Attacking the concept of porn as a public health problem:
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem:
Tries to paint treating porn addiction as no different from “reparative therapy” (trying to turn gay people straight). Prause and Ley have a long history of falsely accusing sex addiction therapists of reparative therapy (including several therapists that they didn’t know were gay!): 2015 & 2016: Prause falsely accuses sex addiction therapists of reparative therapy
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Tweeting an article that featured quotes by Prause, and false claims about her paper: Prause & Pfaus 2015
In reality, both Nicole Prause and Jim Pfaus were caught lying about their paper (which stole bits and pieces from 4 earlier Prause studies – none of which involved 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! The media bought the falsehoods.
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Tweeting friend and Playboy writer, Justin Lehmiller’s 5 facts, which aren’t facts at all
And what studies support Lehmiller’s 5 “facts”? The same 4 studies tweeted over and over by Prause, and described over a dozen times above. Two Prause papers and two Kohut papers:
This is pretty much all Prause has: 4 flawed, dubious outliers, authored by 2 agenda-driven researchers. The vast preponderance of legitimate studies on porn report negative outcomes: https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/research/
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Claiming her short “letter to the editor” has falsified porn addiction:
Here she misrepresents a study that never identified who was religious or conservative. It was solely based on Google trend searches for each state, for a few selected words (i.e. Porn, XXX, Gay, Sex)
Using statewide aggregate data was deemed useless and found to produce unreliable results in a 2017 study: In Social Desirability Bias in Pornography-Related Self-Reports: The Role of Religion. In it, researchers tested the hypothesis that religious individuals are more likely to lie about their porn use to researchers and in anonymous survey studies.
First, a backward glance. The “lying” hypothesis rested on a few studies analyzing all state-by-state frequency of Google searches for term such as “sex,” “porn,” “XXX,” and the like. These state-level studies reported that conservative or religious (“red”) states search frequently more porn-related terms. The authors of these studies suggested that their findings meant that (1) religious individuals watch more porn than the non-religious, and (2) religious porn users must therefore be lying about their porn use to researchers and in anonymous surveys.
When researchers tested the hypothesis that, “religious people are lying about their porn use,” they found no evidence supporting that assumption. In fact, their results suggested that religious people may be more honest than secular individuals about porn use. In short, the state-wide comparison approach is clearly a flawed way of researching this topic. It’s not as reliable as anonymous surveys in which each subject’s level of religiosity is identified.
From the abstract:
However, contrary to popular sentiment-and our own hypotheses-we found no evidence for and much evidence against the suggestion that religious individuals have a more pronounced social desirability bias against the reporting of pornography consumption than the irreligious. Interaction terms assessing that possibility were either nonsignificant or significant in the reverse direction.
From the conclusion:
These results do not fit the narrative that religious individuals are underreporting consumption or overstating their opposition to pornography to a degree greater than the less religious and suggest that, if anything, researchers have been underestimating religious opposition to and avoidance of consuming pornography.
Thus, rather than causing a shame-based self-labeling of normative porn use as “porn addiction,” religion appears to be protective against porn use (and thus problematic porn use).
So, what might explain increased searching for sex-related terms in “red states?” It’s highly unlikely that regular porn users enjoying an hour-long session use Google to search for the relatively innocuous terms (“XXX,” “sex,” “porn”) that the researchers investigated. They would head directly to their favorite tube sites (probably bookmarked).
On the other hand, young people who are curious about sex or porn might employ such Google search terms. Guess what? The 15 states with the highest proportion of adolescents are “red states.” For more analysis concerning religion and porn use see this article: Is Utah #1 in Porn Use?
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Prause likes the article because it quotes her and David Ley’s usual spin that porn can’t cause ED:
It’s usual fare for Prause to spin articles, but other than her citing her debunked paper, the article clearly shows that porn is causing problems. Critiques of Prause & Pfaus, 2015:
“When asked about masturbatory practices, he reported that in the past he had been masturbating vigorously and rapidly while watching pornography since adolescence. The pornography originally consisted mainly of zoophilia, and bondage, domination, sadism, and masochism, but he eventually got habituated to these materials and needed more hardcore pornography scenes, including transgender sex, orgies, and violent sex. He used to buy illegal pornographic movies on violent sex acts and rape and visualized those scenes in his imagination to function sexually with women. He gradually lost his desire and his ability to fantasize and decreased his masturbation frequency.”
In conjunction with weekly sessions with a sex therapist, the patient was instructed to avoid any exposure to sexually explicit material, including videos, newspapers, books, and internet pornography.
After 8 months, the patient reported experiencing successful orgasm and ejaculation. He renewed his relationship with that woman, and they gradually succeeded in enjoying good sexual practices.
Sounds like porn was the problem, in contradiction with Prause’s spin.
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It’s really noteworthy that studies by Taylor Kohut, Nicole Prause, and Alexander Štulhofer never seem to report any problems related to porn use (alternatively any negative effects are buried deep in the in the paper and must fished out), while the preponderance of evidence published by others contradicts their findings.
Here Prause tweets about a Štulhofer talk where he complains about studies not asking about porn’s “positive effects”:
The positive effects of porn would be arousal and getting off – but no adolescent should require porn for that! Studies just ask about effects. The reason most studies aren’t reporting positive effects is because there are so few. Reality: we have over 280 studies on adolescents reporting that porn use is related to such factors as 3+ times higher risk of engaging in problem sexualized behavior, poorer academics, more sexist attitudes, more aggression, poorer health, poorer relationships, lower life satisfaction, viewing people as objects, increased sexual risk taking, less condom use, greater sexual violence, unexplained anxiety, greater sexual coercion, less sexual satisfaction, lower libido, greater permissive attitudes, social maladjustment, lower self-worth, lower health status, sexually aggressive behavior, addiction, greater gender role conflict, more avoidant and anxious attachment styles, antisocial behaviours, heavy drinking, fighting, ADHD symptoms, cognitive deficits, greater acceptance of pre- and extramarital sex, lower evaluation of marriage, promotion of the acceptance of male dominance and female servitude, less gender egalitarianism, more likely to believe rape myths and prostitution myth…. and a whole lot more. See: Pornography and Adolescents Studies
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Attacking the concept of porn as a public health problem. Yet another article by Jesse Singal, with only spin and zero citations:
If “porn” viewing problems are not an addiction, those behaviors could still be a problem, of course. Some have suggested it is similar to obsessive compulsive disorder, reflects depression, is an impulse control disorder, or reflects socially-unacceptble high sexual desire. I was partial to the high sex drive explanation, but this LPP study we just published is persuading me to be more open to sexual compulsivity.
Her comments reveal a deep ignorance about addiction, which involves both compulsivity and impulsivity. Regardless, the latest version of the World Health Organization’s medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for diagnosing what is commonly referred to as ‘porn addiction’ or ‘sex addiction.’ It’s called “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD).
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What legitimate researcher would spends her time constructing graphs like this?
Or this?
Or this?
The data supporting the above graphs are nowhere to be found. They were not “forthcoming.”
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Let me guess…
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem:
In 2015, for instance, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that porn did not “light up” areas of the brain typically associated with addiction. The comparison, according to the study’s authors, may actually be harmful to patients.
Prause’s study was an EEG study assessing electrical activity on the scalp. No matter, 7 peer-reviewed papers agree that Prause et al., 2015 actually support the addiction model:
Same day as above. More attacks on concept of porn as a public health problem:
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Same day. Prause’s obsession with denying porn as a public health problem continues:
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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 via alternative avenues) without direct funding of research (such as via being given access to subjects willing to engage in sex while being monitored in a lab).
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Randomly attacking porn-induced ED:
Porn-induced ED is mentioned by many experts. See 150 news articles by experts and caregivers warning of porn’s effects on sexual performance at Experts Who Recognize & Treat Porn-induced ED.
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Attacking an article that says internet addiction is a thing (Prause attacks internet addiction because porn addiction is an Internet addiction subtype)
Two false statements: No evidence of withdrawal, and porn use is overwhelmingly positive.
Internet porn research and numerous self-reports demonstrate that some porn users experience withdrawal and/or tolerance – which are also often characteristic of physical dependency. In fact, ex-porn users regularly report surprisingly severe withdrawal symptoms, which are reminiscent of drug withdrawals: insomnia, anxiety, irritability, mood swings, headaches, restlessness, poor concentration, fatigue, depression, and social paralysis, as well as the sudden loss of libido that guys call the ‘flatline’ (apparently unique to porn withdrawal). Another sign of physical dependency reported by porn users is inability to get an erection or to have an orgasm without using porn. As for studies – page with 14 studies reporting withdrawal symptoms in porn users.
First, it’s well established that meth does shrink the brain. Second, this Max Planck Institute fMRI study reported 3 neurological findings correlating with higher levels of porn use: (1) less reward system grey matter (dorsal striatum), (2) less reward circuit activation while briefly viewing sexual photos, (3) poorer functional connectivity between the dorsal striatum and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. The researchers interpreted the 3 findings as an indication of the effects of longer-term porn exposure. Said the study,
This is in line with the hypothesis that intense exposure to pornographic stimuli results in a down-regulation of the natural neural response to sexual stimuli.
We assume that subjects with a high porn consumption need increasing stimulation to receive the same amount of reward. That could mean that regular consumption of pornography more or less wears out your reward system. That would fit perfectly the hypothesis that their reward systems need growing stimulation.
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem.
Video – https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/880510
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Prause keeps tweeting her self-generated press release, which debunks nothing:
Who pays for this?
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Prause doesn’t like it that another state passes a resolution:
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Prause falsely states that Prause & Pfaus was a “causal experiment” (it wasn’t even a true study):
Prause & Pfaus 2015 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:
Prause keeps tweeting her self-generated press release that says it’s anything but porn:
Almost 60 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. All studies involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction. In the first section of the above list studies 1 & 2 are meta-analyses, study #3 had porn users attempt to quit using porn for 3 weeks, and studies 4 through 9 are longitudinal. Their findings don’t match Prause PR.
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Another incorrect statement:
The above is about one the Josh Grubbs many CPUI-9 studies, which he labels as “perceived addiction.” Ley & Prause have falsely stated that Total CPUI-9 scores are not related to levels of porn use. But they are – robustly. Correlations from Grubbs most famous study show that all CPUI-9 sections are related to porn use:
If Grubbs’s inappropriate emotional distress questions are omitted, hours of use is always the strongest predictor of porn addiction. See much more of the smoke-and-mirrors created by Grubbs and his CPUI-9:
Article featured Steele et al., 2013. This EEG study was touted in the media by Prause as evidence against the existence of porn/sex addiction. Not so. Steele et al. 2013 actually lends support to the existence of both porn addiction and porn use down-regulating sexual desire. How so? The study reported higher EEG readings (relative to neutral pictures) when subjects were briefly exposed to pornographic photos. Studies consistently show that an elevated P300 occurs when addicts are exposed to cues (such as images) related to their addiction.
In line with the Cambridge University brain scan studies, this EEG study also reported greater cue-reactivity to porn correlating with less desire for partnered sex. To put it another way – individuals with greater brain activation to porn would rather masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. Astonishingly, study spokesperson Prause claimed that porn users merely had “high libido,” yet the results of the study say the exact opposite (subjects’ desire for partnered sex was dropping in relation to their porn use).
Together these two Steele et al. findings indicate greater brain activity to cues (porn images), yet less reactivity to natural rewards (sex with a person). Both are hallmarks of an addiction. 8 peer-reviewed papers explain the truth: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013. Also see this extensive YBOP critique.
Again, claiming that her solitary, flawed EEG study (which actually found habituation) has “falsified” the addiction model:
10 peer-reviewed papers say Prause is mistaken: her study actually found desensitization/habituation in frequent porn users (consistent with addiction): Peer-reviewed critiques of Prause et al., 2015.
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.
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Trying anything to dismiss a study she doesn’t like:
The Standard-UK article cited by Prause in this tweet said nothing about porn, let alone “exactly like porn”:
More falsehoods. What the article actually said:
Researchers from the University of Michigan have revealed that cheese contains a chemical found in addictive drugs. Using the Yale Food Addiction Scale, designed to measure a person’s cravings, the study found that cheese is particularly moreish because it contains casein. The chemical, which is found in all dairy products, can trigger the brain’s opioid receptors, producing a feeling of euphoria linked to those of hard drug addiction.
One of Prause’s core claims is that viewing puppies play, or eating cheese/chocolate are neurological & hormonally no different than masturbating internet porn. This talking point is meant to debunk any and all neurological studies on porn users. No actual neuroscientist agrees with Prause’s unsupported claim here. Don Hilton MD wrote an article debunking this and other baseless assertions: Correcting Misunderstandings About Neuroscience and Problematic Sexual Behaviors
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem:
Attacking the concept of porn as a public health problem (one-sided article quoting only Ley and Prause):
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Attacking the concept of porn as a public health problem – yet another one-sided article quoting only Ley and Prause:
How do Ley & Prause get so many pro-porn industry articles into media outlets? Oh yeah.
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Believe this? Links to her own site – Liberos:
No else believes it, not even her close allies. A recent study, Young Australians’ use of pornography and associations with sexual risk behaviour (2017), on Australians ages 15-29 found that 100% of the men (82% of women) had viewed porn. Also, 69 percent of males and 23 percent of females first viewed porn at age 13 or younger. In addition this study reported that more frequent early pornography viewing correlated with current mental health problems.
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Article featuring only David Ley and Prause’s solitary, flawed EEG study (which actually found habituation) has “falsified” the addiction model:
Actually, the paper said CSB (hypersexuality) looked like an addiction:
With the release of DSM-5, gambling disorder was reclassified with substance use disorders. This change challenged beliefs that addiction occurred only by ingesting of mind-altering substances and has significant implications for policy, prevention and treatment strategies. Data suggest that excessive engagement in other behaviors (e.g. gaming, sex, compulsive shopping) may share clinical, genetic, neurobiological and phenomenological parallels with substance addictions.
Another area needing more research involves considering how technological changes may be influencing human sexual behaviors. Given that data suggest that sexual behaviors are facilitated through Internet and smartphone applications, additional research should consider how digital technologies relate to CSB (e.g. compulsive masturbation to Internet pornography or sex chatrooms) and engagement in risky sexual behaviors (e.g. condomless sex, multiple sexual partners on one occasion).
Overlapping features exist between CSB and substance use disorders. Common neurotransmitter systems may contribute to CSB and substance use disorders, and recent neuroimaging studies highlight similarities relating to craving and attentional biases. Similar pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments may be applicable to CSB and substance addictions.
Research into the neurobiology of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder has generated findings relating to attentional biases, incentive salience attributions, and brain-based cue reactivity that suggest substantial similarities with addictions.
Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder seems to fit well with non-substance addictive disorders proposed for ICD-11, consistent with the narrower term of sex addiction currently proposed for compulsive sexual behaviour disorder on the ICD-11 draft website. We believe that classification of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder as an addictive disorder is consistent with recent data and might benefit clinicians, researchers, and individuals suffering from and personally affected by this disorder.
Ley & Prause team up to misrepresent article, attack porn-addiction concept:
Nope. As of more than 2 years later, Prause had nothing in the press.
Another attack on the same article. No one fabricated neuroscience (as always Prause fails to provide an example):
Yet another tweet about the same article. Prause successfully bullied the Daily Dot into removing the well known fact that the ICD-11 was to include “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.”
Prior to the release of the “implementation version” a beta draft of the ICD-11 was also put online, and made available for interested parties to comment on. (A simple sign-up is needed to view and participate.) Prause spent the last 3 years obsessively posting on the ICD-11 beta draft site, doing her best to prevent the CSBD diagnosis from making it into the final manual (she failed). Prause posted more comments in the beta-draft comment section than everyone else combined.
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem – article with Prause as the expert, telling fibs:
Excerpt from the article:
Prause submits, it can have actual benefits: “[Porn] lowers stress biomarkers, raises life satisfaction, increases verbal memory kills, improves marriage satisfaction, decreases cancer associated with male prostate because it encourages masturbation, and increases your libido.”
The above is pure nonsense. It is the exact opposite of what the preponderance of the research finds. Porn use is associated with:
Sometimes Prause & Ley blame masturbation for chronic unexplained ED in young men, other times they blame Viagra. The vital insights is that ‘it’s anything but porn!’
Prause cited nothing as, once again, there is no empirical support for Ley’s claim that the introduction of Viagra led to men finally tell the truth in studies on sexual dysfunction. We are not talking about an increase in men visiting their doctors for ED medication. The ED rates refer only to peer-reviewed studies (usually anonymous surveys) on population-wide rates of sexual dysfunction. To put it another way, Prause is claiming that in every single study published between 1948 and 2010, in countries all over the world, the male participants consistently lied about their erectile functioning.Then in 2010 (13 years after Viagra was introduced) all young men, and only the young men, started to tell the truth in anonymous questionnaires about erectile functioning. That is absurd. Prause’s claim is like saying that the introduction of aspirin caused studies to report a 1000% increase in headaches among one age group that previously seldom had headaches.
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Here, most porn research is bad research:
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Makes claim, but offers no documentation:
Prause has tweeted this many times, yet has never provided one iota of evidence.
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Everything in this tweet to Mark Griffiths is fabricated:
Yet another tweet that doesn’t reflect the content:
The “expert” is AASECT member and Prause ally, Doug Braun-Harvey. This is all he has:
Crippen engages in premature evaluation, a common malady that is treatable by learning from the hundreds of sexual scientists, educators and therapists who tirelessly study and attempt to apply sexual science to avoid sweeping morally biased positions.
Nothing about “fake science,” and not a single citation to support his claim.
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One of Prause’s primary tactics is to call anyone who disagrees with her a misogynist: this includes individual females and organizations run by females with a majority of female members (SASH and IITAP). Prause has an infographic naming several people as misogynists, which she has tweeted 50 times or so, and posted on Quora another 20 times:
Prause knows the prime directive of propaganda: “Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.”
Attacking a therapist’s book, then cites Marty Klein, who once boasted his very own webpage on the AVN’s Hall of Fame in recognition of his pro-porn advocacy serving the porn industry’s interests (since removed).
Attacks a study she doesn’t like as entirely false and shaming. Tweets her own cute picture of the 4 (not 5) kink organizations that put out proclamations opposing porn and sex addiction.
How about a fake study? Prause & Pfaus 2015 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:
As described above and here, both Nicole Prause and Jim Pfaus were caught lying about their paper (which stole bits and pieces from 4 earlier Prause studies – none of which involved Pfaus).
Despite a few misleading rumors to the contrary, it is untrue that the WHO has rejected “porn addiction” or “sex addiction.” Compulsive sexual behavior has been called by a variety of names over the years: “hypersexuality”, “porn addiction”, “sex addiction”, “out-of-control sexual behavior” and so forth. In its latest catalogue of diseases the WHO takes a step towards legitimizing the disorder by acknowledging “Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder” (CSBD) as a mental illness. According to WHO expert Geoffrey Reed, the new CSBD diagnosis “lets people know they have “a genuine condition” and can seek treatment.”
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Prause citing a solitary flawed Taylor Kohut study, while ignoring 135 other studies:
Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem:
Again, Prause wants a discussion of porn’s so-called benefits. As documented in this section’s intro the 4 “benefits” she chronically claims, don’t exist.
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Again, with Prause and Ley leading the way, the deniers of porn addiction are agitated because the latest version of the World Health Organization’s medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for diagnosing what is commonly referred to as ‘porn addiction’ or ‘sex addiction.’ It’s called “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD). Nonetheless, in a bizarre “We lost, but we won” propaganda campaign, the deniers have been pulling out all the stops to spin this new diagnosis as a rejection of both “sex addiction” and “porn addiction.”
In 2018, Prause goes on multiple twitter rants trying futilely to convince the world that porn addiction and sex addiction were deliberately excluded from the ICD-11’s new diagnosis:
On the same day:
On the same day:
What the public may not know is that neither the ICD-11 nor the APA’s DSM-5 ever uses the word “addiction” to describe an addiction – whether it be gambling addiction, heroin addiction, cigarette addiction, or you name it. Both diagnostic manuals use the word “disorder” instead of “addiction” (i.e. “gambling disorder,” “nicotine use disorder,” and so on). Thus, “sex addiction” and “porn addiction” could never have been rejected, because they were never under formal consideration in the major diagnostic manuals. Put simply, there will never be a “porn addiction” diagnosis, just as there will never be a “meth addiction” diagnosis. Yet individuals with the signs and symptoms of consistent with either a “porn addiction” or a “methamphetamine addiction” can be diagnosed using the ICD-11’s provisions.
It was a small committee, not “the House of Commons.” The committee did not state that porn was not a public health hazard. It said that research has not established a causal relationship between porn and negative sexual attitudes and behaviors – as if cause can ever be established using the typical study methodology.
When confronted with hundreds of studies linking porn use to negative outcomes, a common tactic by pro-porn PhDs (and Canadian subcommittees) is to claim that “no causation has been demonstrated.” The reality is that when it comes to psychological and (many) medical studies, very little research reveals causation directly. For example, all studies on the relationship between lung cancer and cigarette smoking are correlative – yet cause and effect are clear to everyone but the tobacco lobby.
Due to ethical restrictions researchers are usually precluded from constructing experimental research designs that would prove whether pornography causes certain harms. Therefore, they use correlational models instead. Over time, when a significant body of correlational studies is amassed in any given research area, there comes a point where the body of evidence can be said to prove a point of theory, despite a lack of experimental studies. Put another way, no single correlation study may ever provide a “smoking gun” in an area of study, but the converging evidence of multiple correlational studies can establish cause and effect. When it comes to porn use, nearly every study published is correlative.
The majority of human studies on various addictions, including internet and porn addiction, are correlational. This page contains a growing list of studies strongly suggesting that internet use (porn, gaming, social media) causes mental/emotional problems, sexual problems, poorer relationships addiction-related brain changes, and other negative effects in some users. The lists of studies are separated into pornography studies and internet use studies. The 25 pornography studies are divided into 3 sections based on methodologies: (1) eliminating porn use, (2) longitudinal, (3) experimental exposure to porn (visual sexual stimuli).
Upset with another state declaring porn a public health problem, she got Andy Campbell to write a hit piece for Huffpost, and quote her (as mentioned above, Andy Campbell, has written several articles quoting Prause – including an article for Penthouse Magazine, featuring Prause)
In the hit-piece we find Prause’s hilarious assertion that viewing images of puppies has exactly the same effect as watching hard core porn:
It’s true — pornography does that,” Dr. Prause said previously. “It’s also true with images of chocolate and images of puppies. You don’t see puppies being declared a public health hazard. These sex addiction studies are relying on ignorance, claiming that pornography is the same thing as cocaine and hoping you don’t know any different.
One of Prause’s core claims is that viewing puppies play, or eating cheese/chocolate are neurological & hormonally no different than masturbating internet porn. This talking point is meant to debunk any and all neurological studies on porn users. No actual neuroscientist agrees with Prause’s claim here. Don Hilton MD wrote an article debunking this and other silly assertions: Correcting Misunderstandings About Neuroscience and Problematic Sexual Behaviors.
Ley pretty much “did a Prause,” misrepresenting the current state of the research science, while leading the reader to believe that a handful of cherry-picked/flawed studies represents the preponderance of evidence. Another tweet promoting David Ley’s masterpiece:
The above image is yet another info-graphic that Prause has tweeted or posted (on Quora) maybe 40 times. It lives on Prause’s Amazon page: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/liberos.media/EvaluatingInformationAboutSexFilms.png. The info-graphic names multiple websites as “bad sources of information,” including YBOP, FTND, rebootnation and IITAP – basically most of Prause’s targets.
However, it only mentions 2 “good websites” for information: 1) Justin Lehmiller, who is employed by Playboy and has written 10 articles flattering Dr. Prause, and 2) AASECT, an non-academic organization that openly campaigns against porn addiction and porn-induced ED.
Oh yeah, Prause mentions a single article from 2014, where she is heavily quoted, as the third legitimate source of information on the effects of porn (“sex films”).
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem, with the cute little infographic:
“Pseudoscience” is when you can’t post a single meta-analysis or review of the literature. Prause has never done so when attacking the concept of porn as a public health problem. Never.
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Attacking Florida’s attempt to pass a resolution, saying papers show “sex films” are overwhelmingly a positive influence on health:
Here’s what Prause cited:
1) Prause’s 240-word letter to Lancet, which cited nothing to support Prause’s claims, and never said that “sex films” are overwhelmingly positive. Prause’s letter is completely debunked in this extensive critique: Analysis of “Data do not support sex as addictive” (Prause et al., 2017). The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction? This list contains 20 recent literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
More on Prause misrepresenting Jon Grant’s paper. The following screenshot, circulating on pro-porn propagandist’s social media accounts (apparently created by Nicole Prause), features the core piece of purported “evidence” that the ICD-11 “rejected sex addiction and porn addiction.” Excerpting a 2014 Jon Grant commentary, and counting on short attention-spans, the propagandist expects you to read only what’s in the red boxes, hoping you will overlook what the paragraph actually states:
If you fell for the red-box illusion, you misread the above excerpt as:
…pornography viewing… questionable whether there is enough scientific evidence at this time to justify its inclusion as a disorder. Based on the limited current data, it would therefore seem premature to include it in the ICD-11.
Yet that’s pure deception. Here’s the Jon Grant 2014 paper: Impulse control disorders and “behavioural addictions” in the ICD-11. Read the entire paragraph and you will see that Jon Grant is talking about “Internet gaming disorder”not pornography. Grant believed it was questionable whether there was enough scientific evidence at that time to justify Internet Gaming Disorder’s inclusion as a disorder:
A third key controversy in the field is whether problematic Internet use is an independent disorder. The Working Group noted that this is a heterogeneous condition, and that use of the Internet may in fact constitute a delivery system for various forms of impulse control dysfunction (e.g., pathological game playing or pornography viewing). Importantly, the descriptions of pathological gambling and of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder should note that such behaviours are increasingly seen using Internet forums, either in addition to more traditional settings, or exclusively 22,23. The DSM-5 has included Internet gaming disorder in the section “Conditions for further study.” Although potentially an important behaviour to understand, and one certainly with a high profile in some countries 12, it is questionable whether there is enough scientific evidence at this time to justify its inclusion as a disorder. Based on the limited current data, it would therefore seem premature to include it in the ICD-11.
Without reading only the red squares, the above excerpt reveals that Jon Grant believes that internet pornography viewing can be an impulse control disorder, and it falls under the umbrella diagnosis of “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD). This is the exact opposite of the “red square” illusion tweeted by the propagandists.
Even if Jon Grant had actually said that compulsive porn use could not be classified under Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorders, it would be irrelevant as (1) the paper is over 4 years old, and (2) it’s just Grant’s two cents, not an official position paper by the World Health Organization. Moreover, a lot has changed in the intervening 4.5 years. By the way, Internet Gaming Disorder is now in WHO’s ICD-11, under addictive behaviors.
Increased access to the Internet by adolescents has created unprecedented opportunities for sexual education, learning, and growth. Conversely, the risk of harm that is evident in the literature has led researchers to investigate adolescent exposure to online pornography in an effort to elucidate these relationships. Collectively, these studies suggest that youth who consume pornography may develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs. Among the findings, higher levels of permissive sexual attitudes, sexual preoccupation, and earlier sexual experimentation have been correlated with more frequent consumption of pornography…. Nevertheless, consistent findings have emerged linking adolescent use of pornography that depicts violence with increased degrees of sexually aggressive behavior. The literature does indicate some correlation between adolescents’ use of pornography and self-concept. Girls report feeling physically inferior to the women they view in pornographic material, while boys fear they may not be as virile or able to perform as the men in these media. Adolescents also report that their use of pornography decreased as their self-confidence and social development increase. Additionally, research suggests that adolescents who use pornography, especially that found on the Internet, have lower degrees of social integration, increases in conduct problems, higher levels of delinquent behavior, higher incidence of depressive symptoms, and decreased emotional bonding with caregivers.
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Harasses the author of an LA Times opinion piece that mentions porn & sex addiction:
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Goes after Dr. Jordan Peterson for suggesting that porn may not be all that great for young men;
As for Prause’s claims #1) with respect to her phrase “Not superstimuli,” only a handful of people would know that Prause is attempting to discredit the concept of internet pornography as a supernormal stimulus. As Prause uses the term “superstimuli,” it’s clear she has no idea what Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen meant when he coined the actual term ‘supernormal stimulus’ (sometimes written as ‘supranormal’). We address Prause’s failed refutation in this section of YBOP’s critique of her 240-word letter: Analysis of “Data do not support sex as addictive” (Prause et al., 2017)
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Attacking concept of porn as a public health problem and cyber-stalking Senator Weiler:
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Prause is just making stuff up as: 1) she never assessed drug use in her lab, 2) she only uses an EEG, which tells us nothing about how orgasm affects the reward system as it only assesses electrical activity on scalp, 3) all animal and fMRI studies find similarities between drug use (heroin, cocaine) and sexual/arousal orgasm.
Reality: Sexual arousal and addictive drugs activate the exact same reward circuit nerve cells. In contrast, there’s only a small percentage of nerve-cell activation overlap between addictive drugs and other natural rewards such as food or water. Turning on the same nerve cells that make sexual stimulation so compelling helps explain why meth, cocaine, and heroin can be so addictive.
Interestingly, heroin addicts often claim that shooting up “feels like an orgasm.” Supporting their experience, ejaculation mimics the effects of heroin addiction on the same reward circuit nerve cells. Specifically, ejaculation shrinks the same dopamine producing nerve cells that shrink with chronic heroin use. This doesn’t mean sex is bad. It simply informs us that addictive drugs hijack the exact same mechanisms that urge us back into the bedroom for a romp.
Unlike other non-drug rewards (inviting food or sugar), but similar to drugs of abuse, sexual experience leads to a long-lasting changes in the numbers and types of reward-center glutamate receptors. Glutamate is the main neurotransmitter relaying information from key brain regions to the reward center.
In addition, both sex and drug use lead to the accumulation of DeltaFosB, a protein that activates genes involved with addiction. The molecular changes it generates are nearly identical for both sexual conditioning and chronic use of drugs. Whether it’s sex or drugs of abuse, high levels of DeltaFosB rewire the brain to crave “IT,” whatever “IT” is. Addictive drugs not only hijack the precise nerve cells activated during sexual arousal, they co-opt the same learning mechanisms that evolved to make us desire sexual activity.
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Prause is challenged to take on the substance of critics and avoid to ad hominem…so, predictably, Prause goes ad hominem:
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Putting her stats degree to good use, Prause tags Josh Grubbs with her ad hominem attacks on anyone who believes in porn addiction:
Prause has never released the source of her data.
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Any excuse to assert that porn addiction doesn’t exist:
Random tweet about a 7 year-old paper, trying to connect it withporn/sex addiction:
Reality: “food addiction” wasn’t rejected. An opinion piece in a journal cannot be construed as rejection (Prause acts as if there’s some official Office of Hypothesis Rejections). Fact: hundreds of neurological studies support the addiction model.
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Guess Prause is trying to say that withdrawal doesn’t occur with porn addicts.
Trolling IITAP with easily debunked assertion about cue-reactivity:
The core addiction brain change, sensitization, is assessed experimentally via cue-reactivity brain studies or strong cravings to use when exposed to cues. Studies reporting sensitization (cue-reactivity or strong cravings) in porn users/sex addicts: 1,2,3,4, 5,6,7,8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27.
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Multiple false statements:
1- Brain changes in sex and porn addiction look nearly identical to those reported in drug addiction. This list contains 20 recent literature reviews and commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
‘Overwhelmingly positive’, again…yet she never cites one of the many reviews of literature or meta-analysis. Because they don’t support her claims.
Tracy Clark-Flory has a long history of writing pro-porn propaganda pieces featuring Ley & Prause.
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Reaches back to David Ley and her 2014 propaganda piece (not a genuine review of literature), which was written in 2013:
The following is a very long analysis of this paper, which goes line-by-line, showing all the shenanigans Ley & Prause incorporated in their “review”: The Emperor Has No Clothes: A Fractured Fairytale Posing As A Review. It completely dismantles the so-called review, and documents dozens of misrepresentations of the research they cited. The most astonishing aspect of their review is that it omitted all of the many studies that reported negative effects related to porn use or found porn addiction! Yes, you read that right. While purporting to write an “objective” review, Ley & Prause justified omitting hundreds of studies on the grounds that these were correlational studies. Guess what? Virtually all studies on porn are correlational, even those they cited, ormisrepresented.
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Prause & Ley have been on a 3-year campaign to associate YBOP and men in recovery with neo-Nazis. Just another attempt:
In a pre-planned attacked, Prause and four of her usual side-kicks posted one star “reviews” on the Fight The New Drug Facebook page (reviews by her troupe of flying monkeys were all posted within a few hours each other: Tammy Johnson Ellis, Anthony Xavier Diaz, Russell Stambaugh, Patrick Powers).
This image with a rant says that she reported Gary Wilson. For the record, Gary has never received notice of any of Prause’s fictitious FBI or police reports, or done anything to merit them, and FTND relies on an array of respected academic scientists and peer-reviewed research. Wilson filed a freedom of information act (FOIA) 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)
Prause’s claim that “their neuroscience is simply false” is just more fiction from a practiced liar. Prause provides no examples of “false neuroscience,” while a reading of a FTND article such as “How Porn Can Become Addictive,” reveals peer-reviewed studies supporting every claim. Another example, found in the FTND FAQs (Is Porn Addiction Even A Real Thing?), contains links to about 200 supporting peer-reviewed papers.
Prause’s falsehoods concerning FTND are exposed in her Salt Lake Tribune Op-Ed attacking FTND. On the surface it appears legitimate as 7 PhD buddies of Prause signed off on it. However, upon closer examination we find that:
It provides no examples of misrepresentation by “Fight The New Drug,” or anyone else.
None of the claims are supported by citations.
The 8 neuroscientists cited zero neuroscience-based studies.
Some who signed the Op-Ed have histories of feverishly attacking the concept of porn and sex addiction (thus demonstrating stark bias).
Most had collaborated earlier with the lead author of the Op-Ed (Prause) or her colleague (Pfaus).
In short, this 600-word Op-Ed is chock full of unsupported assertions meant to fool the lay public. It fails to support a single assertion as it cites only 4 papers – none of which have anything to do with porn addiction, porn’s effects on relationships, or porn-induced sexual problems.
Several experts in this field and I debunked its assertions and empty rhetoric in this relatively short response – Op-ed: Who exactly is misrepresenting the science on pornography? (2016). Unlike the “neuroscientists of the Op-Ed,” we cited several hundred studies and multiple reviews of the literature.
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Prause attacks renowned psychologist Philip Zimbardo:
Prause attacked Zimbardo for multiple reasons:
The Demise of Guys?: Philip Zimbardo: Excellent TED talk on (as the title says) the “demise” of young men. Zimbardo speaks of excessive Internet use (porn and video games) as “arousal addiction.” Note: in May 2019 the World Health Organization adopted “Gaming Disorder” and “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” as part of its latest diagnostic manual (the ICD-11), thus entirely vindicating Zimbardo and his warning.
Publisher of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer, calls out an article about Zimbardo’s famous “Stanford Prison experiment” as a fraud. Prause trolls him, lying about Zimbardo “misrepresenting the science”:
Note – Prause has never provided a single example of Zimbardo misrepresenting science or research. She can’t, because he hasn’t. In fact, the concerns Zimbardo raised about the ill effects of problematic internet porn use and excessive internet gaming have both since been codified as disorders in the upcoming ICD-11, which is the diagnostic manual of the World Health Organization.
More Prause & Ley attacks, with childish memes and falsehoods:
No Nicole, Zimbardo was aligned with the preponderance of research, but not with the 5 cherry-picked studies you tweet over and over and over….
More falsehoods from Prause:
Unlike Prause, Zimbardo backed up his claims with citations. What’s missing from all the above tweets? A single example of a Zimbardo misrepresentation. Nada.
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Who are these experts? The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) contains a new diagnosis suitable for diagnosing what is commonly referred to as ‘porn addiction’ or ‘sex addiction.’ It’s called “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD).
Nonetheless, in a bizarre “We lost, but we won” propaganda campaign, the deniers have been pulling out all the stops to spin this new diagnosis as a an outright rejection of both “sex addiction” and “porn addiction.” Here’s the CSBD diagnosis in its entirety taken directly from the ICD-11 manual. Fits sufferers of both “porn addiction” and “sex addiction.”
Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder is characterized by a persistent pattern of failure to control intense, repetitive sexual impulses or urges resulting in repetitive sexual behaviour. Symptoms may include repetitive sexual activities becoming a central focus of the person’s life to the point of neglecting health and personal care or other interests, activities and responsibilities; numerous unsuccessful efforts to significantly reduce repetitive sexual behaviour; and continued repetitive sexual behaviour despite adverse consequences or deriving little or no satisfaction from it. The pattern of failure to control intense, sexual impulses or urges and resulting repetitive sexual behaviour is manifested over an extended period of time (e.g., 6 months or more), and causes marked distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Distress that is entirely related to moral judgments and disapproval about sexual impulses, urges, or behaviours is not sufficient to meet this requirement.
Be aware that neither the ICD-11 nor the DSM5 ever uses the word “addiction” to describe an addiction – whether it be gambling addiction, heroin addiction, cigarette addiction or you name it. Both diagnostic manuals use the word “disorder” instead of “addiction” (i.e. “gambling disorder” “nicotine use disorder,” and so on). Thus, “sex addiction” and “porn addiction” could never have been “rejected,” because they were never under formal consideration in the major diagnostic manuals. Put simply, there will never be a “porn addiction” diagnosis, just as there will never be a “meth addiction” diagnosis. Yet both pathologies can be diagnosed using the ICD-11’s provisions.
“Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder” (CSB or CSBD) functions as an umbrella term for “sex addiction” and “porn addiction,” and any other term you have seen used to describe compulsive sexual behavior, such as “hypersexuality,” “cybersex addiction,” “out of control sexual behavior,” etc. – provided patients/clients meet the criteria for CSBD.
Below we provide more examples of Prause’s falsehoods and spin related WHO’s inclusion of “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD) in the new ICD-11. A few points to keep is mind as your read Prause’s repetitive tweets:
WHO did not reject porn or sex addiction, because neither was up for inclusion – only “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” was under formal consideration.
Neither the ICD-11 nor the DSM5 ever uses the word “addiction” to describe any addiction: all addictions are called “disorders.”
With WHO announcing that “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD) is in the upcoming ICD-11, Prause trolls Twitter providing her unique brand of unsupported spin:
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Trolling. So proud of her 240-word letter to Lancet:
Trolling an article that describes porn-induced ED:
Prause cites Justin Lehmiller of Playboy to “debunk” porn induced problems. It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Playboy writer Lehmiller is a close ally of Prause, having featured her in at least ten of his blog posts. These and many other Lehmiller blogs perpetuate the same false narratives: porn use causes no problems and porn addiction/porn-induced sexual dysfunctions do not exist. YBOP exposes the above Lehmiller article as irresponsible: Debunking Justin Lehmiller’s “Is Erectile Dysfunction Really on the Rise in Young Men” (2018).
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Citing her magnum opus wherever she can, this time throwing in “church data,” “rejection of porn addiction,” “pseudoscience,” etc.
Doesn’t like an upcoming study by Gola and Grubbs that may have correlated porn addiction with ED:
Prause says that viewing porn is way different neurally than masturbation or sex (citing her own letter to the editor – not even a study). It’s really irrelevant to PIED, but even her close ally, Janniko Georgiadis, says Prause is dead wrong. In a Georgiadis review of the literature (Functional Neuroanatomy of Human Cortex Cerebri in Relation to Wanting Sex and Having It) he says that watching porn is neurologically equivalent to having sex:
In the current conceptual framework, where sexual arousal is part of sexual consummation, having sex does not require physical genital contact either with another individual or masturbatory. Take the example of pornography. Thinking about ways to gain access to it, or actively searching for it, and perhaps experiencing desire during the process, is considered sexual wanting. Watching selected pornographic material, even without masturbation, can be considered “having sex” when there is genital arousal.
Actually, the 2016 paper said CSB (hypersexuality) looked like an addiction:
With the release of DSM-5, gambling disorder was reclassified with substance use disorders. This change challenged beliefs that addiction occurred only by ingesting of mind-altering substances and has significant implications for policy, prevention and treatment strategies. Data suggest that excessive engagement in other behaviors (e.g. gaming, sex, compulsive shopping) may share clinical, genetic, neurobiological and phenomenological parallels with substance addictions.
Another area needing more research involves considering how technological changes may be influencing human sexual behaviors. Given that data suggest that sexual behaviors are facilitated through Internet and smartphone applications, additional research should consider how digital technologies relate to CSB (e.g. compulsive masturbation to Internet pornography or sex chatrooms) and engagement in risky sexual behaviors (e.g. condomless sex, multiple sexual partners on one occasion).
Overlapping features exist between CSB and substance use disorders. Common neurotransmitter systems may contribute to CSB and substance use disorders, and recent neuroimaging studies highlight similarities relating to craving and attentional biases. Similar pharmacological and psychotherapeutic treatments may be applicable to CSB and substance addictions.
Research into the neurobiology of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder has generated findings relating to attentional biases, incentive salience attributions, and brain-based cue reactivity that suggest substantial similarities with addictions.
Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder seems to fit well with non-substance addictive disorders proposed for ICD-11, consistent with the narrower term of sex addiction currently proposed for compulsive sexual behaviour disorder on the ICD-11 draft website. We believe that classification of compulsive sexual behaviour disorder as an addictive disorder is consistent with recent data and might benefit clinicians, researchers, and individuals suffering from and personally affected by this disorder.
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The model is addiction, and it is being tested and validated:
This page lists all 40 neuroscience-based studies that have been published on porn/sex addiction (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). They provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
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Here we have Prause, a non-academic, trolling a renowned researcher (Mark Griffiths), author of more publications on behavioral addictions than any other researcher (including a few on sex and porn addiction):
Conclusions: GBMSM who were exposed to SEM earlier in their lives report more sexual risk behavior as adults. SEM exposure in GBMSM is an important sexual development milestone deserving further research
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Prause tries to counter all the many studies linking porn use to poorer relationship satisfaction with a cherry-picked paper from Taylor Kohut’s lab:
First, it’s absurd to claim that a solitary experimental study can demonstrate whether porn viewing really causes negative relationship effects. Experiments where college-aged guys view a few Playboy centerfolds (as in the study linked to by the authors) can tell you nothing about the effects of your husband masturbating to hard-core videos clips day after day for years on end. The only relationship studies that can “demonstrate if porn viewing really causes negative relationship effects” are longitudinal studies that control for variables or studies where subjects abstain from porn. To date, seven longitudinal relationship studies have been published that reveal the real-life consequences of ongoing porn use. All reported that porn use relates to poorer relationship/sexual outcomes.
The 2017 study attempted to replicate a 1989 study that exposed men and women in committed relationships to erotic images of the opposite sex. The 1989 study found that men who were exposed to the nude Playboy centerfolds then rated their partners as less attractive and reported less love for their partner. As the 2017 study failed to replicate the 1989 findings, we are told that the 1989 study got it wrong, and that porn use cannot diminish love or desire. Whoa! Not so fast.
The replication “failed” because our cultural environment has become “pornified.” The 2017 researchers didn’t recruit 1989 college students who grew up watching MTV after school. Instead the new subjects grew up surfing PornHub for gang bang and orgy video clips.
In 1989 how many college students had seen an X-rated video? Not too many. How many 1989 college students spent possibly every masturbation session, from puberty on, masturbating to multiple hard-core clips in one session? None. The reason for the 2017 results is evident: brief exposure to a still image of a Playboy centerfold is a big yawn compared to what college men in 2017 have been watching for years. Even the authors admitted the generational differences with their first caveat:
1) First, it is important to point out that the original study was published in 1989. At the time, exposure to sexual content may not have been as available, whereas today, exposure to nude images is relatively more pervasive, and thus being exposed to a nude centerfold may not be enough to elicit the contrast effect originally reported. Therefore, the results for the current replication studies may differ from the original study due to differences in exposure, access, and even acceptance of erotica then versus now.
In a rare instance of unbiased prose even David Ley felt compelled to point out the obvious:
It may be that the culture, men, and sexuality have substantially changed since 1989. Few adult men these days haven’t seen pornography or nude women—nudity and graphic sexuality are common in popular media, from Game of Thrones to perfume advertisements, and in many states, women are permitted to go topless. So it’s possible that men in the more recent study have learned to integrate the nudity and sexuality they see in porn and everyday media in a manner which doesn’t affect their attraction or love for their partners. Perhaps the men in the 1989 study had been less exposed to sexuality, nudity, and pornography.
Keep in mind that this experiment doesn’t mean internet porn use hasn’t detracted from men’s attraction for their lovers. It just means that looking at “centerfolds” has no immediate impact these days. Many men report radical increases in attraction to partners after giving up internet porn. And, of course, there is also the longitudinal evidence cited above demonstrating the deleterious effects of porn viewing on relationships.
Finally, it’s important to note that the authors of the paper linked to are colleagues of Taylor Kohut at the University of Western Ontario. This group of researchers, headed by William Fisher, has been publishing dubious porn studies. They consistently produce results that on the surface appear to counter the vast literature linking porn use to myriad negative outcomes.
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Cites her Lancet letter with only 5 references – none of which have anything to do with the letter’s unsupported assertions:
Here Prause is peeved that a new study reports sex/porn addiction rates of 7-10%
The Ley & Prause 2014 paper claimed that sex/porn addiction rates were about 0.5%. The paper they cited took its data from 2004, and did didn’t assess “addiction.” The study actually said:
Nearly 13% of men and 7% of women reported out of control sexual experiences (OCSE) in the past year. Few believed that OCSE had interfered with their lives (3.8% of all men and 1.7% of all women in the cohort).
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Random shaming of her own:
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Prause tweeting her SLATE article to Dan Rather. Yes, the Dan Rather
“Many in my field are not amused” – sounds a bit threatening. Inconsistent with data” – Oh really: 60 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. All studies we know of involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction.
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Writes a “chapter” covering all her favorite talking points:
Question: where does she find the time to fabricate propaganda pieces for publication?
Prause is saying that porn increases desire for current partner, but all her study study found was that watching porn makes you horny. Prause didn’t mention that her study also reported that watching porn had immediate negative effects (oops):
“Viewing the erotic films also induced greater reports of negative affect, guilt, and anxiety”
As explained elsewhere, Prause is obsessed with MDPI because (1) Behavioral Sciences published two articles that Prause disagrees with (because they discussed papers by her, among hundreds of papers by other authors), and (2) Gary Wilson is a co-author of Park et al., 2016. Prause has a long history of cyberstalking and defaming Wilson, chronicled in this very extensive page. The two papers:
Prause immediately insisted that MDPI retract Park et al., 2016. The professional response to scholarly articles one disapproves of is to publish a comment outlining any objections. Behavioral Sciences’s parent company, MDPI, invited Prause to do this. She declined. Instead of publishing a formal comment, she unprofessionally turned to threats and social media (and most recently the Retraction Watch blog) to bully MDPI into retracting Park et al., of which I am a co-author with 7 US Navy physicians (including two urologists, two psychiatrists and a neuroscientist). In addition, she informed MDPI that she had filed complaints with the American Psychological Association. She then filed complaints with all the doctors’ medical boards. She also pressured the doctors’ medical center and Institutional Review Board, causing a lengthy, thorough investigation, which found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the paper’s authors. Prause also complained repeatedly to COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics). COPE finally wrote MDPI with a hypothetical inquiry about retraction, based on Prause’s narrative that the “patients weren’t consented.” MDPI thoroughly re-investigated the consents obtained by the doctors who authored the paper, as well as US Navy policy around obtaining consents. On and on Prause went, including employing multiple aliases to edit MDPI Wikipedia pages inserting falsehoods about Wilson, his coauthors. and the paper. For much more, see: From 2015 through 2019: Prause’s efforts to have Behavioral Sciences review paper (Park et al., 2016) retracted.
Below are examples of Prause (as Sciencearousal) inserting her usual drivel. First, she tried to insert a mistake by the Norwegian Register, who accidentally downgraded MDPI’s rating from the normal “1” to a “0”.
As for the 82,000 instances of “Prause” on www.yourbrainonporn.com, this is false. As explained in this section, Prause cleverly employed improper syntax to achieve 82,000. The proper syntax for such a Google search is to not have a space between “site:” and a URL, so “site:www.yourbrainonporn.com” is fine, but “site: wwwyourbrainonporn.com” would search across the internet for either wwwyourbrainonporn.com or the or Prause or both. Put simply, a proper search for “YBOP” – “Prause” site:www.yourbrainonporn.com – returns only 871 instances. Most instances of “Prause” are found on the pages chronicling her obsessive, unrelenting cyber-harassment:
As for the other claims, Dr. Prause never reported me to the FBI or UCLAPD, as documented in these 2 sections. She is lying and has been for years. No did the LAPD ever contact me in connection with her bogus LAPD report:
Falsely claims that “sex and porn are not diagnosable as addictions,” yet she knows that The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) contains a new diagnosis suitable for porn or sex addiction: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.” An article where Prause is the world’s authority on everything sexual:
She makes the following false statement in the article:
“Our own neuroscience data shows that the more sexual partners you have, the more responsive your brain is to sexual cues (images) with no upper bound. That is, the brain does not become numb, habituate, or start to show ill effects, even for individuals with higher numbers of partners,” she explains.
In her two EEG studies on frequent porn users she actually found habituation – the opposite of her claim:
In line with the Cambridge University brain scan studies, this EEG study also reported greater cue-reactivity to porn correlating with less desire for partnered sex. To put it another way – individuals with greater brain activation to porn would rather masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. Shockingly, study spokesperson Nicole Prause claimed that porn users merely had “high libido,” yet the results of the study say the exact opposite (subjects’ desire for partnered sex was dropping in relation to their porn use).
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. Moreover, another EEG study found that greater porn use in women correlated with less brain activation to porn. 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. Ten 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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To dismiss studies she doesn’t like her favorite tactic is to claim the studies did not “control for” X, Y, or Z.
While controlling for certain variables may be important, it also used by researchers to achieve desired results. The irony: Prause’s two most famous studies (see above) failed to control for even the basics. Her two EEG studies did not employ standard methodology:
Some background. Prause is obsessed with MDPI because (1) Behavioral Sciences published two articles that Prause disagrees with (because they discussed papers by her, among hundreds of papers by other authors), and (2) Gary Wilson is a co-author of Park et al., 2016. Prause has a long history of cyberstalking and defaming Wilson, chronicled in this very extensive page. The two papers:
The second paper (Park et al.) didn’t analyze Prause’s research. It cited findings in 3 of her papers. At the request of a reviewer during the peer-review process, it addressed the third, a 2015 paper by Prause & Pfaus, by citing a scholarly piece in a journal that heavily, accurately criticized the paper. (There was not enough space in Park et al. to address all the weaknesses and unsupported claims in Prause & Pfaus, 2015).
Prause immediately insisted that MDPI retract Park et al., 2016. The professional response to scholarly articles one disapproves of is to publish a comment outlining any objections. Behavioral Sciences’s parent company, MDPI, invited Prause to do this. She declined. It must be noted that Prause attacks Wilson and his website constantly and publicly.
Instead of publishing a formal comment, she unprofessionally turned to threats and social media (and then her chums at Retraction Watch blog) to bully MDPI so they would consider retracting Park et al., of which I am a co-author with 7 US Navy physicians (including two urologists, two psychiatrists and a neuroscientist). In addition, she informed MDPI that she had filed complaints with the American Psychological Association. She then filed complaints with the doctors’ medical boards. She also pressured the doctors’ medical center and Institutional Review Board, causing a lengthy, thorough investigation, which found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the paper’s authors. Prause also harassed and cyber-stalked MDPI and researchers who publish studies at the many MDPI journals. The breadth and intensity of Prause harassment and defamation forced Wilson to create an entire page devoted to Prause’s never ending campaign: From 2015 through 2018: Prause’s efforts to have Behavioral Sciences review paper (Park et al., 2016) retracted.
Prause tuning up again when she found a tweet mentioning Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports. (everything Prause says in the following tweets are lies, as documented in the above page). Prause is challenged, and responds with her lone biased study that purportedly found that porn stars have better psychological health than the general population:
We have seen her “data”: 5 cherry-picked studies that fail to support her assertions (see intro). A few sections of the Prause pages chronicling her harassment and defamation of the speakers:
Debunked in this article. Always defending porn… always.
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This appears to start with Prause trolling the Twitter thread of anti-sex trafficking, radical feminist Laila Mickelwait, who is associated with Exodus Cry. Prause informs the Twitter-sphere that her new orgasmic meditation study debunks anything and everything one might claim about porn’s negative effects:
The irony is that it appears that Prause may have obtained porn performers as subjects through the most prominent porn industry interest group, the Free Speech Coalition. FSC-obtained subjects were allegedly used for the study, which she was hired to perform in order to bolster the commercial interests of the heavily tainted, but apparently lucrative, “Orgasmic Meditation” company. Moreover, its likely that none of Prause’s subjects (all females) were actual porn addicts. In addition, and self reported strength of orgasm while being masturbated by a guy (that’s “orgasmic meditation”) tells us nothing about porn addiction.
The next day Prause attacks anti-sex trafficking non-profit Exodus Cry. Prause lies about the CEO’s salary calling it “six-figure,” when what she tweeted shows it’s really a five-figure salary. This from a person who claims to be an expert statistician.
Prause ask her followers “to contact the attorney general for fraud.” As always Prause never describes the so-called “fraud” perpetuated on the public. In fact, Prause has never provided one iota of documentation to support her chronic allegations of fraud by the many victims she harasses and defames. It is Prause who is engaging in fraud.
Prause then asks her followers to file spurious complaints against Exodus Cry. Even providing a link for convenience.
The next day she tweets again. Funny how Prause supports the multi-billion dollar porn industry while attacking an anti-sex trafficking organization for paying their CEO a modest salary.
You have ask yourself why 80% of the tweets by a “researcher” consist of libelous attacks on those who suggest that porn may have negative effects.
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On the same thread as the above tweets attacking Exodus Cry, Prause, David Ley, and Brian Watson openly conspire to produce a hit piece about the National Center on Sexual Exploitation
Brain Watson is associated with the Kinsey Institute, and published “Annals of Pornographie: How Porn Became Bad” which according to its blurb – “reveals, for the first time, exactly how pornography went from being beautiful to being bad.”
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Prause and David Ley teaming up for more attacks on the Gottman Institute – all because the Gottman’s published an article suggesting that “pornography can hurt a couple’s relationship.”
They can only engage in ad hominem attacks, because nearly every published study supports the Gottmans’ thesis that porn is not all that great for relationships.
Prause tweets her new commentary on another paper. As expected, she claims that porn use is great and never causes problem. Porn is even OK for children! An excerpt from Prause’s paper (VSS = porn):
Curiously, Leonhardt et al. presumed the effects of VSS on children must be negative and require familial mitigation (“[family] can mitigate the influence of sexual media,”
Besides the bits about porn being just fine for kids, its just a rehash of bits and pieces from these two Prause articles which YBOP thoroughly debunked:
Nicole Prause & David Ley go on a cyber-harrasment & defamation rampage in response to this article in The Guardian: Is porn making young men impotent?
Prause tweets 3 papers (not actual studies) while defaming Alexander Rhodes of Nofap:
Prause tweets exact same nonsense to the author of the article, Amy Fleming. (Fleming eventually makes her Twitter account private due to ongoing harassment from Prause and her fellow bullies, such as Brain Watson and David Ley)
All the above is fiction, and a disgusting attempt at misinforming the public. The follwing sections chronicle Prause and ally David Ley’s long history of cyberstalking Alexander Rhodes, including Prause lying about filing FBI reports on Wilson and Rhodes (and David Ley retweeting these lies):
In her tweets, Prause linked to 3 dubious papers (not actual studies). Two papers are Prause’s own propaganda, which have already been extensively dismantled. The third paper is a hit piece on Nofap by a grad student from NZ. Prause’s links, followed by the debunking:
In addition to the studies below, this page contains articles and videos by over 140 experts (urology professors, urologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, sexologists, MDs) who acknowledge and have successfully treated porn-induced ED and porn-induced loss of sexual desire.
David Ley joins Prause in the harassment of the journalist and unprofessional comments.
Brian Watson (Kinsey grad) joins Ley & Prause in the direct harassment of Guardian reporter Amy Fleming. Kinsey grad Brian Watson lies about the article citing NCOSE (it didn’t). In this tweet, Watson features his harassment.
In reality, Fleming quoted from Alexander Rhodes’s talk given at a NCOSE event (hundreds of individuals have given talks at NCOSE). Watson is feebly attempting ad hominem by association (Rhodes is an atheist and politically literal), because Watson is incapable of addressing the content of the article.
More harassment by Watson, who is obsessed with a NCOSE talk given by Rhodes:
Nope, The Guardian article didn’t “cite” NCOSE. It quoted one sentence from a NCOSE talk by Rhodes who has been featured at conferences, on TV & radio, podcasts, and in over a hundred different media outlets.
Trolling the BBC with an irrelevant excerpt form her pro-porn commentary:
In response to BBC citing a study about the level of aggression in porn, Prause cites her commentary, posting a section that has nothing to do with the level of aggression in pornography videos. Her commentary is debunked here (including the section she posted): Critique of Nicole Prause’s “Porn Is for Masturbation” (2019)
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Prause, David Ley and Geoffrey Miller tweet togther as trolls, mispresenting the ICD-11, and the state of the research:
Ley and Prause troll an NPR podcast, telling the world that there are well-funded religious anti-porn groups, while ignoring the multi-billion dollar porn industry.
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.
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Trolling again, falsely stating the WE found that more porn use, in a few selected countries, was related to fewer reported rapes:
Two lies in one tweet: 1) No, treating porn addiction is not analogous to conversion therapy. 2) Wrong – the world’s most widely used medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for porn addiction: “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.”
The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction? This list contains 21 recent literature reviews & commentaries by some of the top neuroscientists in the world. All support the addiction model.
The study says nothing about “sex films” (“Sex films” is Prause’s phrase for porn. She never says porn). Excerpt from methodolgy section of the study:
“The goal of the current study was to evaluate sexual consent and refusal depictions portrayed in mainstream films that are readily consumed by young adults.”
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Trolling a thread to cite a cherry-picked study and her own debunked opinion piece. First tweet claims that masturbation, not porn, is the problem (great talking point for the porn industry!):
After sophisticated statistical “modeling” the above Samuel Perry study proposed that masturbation, not porn use, is the real culprit in relationship problems. The gaping hole in Perry’s claim:
Perry’s new analysis of his old data contains no specific, reliable data on masturbation frequency. Without that, his claim is little more than a hypothetical.
In this back & forth on the same thread, she continues to say that porn can’t be the cause of any problems:
Prause makes 2 unsupported suggestions:
1) Men who view porn have higher sexual desire. Nope – At least 25 studies falsify the claim that sex & porn addicts “just have high sexual desire.” Even her own study debunked this claim: (Steele et al., 2013) – This EEG study was touted in the media as evidence against the existence of porn/sex addiction. Not so. Steele et al. 2013 actually lends support to the existence of both porn addiction and porn use down-regulating sexual desire. How so? The study reported higher EEG readings (relative to neutral pictures) when subjects were briefly exposed to pornographic photos. Studies consistently show that an elevated P300 occurs when addicts are exposed to cues (such as images) related to their addiction. In line with the Cambridge University brain scan studies, this EEG study also reported greater cue-reactivity to porn correlating with less desire for partnered sex. To put it another way – individuals with greater brain activation to porn would rather masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. Shockingly, study spokesperson Prause claimed that porn users merely had “high libido,” yet the results of the study say the exact opposite (subjects’ desire for partnered sex was dropping in relation to their porn use).
2) “Not aware of any data that higher use of porn would cause men to be less likely to seek partners.” Really? Porn’s effects on relationships – Over 80 studies link porn use to less sexual and relationship satisfaction. As far as we know all studies involving males have reported more porn use linked to poorer sexual or relationship satisfaction.
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Prause tweets an article that defends porn stars who violate social media terms of use. The article, by pro-porn journalist Tracy Clark-Flory, outs a Twitter user who has been reporting porn stars for violating Instagram terms of use: posting porn and sexually explicit language.
Don’t be fooled by Prause’s fake outrage and spin. Prause may not like it, but Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have no probelm with the Twitter user reporting violations.
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Fabricating irrelevant nonsense in an attempt to discredit state resolutions proclaiming porn as a public health issue:
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Since she’s been using the RealYBOP Twitter as her primary account, few tweets have appeared from @NicoleRPrause. But she decided to retweet an attack on state resolutions:
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May 10, 2019: another attack on state resolutions:
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Onec again, disparaging state resolutions:
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May 18, 2019. Going out her way to disparage state resolutions:
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Promoting porn use for masturbation (Prause never tweets a study reporting negative effects of porn, even though such studies are in the majority):
Having mixed feelings towards porn. Participants reflected on the negative ways porn has treated their identities, specifically as bisexual and queer women. Participants struggled with how to enjoy and feel comfortable in their use of porn during their masturbation, while understanding the larger societal impacts of the messages within porn. Joan
shared:
I think there’s a real big stigma for women, much less queer women to look at porn, you know? It’s demeaning to women, it’s only made for men, especially if you’re a queer woman, you hear that one a lot
Joan went on to describe how she has started giving herself permission to look at porn and go against some of these messages. Gloria experienced guilt for looking at porn because “porn really informs a lot of straight people’s ideas about gay and lesbian sex, and I feel guilty for looking it up and getting o on it.” The conflicted feelings towards porn would result in feelings of guilt or decreased pleasure during masturbation for the women interviewed.
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Tweets article quoting her, citing Prause et al., 2015, all to disparage porn addiction:
Prause and the deniers of porn addiction are agitated because the latest version of the World Health Organization’s medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), contains a new diagnosis suitable for diagnosing what is commonly referred to as ‘porn addiction’ or ‘sex addiction.’ It’s called “Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder” (CSBD). Nonetheless, in a bizarre “We lost, but we won” propaganda campaign, Prause continues spin this new diagnosis as a rejection of both “sex addiction” and “porn addiction.” Linking to RealYBOP:
More drivel, linking to RealYBOP:
What the public may not know is that neither the ICD-11 nor the APA’s DSM-5 ever uses the word “addiction” to describe an addiction – whether it be gambling addiction, heroin addiction, cigarette addiction, or you name it. Both diagnostic manuals use the word “disorder” instead of “addiction” (i.e. “gambling disorder,” “nicotine use disorder,” and so on). Thus, “sex addiction” and “porn addiction” could never have been rejected, because they were never under formal consideration in the major diagnostic manuals. Put simply, there will never be a “porn addiction” diagnosis, just as there will never be a “meth addiction” diagnosis. Yet individuals with the signs and symptoms of consistent with either a “porn addiction” or a “methamphetamine addiction” can be diagnosed using the ICD-11’s provisions.
July, 2019. Prause even trolls ally Emily Rothman (who is a member of RealYBOP “expert” team). Prause attempts to cunter a study, with irrelevant drivel:
Claims exposure is causal language. What? No one claimed that kids have no developing interests. The convo continues:
Prause is NOT referring to studies on porn use. She is referring to a couple of her own studies assessing whether anal contractions coincided with self-reported orgasm. This as nothing to do with the subject at hand. Incoherent drivel.
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Misrepresenting a study. She doesn’t care the concept of the Coolidge effect because it was in Wilson’s TEDx talk.
Immediately attackS a study she doesn’t like: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-09/tfg-sih091619.php
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Disparages NCOSE for wanting school and public libraries to block porn sites:
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Whines about a paper from British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), concerning age verification:
Is she upset that people under 18 will have trouble accessing porn?
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Prause and Ley promote AVN hit-piece:
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Promoting Cindy Gallop, owner of a porn site:
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Same propaganda about ICD-11
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Says her 2015 study (Prause et al., 2015) has been replicated, when it has not (her “replication” link to goes to her letter to the editor (which is debunked here), not to a study (because none exist):
Disparages Valerie Voon, brain scan studies on porn users, and sex addiction therapists:
Do tell us how EEG’s are ‘better” than fMRI. I’m holding my breath.
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A TEDx talk that cites zero studies:
RE: Cameron Staley’s TEDx Talk. He was a grad student of Prause when he gathered data for Steele et al. 2013. Just a few his falsehoods in his TEDx talk where he cited zero studies to support his propaganda:
Staley says his “mentor was a renowned sex researcher!” What? No one had heard of Prause before Steele et al. was published in July of 2013 (Prause misrepresented its findings).
Staley lies about about the actual results of Steele et al, 2013. He states that “the subjects brains didn’t look like brains of addicts” – but he never tells us how their brains differed from addicts (because they did not). 8 peer-reviewed papers disagree with Staley, and point out that the subjects brains looked exactly like an addict- Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013 (greater cue reactivity correlated with less desire for sex with a partner). Note: Steele et al., did NOT have a control group!
Bottom line according to Staley – believe porn use is just fine and you will be just fine using porn. Unsupported propaganda refuted by hundreds of studies.
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Trolling a sex expert’s thread to support the porn industry:
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Tweeting about Prause et al., 2015. Nope, it was not replicated (notice she cannot link to the “replication”):
It wasn’t “angry” rants, but 10 peer-reviewed papers all saying that Prause’s flawed study supports addiction model. In truth, the findings of Prause et al. (lower EEG readings to vanilla porn) 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. 10 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
Prause proclaimed that her EEG readings assessed “cue-reactivity” (sensitization), 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, 26 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, 25, 26, 27. Science doesn’t go with the lone anomalous study hampered by serious methodological flaws; science goes with the preponderance of evidence.
I guess she meant “objective research” instead of “objective search”.She claims that other studies have assessed the effects of eliminating porn, and found nothing. This is a lie, as the first 10 studies on this page (section #1) report on participants who eliminated porn use: Over 90 Studies demonstrating internet use & porn use causing negative outcomes & symptoms, and brain changes. All 10 studies revealed benefits, such as healing chronic sexual dysfunctions, greater commitment to partners, better cognitive parameters.
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Claiming that giving up porn is harmful.
The paper she linked to does not says what she claims (it was only an opinion paper, not quantative).
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Lying that Laila was involved in claimed death threats. Why is Prause harassing Kristof, who exposed Pornhub’s illegal and vile activities?
How disgusting is it that Prause tweets lies under a video by a victim of Pornhub?
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Trolling threads to support porn industry agenda:
Not so. None of Prause’s studies addressed the above PET scans. Also – No study has yet attempted to replicate the PET scans (pictured below). She keeps trolling same thread:
No again. There are other “empirically supported” interventions, such as CBT.
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More trolling to support porn industry agenda:
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Just like @BrainOnPorn Prause is asserting that masturbation, not porn, is the real problem… citing nothing.
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LOL. Tweets a 2005 opinion paper to “debunk” brain scan study findings on porn users and sex addicts.
Her followers are unaware that 55 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal) have been publsihed on porn users or sex addicts. All provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
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Lies about the research while attacking a study about pornhub. Links to a new site that is exact replica of RealYBOP
Ah yes, “correlation doesn’t equal causation” for all the studies we don’t like. But this wasn’t a “correlative” study.
Upset at the unflattering study on Ponrhub, Prause puts in extra work in a weak attempt to counter the results:
Then she trolls the author of the study, posting her lie-filled Medium rant:
More trolling, same lie-filled Medium rant.
Why is she so obsessed with this one study? Oh yeah, it’s about Pornhub.
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Working with XBIZ to attack Laila Mickelwait:
See over 100 additional tweets by Prause defaming Mickelwait in a campaign to support Pornhub:
Tweets podcast with VICE’s Samantha Cole, author of the hit-piece. Pornhub was exposed for complicity in mass child sexual abuse & trafficking. Visa, Mastercard & Discover cut off card processing. Grant Thornton, Heinz/Unilever & PayPal cut ties. Pornhub deleted 80% of its site (10 million videos) 5 lawsuits filed. Brought before the Canadian Parliament – and yet we have Prause tweeting in support PornHub’s executives!
Again – Instead of using her own account to misrepresent the science, Prause almost exclusively used her alias shill account @BrainOnPorn during 2019 and 2020. Hundreds of additional examples are on these 3 pages:
SECTION 4: “RealYBOP”: Prause, Daniel Burgess & associates create a biased website and social media accounts to support the porn industry agenda and to defame & harass anyone who says anything negative about porn (beginning April, 2019)
RealYBOP constantly engaged in harassment and defamation of those who speak about porn’s negative effects (maybe 1,500 such tweets in its 18 months of existence). We wonder who’s legally responsible for @BrainOnPorn‘s defamation and harassment? Is it only Nicole Prause, or only Daniel Burgess, or maybe both? Or could all of the RealYBOP “experts” be held legally and financially responsible?
While nearly every “RealYBOP” tweet supports the porn industry agenda, the tweets below this introleave no doubt concerning RealYBOP’s true allegiance – directly supporting the porn industry – especially PornHub (Mindgeek).
Wilson challenged her application, which eventually failed, and the trademarks were registered in Wilson’s name in 2020.
Meanwhile, on March 13, 2019 (just a couple of months after the attempted trademark grab) Daniel A. Burgessregistered the trademark-infringing domain name RealYourBrainOnPorn.com. The RealYBOP site announced its birth in a press release, which deceptively claimed to have been issued in Ashland, Oregon where Gary Wilson, host of YBOP, lives, and misinformed the public about the state of the research on problematic porn use.
Take a moment to imagine the chutzpah and malice it took to register a domain name that encompassed an existing, long established domain name (YourBrainOnPorn) and then to add “Real” to it as if the new creation were the genuine website…and then to begin tweeting and engaging in other social media under this deceptive name!
The organizers of the imposter site employed many tactics calculated to confuse the public. For example, the new site attempted to trick visitors, with the center of each page declaring “Welcome to the REAL Your Brain On Porn,” while the tab falsely proclaimed “Your Brain On Porn.” Also, to advertise their illegitimate site, the “experts” created a Twitter account (https://twitter.com/BrainOnPorn), YouTube channel, Facebook page, all employing the words “Your Brain On Porn.”
In addition, the “experts” created a reddit account (user/sciencearousal) to spam porn recovery forums reddit/pornfree and reddit/NoFap with promotional drivel, claiming porn use is harmless, and disparaging YourBrainOnPorn.com and Wilson. It’s important to note that Prause has a long documented history of employing numerous aliases to post on porn recovery forums. Her easily recognizable comments promote her studies, attack the concept of porn addiction, disparage Wilson and YBOP, belittle men in recovery, and defame porn skeptics.
In a further attempt to confuse the public, the press release announcing the infringing site falsely claims to originate from Wilson’s hometown – Ashland, Oregon. (None of the “experts” named at the new site live in Oregon, let alone in Ashland.) PDF of Cease & Desist letter to Nicole Prause – May 1, 2019
A closer look at the alliance
Regardless of its ultimate name, let’s look briefly at the site’s cast of characters. The new site’s faction of sexologists and their chums is not representative of the views of the preponderance of researchers doing research on the effects of today’s porn. (Nicole Prause, Marty Klein, Lynn Comella, David J. Ley, Emily F. Rothman, Samuel Perry, Taylor Kohut, William Fisher, Peter Finn, Janniko Georgiadis, Erick Janssen, Aleksandar Štulhofer, Joshua Grubbs, James Cantor, Michael Seto, Justin Lehmiller, Victoria Hartmann, Julia Velten, Roger Libby, Doug Braun-Harvey, David Hersh, Jennifer Valli, Joe Kort, Charles Moser)
Upon closer examination, almost half of the new site’s “experts” are non-academics, not employed by any university. Not one of the listed “experts” has ever published a neurological study on a group of porn addicted subjects (Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder subjects).
Who’s missing and why? Ask yourself: why are the researchers who authored the preponderance of the relevant evidence on porn’s effects excluded from the “experts” in this alliance?
How does the new site further the interests of the porn industry?
Next, let’s take a closer look at some of the ways the new website + related social media campaign further the interests of the porn (and sexual-enhancement drug?) industries.
The new site’s collection of cherry-picked, often irrelevant, papers misrepresent the preponderance of the research on porn’s effects. For example, these 55 neurological studies on porn users and CSBD subjects are missing from the “experts’” research list. So are studies revealing a link between porn overuse and a range of sexual dysfunctions. For details see Porn Science Deniers Alliance.
The fact is, the deniers are out of step with the experts who drafted the world’s most widely used medical diagnostic manual, The International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). The porn industry is well served by a group of purported “experts” who boldly misrepresent the balance of existing research and ignore the preponderance of the research. The latter undercuts the new site’s agenda by pointing to measurable harms associated with porn overuse.
Prause denies involvement in these trademark-infringing social media accounts. However, simple observation, RealYBOP experts’ correspondence, WIPO’s report, and considerable evidence point to her management of these accounts
While Daniel A. Burgess registered www.RealYourBrainOnPorn.com, Prause’s numerous victims believe she orchestrated the content on RealYBOP and operated its social media accounts (especially the very active Twitter account which, before it was banned for harassment, obsessively harassed and defamed those who suggested porn might cause harms or that the porn industry has problems).
RealYBOP went live April 16, 2019, yet it wasn’t until Wilson’s attorneys filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that we learned that Daniel A. Burgess owned the URL (July 8, 2019). Incidentally, Wilson’s attorneys requested the WIPO administrative review of the apparent misuse of his trademark in the RealYBOP URL as a possible route to having www.realyourbrainonporn.com transferred to Wilson as swiftly and economically as possible. Surprisingly, WIPO declined to rectify the situation, so Wilson had wait until his trademark registrations were official before at last gaining control of the infringing URL.
In the meantime, Prause “weaponized” the WIPO decision. She issued a misleading press release and constantly mischaracterized WIPO’s decision on Twitter. She portrayed Wilson as trying unsuccessfully to steal “their website” (The irony!) This propaganda campaign became part of her mythology that he, and others, wanted to silence “them” because we were afraid of “their science.” For his attempt to defend his trademarks from blatant infringement Prause smeared Wilson as “vicious to scientists.” Finally, Prause repeatedly referred to the administrative WIPO proceeding as a “lawsuit.” It was not a lawsuit. In fact, it was an attempt to make further legal proceedings unnecessary.
As initially no one knew Burgess was the official owner of the RealYBOP URL, Wilson’s attorneys were obliged to send cease and desist letters to all the “experts” listed on his infringing website (May 1, 2019). A handful of the “experts” replied, and a few named Prause as the operator of RealYBOP. Here, for example, is RealYBOP erstwhile “expert” Alan McKee replying our C&D letter:
Here’s former Indiana University colleague and co-author Peter Finn replying to our attorney’s C&D letter:
In fact, not one of the RealYBOP experts stated, or seemed to have any clue, that Daniel Burgess was involved when they responded to the cease & desist letters they received. Clearly, her “experts” thought they were dealing solely with Prause. (Prause’s merry band of RealYBOP “experts”: Marty Klein, Lynn Comella, David J. Ley, Emily F. Rothman, Samuel Perry, Taylor Kohut, William Fisher, Peter Finn, Janniko Georgiadis, Erick Janssen, Aleksandar Štulhofer, Joshua Grubbs, James Cantor, Michael Seto, Justin Lehmiller, Anna Randall, Victoria Hartmann, Julia Velten, Michael Vigorito, Doug Braun-Harvey, David Hersh, Jennifer Valli and Nicole Prause herself.)
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) found substantial evidence of Prause’s involvement with RealYBOP
The WIPO decision caused an unexpected delay in the transfer of the URL to Wilson (until the trademarks were formally registered in his name). The important point here is that the WIPO panelist also viewed Prause as a leading controller of the site: “Panel finds substantial evidence that Mr. Burgess, Dr. Prause, and Liberos LLC share involvement in the control of the website.” Excerpt from the WIPO opinion:
The Amended Complaint also names Dr. Nicole Prause and Liberos LLC [her company] as Respondents. They do not appear in the Registrar’s WhoIs database in relation to the Domain Name, but there are reasons to believe that Dr. Prause is a leading person in the “group of psychologists and scientists” that is responsible for the Respondent’s website, according to the Response. She is the second-listed expert on the site, with her affiliation shown as “Liberos”. Two of the experts who replied to the Complainant’s demand letter said they participated at her invitation. The law firm that responded on her behalf to the Complainant’s demand letter is the same law firm that represents the Respondent in this proceeding. Dr. Prause “DBA Liberos LLC” applied for United States trademark registration of YOUR BRAIN ON PORN. The online database of the California Secretary of State shows that Liberos LLC is a California limited liability company, for which Nicole Prause is the registered agent.
The Panel finds substantial evidence that Mr. Burgess, Dr. Prause, and Liberos LLC share involvement in the control of the website associated with the Domain Name, as well as common interests in this proceeding, and there has been no showing of material prejudice to them in the event that the proceeding continues with Dr. Prause and Liberos LLC as named Respondents. See WIPO Overview of WIPO Panel Views on Selected UDRP Questions, Third Edition (“WIPO Overview 3.0”), section 4.11.2.
Accordingly, the Panel allows the Complaint against multiple respondents as styled in the caption above and refers to these parties collectively hereafter as the “Respondent.”
As the arbitrator noted, both Prause and Daniel Burgess were indeed represented by Prause’s lawyer Wayne B. Giampietro of Poltrock & Giampietro. If Prause had no involvement in RealYBOP, why did her attorneys (who continued to represent her in connection with her infringement on Wilson’s trademarks) also represent Daniel Burgess?
The RealYourBrainOnPorn Facebook page listed Prause’s phone number as the contact
Before the RealYBOP Facebook page vanished, Nicole Prause’s phone number was listed as the contact number. We have blacked out her phone number below to protect her privacy, but Prause has listed this same number on various other pages she controls online, including Twitter. (Unredacted copies can be provided to journalists.) In addition, the Facebook page below describes the owner as a “scientist” (singular) rather than “scientists.” The latter would be expected if RealYBOP were a true group effort, as Prause (as its manager) has claimed.
“RealYourBrainOnPorn” YouTube channel initially identified itself as Nicole Prause (thereby also identifying Prause as sockpuppet TruthShallSetSetYouFree)
Upset by a less than flattering Rebecca Watson video covering the Rhodes defamation lawsuit, Prause used her own account and the RealYBOP YouTube account to argue with commenters under the Watson video. The RealYBOP comment reads as if it was written by Prause, in the first person (“my license”, “I won”), when describing her so-called victories in the WIPO hearing, UCLA complaints, and complaints against her psychology license. The RealYBOP comment also links to 2 court documents Prause forced Reason.com to add to this article about Hilton v. Prause. (The court ignored Prause lie-filled documents and refused to dismiss the case.)
Soon after her onslaught against Watson on YouTube and Twitter, the RealYBOP YouTube channel changed its name to “TruthShallSetYouFree,” which resulted in the above comment changing usernames:
Prause still uses her amended YouTube alias (TruthShallSetYouFree) to disparage and defame her usual targets, while spreading claims of her victimhood.
PornHub was the first account to retweet this, suggesting a coordinated effort between PornHub and the RealYBOP account!
We start with the very first tweet by the new RealYBOP. Notice that about half of the retweets were by accounts associated with the porn industry. As the RealYBOP account had no followers yet, this means these fans were likely notified via email.
It appears that PornHub was the very first twitter account to retweet RealYBOP’s initial tweet:
Is this evidence that RealYBOP’s Twitter and website are cozy with the porn industry?
While nearly every “RealYBOP” tweet supports the porn industry agenda, the tweets below leave no doubt concerning RealYBOP’s true allegiance – directly supporting the porn industry – especially PornHub (Mindgeek).
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RealYBOP being very cozy with porn producer (https://www.provillain.com/):
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More propaganda serving the porn industry’s agenda:
RealYBOP re-tweets porn performer, once again confirming its pro-porn industry agenda (while taking a swipe at “activists”):
If the illegitimate website (RealYBOP) is suppose to be about porn’s possible effects on users, why does RealYBOP regularly tweet propaganda for the porn industry?
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Is RealYBOP supporting sex trafficking (via their support for BackPage)? What does BackPage have to do with the effects of porn on the user?
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RealYBOP promoting a paid porn site, implying we should get our sex education from streaming tube sites
Continues, pimping a paid porn site as the cure for ED and other troubles:
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RealYBOP member Hartmann & RealYBOP twitter disparaging feminist Julie Bindel and her article, promoting an XBIZ article:
They no longer hide their intimate relationships with the porn industry.
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Direct promotion of porn industry: chummy with well known porn start and director Tommy Pistol
Who would be against age verification? Who would be for porn vids featuring young females who look and act like they are 13-14? RealYBOP, it appears.
RealYBOP spends its Saturday night gathering “evidence” and tweeting a defense of Pornhub and other adult sites.
As always, RealYBOP misrepresents what we say, while evading key points. The point of the Tweet is Pornhub has no age verification. Which RealYBOP confirmed and then confirmed she also found the girls most viewed video. It is completely irrelevant that other sites might have some form of ID check (which is questionable). So everything is A-ok because you can hunt around the internet trying to find these thousands of underage appearing girls and try to verify their age that way?
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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Complaining that porn industry and prostitution are exempt:
RealYBOP is lying, when she claims porn sites don’t contain rape and sex trafficking vids. Scroll through this account, and be prepared to be sick to your stomach. https://twitter.com/LailaMickelwait RealYBOP is defending pornhub!!
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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.
Again, why is a site claiming to be about the effects of porn on users tweeting about the porn industry and performers?
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Re-tweets a porn producer:
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RealYBOP trolls a thread to provide direct support for Pornhub. RealYBOP also lies about Exodus Cry, and tries to diminish their campaign to educate the world that pornhub hosts videos of child porn and actual rape:
RealYBOP is supporting pornhub, which hosts child porn and sex trafficking videos. Nice.
In same thread, RealYBOP defends pornhub while defaming FTND:
RealYBOP tweets her joke of an op-ed for the 100th time. The 600-word Op-Ed is chock full of unsupported assertions meant to fool the lay public. It fails to support a single assertion as it cites only 4 papers – none of which have anything to do with porn addiction, porn’s effects on relationships, or porn-induced sexual problems. Several experts in this field debunked its assertions and empty rhetoric in this relatively short response – Op-ed: Who exactly is misrepresenting the science on pornography? (2016). Unlike the “neuroscientists of the Op-Ed,” they cited several hundred studies and multiple reviews of the literature.
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July 13, 2020: RealYBOP trolling 6-week-old thread to defame Exodus Cry and to support Pornhub. RealYBOP once again tweeting the comment by an anonymous troll (and not a Nofap member), that was removed by nofap mods. One deleted comment, by an unknown troll – that is all RealYBOP has – which means she will tweet it over and over again.
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RealYBOP just making stuff up, attacking Terry Crews (while disparaging FTND) for tweeting that PornHub needs to be defunded for hosting child porn and sex trafficking videos. RealYBOP is directly supporting Pornhub!
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RealYBOP retweets Gustavo Turner of XBIZ:
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July 25, 2020: RealYBOP retweets porn industry ally comments under RealYBOP attack on Nofap:
RealYBOP and porn industry twitter account @fyfriendlyfire often collaborate to troll RealYBOP’s usual victims.
RealYBOP = supporter of the porn industry and of prostitution.
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RealYourBrainOnPorn (Pornhub’s BFF) is targeting Lala Mickelwait again with an insane tweet trying to connect Exodus Cry to outlandish conspiracy theories. The melmagazine says nothing about Exodus Cry. RealYBOP will stop at nothing to defend Pornhub, including defamation & harassment.
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Promoting Cindy Gallop’s porn site
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Not studies, but commentaries by advocates of porn use (including a few by PhD’s being paid by big porn):
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Retweeting its close ally, XBIZ:
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RealYBOP attacks TraffickingHub, the the campaign to hold Pornhub responsible for hosting child porn and sexual abuse videos (initiated by Laila Mickelwait).
A few months after RealYBOP/Prause’s online cyberstalking and defamation of Laila and Exodus Cry, the NY Times published an investigative articles fully supporting the claims put forth by TraffickingHub & Laila: The Children of Pornhub – Why does Canada allow this company to profit off videos of exploitation and assault?. This was only the beginning for @BrainOnPorn, as it escalated into full on cyberstalking, lies and defamation – all in support of PornHub’s agenda. A few more examples:
Here is RealYBOP attacking Laila, while defending Mindgeek’s CEO. Note: RealYBOP lies when asserting the account isn’t that of Mindgeek’s CEO.
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Here RealYBOP goes complete wacko to disparage Exodus Cry:
RealYBOP trolls traffickinghub supporter:
More support of Pornhub (no comments about how much money Mindgeek takes in):
Trolling threads of traffickinghub supporters, posting EC budget, as if that has anything to do with pornhub.
RealYBOP tweeted that Laila did not attend USC. Merritt calls out RealYBOP for her lie:
RealYBOP posts financials, falsely implying something shady is occurring. RealYBOP says the trafficking hub petition does noting. Boy was RealYBOP wrong: https://traffickinghub.com/
Merritt post protest against pornhub, RealYBOP goes on the attack:
RealYBOP engages in defamation per se, falsely stating Laila asks men to threaten and stalk females. The 4 screenshots says nothing about anyone being stalked, let alone being told so by Laila.
More defamation, falsely claims Laila threatened numerous female scholars. The screenshots are of anonymous internet comments. Nothing related to Laila.
RealYBOP goes absolutely bonkers, with multiple instances of defamation per se:
RealYBOP says the petition will do nothing, yet it caused Pornhub to delete over half of its videos, put new regulations in place, and caused lawmakers to initiate bills and investigations. What happened to RealYBOP? The website was taken down for trademark infringement, while the twitter was permanently banned for harassment!
More insane assertions. No wonder Prause is being sued by multiple parties.
RealYBOP keeps doing Pornhub’s bidding:
Obsessive cyberstalking continues:
After 10 tweets targeting Laila and traffickinghub campaign on September 30, RealYBOP starts up gain on October 1 with more lies:
More lies and cyberstalking: Laila is not fundraising for other groups (Prause is being sued for libeling NoFap)
LOL – Now RealYBOP is falsely stating I committed perjury. Funny how her screenshots contain no examples, yet I have documented dozen of example of Prause perjuring herself: Nicole Prause & David Ley commit perjury in defamation lawsuit (September, 2019). Hmm.. how did RealYBOP obtain screenshots of Prause FBI online complaints – that named no one, including me? Oh yeah, RealYBOP is Prause.
My twitter thread debunking Prause’s lies:
Hilarious – @BrainOnPorn (Nicole Prause) has tweeted 20 times today that I lied when I said an FOIA request to the FBI proved she lied about filing an FBI report on me and Alex Rhodes The FBI caught Nikky in a lie. All FBI docs in this section: https://t.co/3R4uJMd1WQ
Finally, Prause no longer hides behind her alias account:
She immediately goes back to her alias, pointing out obvious: EC wants to end sex trafficking.
More hit-pieces loaded with falsehoods:
More cyberstalking in support of Pornhub:
More cyberstalking of Traffickinghub supporters:
Entering threads of traffickinghub supporters, spreading misinformation
RealYBOP assaults on traffickinghub and Laila end here as RealYBOP twitter was permanently banned for harassment:
It looks like Nicole Prause's porn-industry shill account @BrainOnPorn has been suspended for hateful abuse and targeted harassment. Wonder if this is permanent? Should be. Also gone is its trademark infringing website – https://t.co/WfgWlKA1JLpic.twitter.com/577LfflIzq
Epilogue: a 2021 Op-ed in Washington Times by Laila Mickelwait describing the disgusting activities of Pornhub and its operatives (such as RealYBOP) – The end of Pornhub’s campaign of intimidation.
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RealYBOP “expert” David Ley said in his March, 2021 PT blog post (The Cancel Mob Is Coming) that holding Pornhub accountable for child porn and sex trafficking videos was nothing more than cancel culture at work.
Steele et al., 2013 spokesperson Nicole Prause conducted several interviews about her July, 2013 EEG study on people complaining of having difficulties controlling their porn use. Commenting under the Psychology Today interview of Nicole Prause, senior psychology professor emeritus John A. Johnson said:
Mustanski asks, “What was the purpose of the study?” And Prause replies, “Our study tested whether people who report such problems [problems with regulating their viewing of online erotica] look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images.”
But the study did not compare brain recordings from persons having problems regulating their viewing of online erotica to brain recordings from drug addicts and brain recordings from a non-addict control group, which would have been the obvious way to see if brain responses from the troubled group look more like the brain responses of addicts or non-addicts.
Instead, Prause claims that their within-subject design was a better method, where research subjects serve as their own control group. With this design, they found that the EEG response of their subjects (as a group) to erotic pictures was stronger than their EEG responses to other kinds of pictures. This is shown in the inline waveform graph (although for some reason the graph differs considerably from the actual graph in the published article).
So this group who reports having trouble regulating their viewing of online erotica has a stronger EEG response to erotic pictures than other kinds of pictures. Do addicts show a similarly strong EEG response when presented with their drug of choice? We don’t know. Do normal, non-addicts show a response as strong as the troubled group to erotica? Again, we do not know. We don’t know whether this EEG pattern is more similar to the brain patterns of addicts or non-addicts.
The Prause research team claims to be able to demonstrate whether the elevated EEG response of their subjects to erotica is an addictive brain response or just a high-libido brain response by correlating a set of questionnaire scores with individual differences in EEG response. But explaining differences in EEG response is a different question from exploring whether the overall group’s response looks addictive or not. The Prause group reported that the only statistically significant correlation with the EEG response was a negative correlation (r=-.33) with desire for sex with a partner. In other words, there was a slight tendency for subjects with strong EEG responses to erotica to have lower desire for sex with a partner. How does that say anything about whether the brain responses of people who have trouble regulating their viewing of erotica are similar to addicts or non-addicts with a high libido?
Two months later Johnson published this psychology Today blog post which he posted about under Prause’s interview.
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? I think it could be do to her preconceptions–what she expected to find. I wrote about this elsewhere.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cui-bono/201308/preconceptions-may-color-conclusions-about-sex-addiction
When I first conceived this blog post and began to compose it about a month ago, my original intention was to describe in exquisite detail the specific ways in which I saw the proponents of opposite sides of the debate exaggerating or overextending their arguments beyond the actual data in the study. I subsequently changed my mind when I observed a firestorm of emotionally-charged rhetoric erupting among the debate participants. Not arguments about what the data logically implied, but ad hominem threats, including threats of legal action. I saw a PT blog post disappear, apparently because one of the parties demanded that it be taken down. I even received a couple of angry emails myself because one of the parties had heard that I had raised questions about the proper interpretation of the research in question in a scientific forum.
So, I have decided to quietly tip-toe out of the room. I have also decided to go ahead and post here what I had already composed a month ago, simply to present an example of my empirical claim that science is not a purely objective enterprise, and that actual scientists can become very personally and emotionally involved in their work. The controversy in question is also an excellent example of a common trend among U.S. researchers to overestimate soft-science results.
It seems to me that passion is a double-edged sword. On the good side, passion for a subject means the person is willing to invest a lot of time and energy on that subject. Why would someone study something unless he or she had a passion for it?
On the other hand, if the passionate person already has his/her mind made up, all of that passionate energy is going to be directed toward one possibility, right or wrong. And when wrong, passion leads to blindness to the truth.
I am likely to stay out of these debates and let the empirical researchers decide.
Submitted by Anonymous on November 2, 2013 – 6:26pm
As you mention, this debate since rife with agendas. However, linking a science debate to some random dude trying to sell books? How is this an improvement? I also think you missed the point of the study…all people show the pattern. This group (1) looks exactly like everyone else, and (2) just to be sure, the brain measure wasn’t related to any measure of hypersexuality (though it was to desire for sex with a partner). I’m not sure why it wasn’t related to desire to masturbate too, although the authors administered the whole scale and do talk about why that might be.
If the point of the study was to show that “all people” (not just alleged sex addicts) show a spike in P300 amplitude when viewing sexual images, you are correct–I do not get the point, because the study employed only alleged sex addicts. If the study *had* employed a non-addict comparison group and found that they also showed the P300 spike, then the researchers would have had a case for their claim that the brains of so-called sex addicts react that same as non-addicts, so maybe there is no difference between alleged addicts and non-addicts. Instead, the study showed that the self-described addicts showed the P300 spike in response to their self-described addictive “substance” (sexual images), just like cocaine addicts show a P300 spike when presented with cocaine, alcoholics show a P300 spike when presented with alcohol, etc.
As for what the correlations between P300 amplitude and other scores show, the only significant correlation was a *negative* correlation with desire for sex with a partner. In other words, the stronger the brain response to the sexual image, the *less* desire the person had for sex with a real person. This sounds to me like the profile of someone who is so fixated on images that s/he has trouble connecting sexually with people in real life. I would say that this person has a problem. Whether we want to call this problem an “addiction” is still arguable. But I do not see how this finding demonstrates the *lack* of addiction in this sample.
To my knowledge, my post did not contain links to a random dude trying to sell books. The Porn Study Critiques site contains contributions by a number of individuals interested in the debate, and I invited readers to judge for themselves which arguments might have merit. I did not notice any book advertisements on that site.
Submitted by Anonymous on November 3, 2013 – 8:37pm
Okay, I’m going to be optimistic and assume neither the author of this PT post nor the authors of the research article are intentionally biased. On the one hand, that change (sexual pics having the highest change) I would estimate has been replicated by at least 100 laboratories in controls. It’s extremely stable. Also, controls are exactly people who are on the low/absent end of the construct of interest. The regressions (not correlations) conducted, could be critiqued for not having the low end well-represented, but the range of the construct appears represented. Finally, we don’t know that a control wasn’t collected. Science is slow. It could be coming before you throw the scientist out with the biohazard (ha!)
That said, there are many questions this study raises:
1. How would a person with other sexual problems respond?
2. What will change with different kinds of pictures?
3. What about films?
The bigger question, though, is…why did it take so long to get a study like this done in the first place? Really, both the pro and con crowd should be embarrassed by the poor level of science in this area.
There are actual scientists blogging about this topic if you need better links. This is a blogger who appears to have no credentials and made many mistakes in their “review”. I’ll even give you the pro-addiction science links. PT shouldn’t be relying on crappy reviews like that. Perhaps it was meant to be a commentary on bias that the PT author chose only a pro-addiction link only from a non-scientist blogger?
I may have biases on this topic, but if I do, I am not aware of them, and I certainly am not intentionally trying to skew the debate one way or another. So you are right to assume that any bias in my writing is not intentional. Whether the authors of the study are intentionally biased, I cannot say. I do suspect that they wanted their study to demonstrate that the neural responses of alleged sex addicts are indistinguishable from the responses of non-addicts in order to discredit the concept of sex addiction. They certainly were willing to report in the popular media that their study cast grave doubt on the concept of sex addiction. But of course without a control group of non-addicts to show that neural responses between the two groups are indistinguishable, the claim of discrediting the concept of sex addiction is premature.
You say we don’t know if a control group was run. In response to this question in a scientific forum, the researchers said they did not have a control group because none was needed, that their subjects served as their own control in their within-subjects design. I found that response unintelligible because the only comparisons made with their within-subjects design were the P300 responses to the different types of photographic stimuli. This demonstrated that the P300 spike was higher for the erotic images was higher than for the other images. But whether the relative magnitude is similar to or different from self-described non-addicts, we don’t know. If there are findings from hundreds of laboratories on this one, the authors could have made that comparison. But they didn’t.
If the researchers had included self-described non-addicts in their study, the statistically significant negative correlation between P300 amplitude and desire for sex with a partner could have been even stronger than the coefficient they reported. The correlation they found was probably reduced due to restriction of range in P300 amplitude. So they did themselves a disservice by not including a more diverse sample that included people who did not report problems regulating their online viewing of erotica.
I use the terms regression and correlation interchangeably. Whether one conducts a simple bivariate regression or one of the forms of multiple regression, it’s all a version of the general linear model. We abbreviate the Pearson correlation coefficient with the small letter r, which stands for regression. Let’s not get side-tracked on irrelevancies.
Because I do not have a stake in the sex addiction debate, I don’t want to pick only on this anti-addiction research study and not the pro-addiction critics of the study. The blog to which I linked contains reviews which are certainly biased in their own way, although again I do not want to speculate on whether the bias is intentional or not. I was asked by the author of one of the reviews on this site to look at his critique before it was published, so I did, and I described what I thought was correct and incorrect in the critique. He followed some, but not all, of my suggestions for revising his critique. So, yes, there are mistakes in the review because not all of my suggestions were followed. I pointed to this blog merely as a starting place for the issues that are being debated. If you could provide links to higher-quality commentary (either pro-addiction or anti-addiction), that would be a great service to those in the audience who are interested in the concept of sex addiction.
As I said, my major interest is in the psychological factors that affect the conduct and interpretation of scientific research, more than the concept of sex addiction per se. Perhaps it was easier for me to point to the site of a true believer in the concept of sex addiction to illustrate possible psychological factors affecting the interpretation of research than to a more staid, neutral site maintained by professional sex researchers. If there is such an allegedly non-biased site (pro- or anti-addiction), I’d love to get the URL to see for myself whether it is indeed unbiased. Finding a non-biased discussion of sex addiction would be a first for me.
Indeed. Sounds to me like the author perhaps ought to have paid greater heed to your feedback, prior to publishing.
Hate to point out what is so painfully obvious here, buuuut, it can be safely said that if the major debate surrounding one’s publishing is it’s validity, rather than it’s content, there is a definite problem.
Yes, if the problem is not obvious, it should be. This problem is not unique, though, to this particular topic. It runs rampant in academic psychology.
Psychologists get so much training in critical thinking, by which I mean looking for flaws in research studies and generating alternative interpretations of results, that most of us have developed hypertrophy of our critical function and atrophy of our constructive, creative function. Psychologists will endlessly pick at flaws in the methodology of studies that do not support the content they already believe. This an indication of a problem with the discipline of psychology as a whole. No study is absolutely methodologically perfect, even published studies that have undergone thorough review. It’s one thing to be able to find flaws in studies that draw conclusions you don’t like; it is another to design and conduct a study the produces unequivocal support for an alternative view.
Submitted by Anonymous on November 6, 2013 – 6:58pm
Eh, not to get sidetracked but “We abbreviate the Pearson correlation coefficient with the small letter r, which stands for regression” definitely not. Regression locates the error differently than correlation. You can easily tell who actually read the study reviewed…if they say “correlation” they did not know what was done statistically (guy in your link made the same mistake). Don’t be that guy!
Anyway, I didn’t find a ton of scientific bloggers talking about this issue, but there were some really nice, more balanced reviews you could reference:
Other PT blogger and academic addictions guy:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/addiction-in-society/201307/the-apocryphal-debate-about-sex-addiction
From the main guy trying to get hypersexuality into the DSM:
http://www.rory.net/pages/prausecritque.html
A guy who publishes on addiction, though not about this study:
http://www.sexologytoday.org/2012/03/steve-mcqueens-shame-valid-portrayal-of.html
Sure beats a random massage therapist in Oregon for their ability to more evenly critique. I don’t agree with all these either, of course, but that’s the point. These at least highlight the good and the bad, whereas the critique cited is actually factually false (e.g., the SNP authors collected and reported the entire SDI scale). It’s always better not to promote patently false information!
Let me quote from the study, which I actually did read prior to writing my post. From http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/20770/28995:
“Pearson’s correlations were calculated among the mean amplitudes measured in the P300 window and the self-report questionnaire data. The only correlation reaching significance was the difference score calculated between neutral and pleasant–sexual conditions in the P300 window with the desire for sex with a partner measure, r(52) = − 0.332, p =0.016.”
Yes, the researchers also conducted some multiple regression analyses, but you can see from the above quote that they computed Pearson correlation coefficients.
Furthermore, I maintain that regression and correlation are not two different things. I am aware that some people say that the correlation coefficient, r, is “merely” a quantitative index of the strength of the linear relationship between x and y, whereas regression refers to estimating either x or y in terms of the best-fitting line, either y’ = bx + a or x’ = by + a. But if we regress y on x, the optimal value for the slope, b, is r * Sy/Sx. Pick up any textbook on psychological statistics (e.g., Quinn McNemar) and read its discussion of correlation and regression.
Thank you for adding the additional references. I was familiar with Peele’s position (Stanton Peele is indeed a legitimate expert on the topic), and I had read Rory Reid’s piece, but not the James Cantor post (although I am familiar with and respect his thinking). These additional references are a service to those who want more information.
Submitted by Anonymous on November 6, 2013 – 11:15pm
“To directly assess the relationship between condition amplitude differences in the P300, two-step hierarchical regressions were calculated.”
I’m frequently statistical consultant, and you’re embarrassing yourself. The errors term is different between regression and correlation…they are, in fact “two different things”. How on earth are you employed in a psych dept? At least stay away from my students!
I am not sure why you provided the quote from the study, “two-step hierarchical regressions were calculated,” when I already acknowledge that the researchers’ analyses included both multiple regression and the computation of Pearson correlations.
As I said, “Yes, the researchers also conducted some multiple regression analyses, but you can see from the above quote that they computed Pearson correlation coefficients.”
The reason that I pulled out the quote, “Pearson’s correlations were calculated . . . ” was because you implied that I and the critic did not read the study. You said, “You can easily tell who actually read the study reviewed…if they say ‘correlation’ they did not know what was done statistically (guy in your link made the same mistake).”
If you want to maintain that regression and correlation are two different things, be my guest. I have no idea who your students are because you are anonymous. Even if I did, I would not bother them. I am not embarrassed about my career as a psychologist; I hope that you find your career satisfying.
Much has transpired since July, 2013.
UPDATE: Seven peer-reviewed analysis of Steele et al., 2013 align with the following critique. Paper #1 is solely devoted to Steele et al. Papers 2-7 contain sections analyzing Steele et al.
Update 3: In this 2018 presentation Gary Wilson exposes the truth behind 5 questionable and misleading studies, including this study (Steele et al., 2013): Porn Research: Fact or Fiction?
Background: Steele et al., 2013 and David Ley’s “Your Brain on Porn – It’s NOT Addictive“.
On March 6th, 2013 David Ley and study 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 fictional account of a single flawed EEG study – Steele et al., 2013.
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 desire.”
Neither of those findings are actually in Steele et al. 2013. In fact, the study reported the exact opposite of what Nicole Prause and David Ley claimed:
What Steele et al., 2013 actually stated as its “neurological findings”:
“the P300 mean amplitude for the pleasant–sexual condition was more positive than the unpleasant, and pleasant–non-sexual conditions”
Translation: Frequent porn users had greater cue-reactivity (higher EEG readings) to explicit sexual images relative to neutral pictures. This is exactly the same as what occurs when drug addicts are exposed to cues related their addiction.
What Steele et al., 2013 actually stated as its “sexual desire” findings:
“Larger P300 amplitude differences to pleasant sexual stimuli, relative to neutral stimuli, was negativelyrelated to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.”
Translation: Negatively means lower desire. Individuals with greater cue-reactivity to porn had lower desire to have sex with a partner (but not lower desire to masturbate). To put another way – individuals with more brain activation and cravings for porn preferred to masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person.
Together these two Steele et al. findings indicate greater brain activity to cues (porn images), yet less reactivity to natural rewards (sex with a person). Both are hallmarks of an addiction, indicating both sensitization and desensitization.
“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? I think it could be due to her preconceptions–what she expected to find.”
Mustanski asks, “What was the purpose of the study?” And Prause replies, “Our study tested whether people who report such problems [problems with regulating their viewing of online erotica] look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images.”
But the study did not compare brain recordings from persons having problems regulating their viewing of online erotica to brain recordings from drug addicts and brain recordings from a non-addict control group, which would have been the obvious way to see if brain responses from the troubled group look more like the brain responses of addicts or non-addicts.
Instead, Prause claims that their within-subject design was a better method, where research subjects serve as their own control group. With this design, they found that the EEG response of their subjects (as a group) to erotic pictures was stronger than their EEG responses to other kinds of pictures. This is shown in the inline waveform graph (although for some reason the graph differs considerably from the actual graph in the published article).
So this group who reports having trouble regulating their viewing of online erotica has a stronger EEG response to erotic pictures than other kinds of pictures. Do addicts show a similarly strong EEG response when presented with their drug of choice? We don’t know. Do normal, non-addicts show a response as strong as the troubled group to erotica? Again, we do not know. We don’t know whether this EEG pattern is more similar to the brain patterns of addicts or non-addicts.
The Prause research team claims to be able to demonstrate whether the elevated EEG response of their subjects to erotica is an addictive brain response or just a high-libido brain response by correlating a set of questionnaire scores with individual differences in EEG response. But explaining differences in EEG response is a different question from exploring whether the overall group’s response looks addictive or not.
Before we get to the eight peer-reviewed analyses of Steele et al., 2013 I provide the state of the research in 2020:
Porn/sex addiction? This page lists 55 neuroscience-based studies (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). All provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies.
Eight peer-reviewed analyses of Steele et al., 2013
Over the intervening years many more neuroscience-based studies have been published (MRI, fMRI, EEG, neuropsychological, hormonal). All provide strong support for the addiction model as their findings mirror the neurological findings reported in substance addiction studies. The real experts’ opinions on porn/sex addiction can be seen in this list of 30 recent literature reviews & commentaries (all support the addiction model).
Seven of the peer-reviewed papers chose to analyze what Steele et al. 2013 actually reported – not what Prause put forth in her PR campaign. All describe how the Steele et al. findings lend support to the porn addiction model. The papers are in alignment with the YBOP critique. Three of the papers also describe the study’s flawed methodology and unsubstantiated conclusions. Paper #1 is solely devoted to Steele et al., 2013. Papers 2-8 contain sections analyzing Steele et al., 2013. They are listed by date of publication:
The validity of an argument depends on the soundness of its premises. In the recent paper by Steele et al., conclusions are based on the initial construction of definitions relating to ‘desire’ and ‘addiction’. These definitions are based on a series of assumptions and qualifications, the limitations of which are acknowledged by the authors initially, but inexplicably ignored in reaching the firm conclusions the authors make. Yet, the firmness of these conclusions is unwarranted, not only as a result of conceptually problematic initial premises but also due to problematic methodology.
Consider, for instance, the concept of ‘sexual desire’. The first paragraph acknowledges that ‘sexual desires must be consistently regulated to manage sexual behaviors’, and must be controlled when either illegal (pedophilia) or inappropriate (infidelity). The paragraph ends with the inference that the term ‘sexual addiction’ does not describe a problematic entity per se, but that it merely describes a subset of individuals with high levels of desire.
The next paragraph references a paper by Winters et al., which suggests that ‘dysregulated sexuality … may simply be a marker of high sexual desire and the distress associated with managing a high degree of sexual thoughts, feelings, and needs’ (Winters, Christoff, & Gorzalka, 2010). It is based on these assumptions that Steele et al. then proceeds to question a disease model for this ‘distress’ associated with controlling sexual ‘desire’. For a comparison of different ‘desire’ templates, television viewing in children is used as an example. The last two sentences in this paragraph establish the premise that the rest of the paper then tries to prove:
Treatments focus on reducing the number of hours viewing television behaviorally without a disease overlay such as ‘television addiction’ and are effective. This suggests a similar approach might be appropriate for high sexual desire if the proposed disease model does not add explanatory power beyond merely high sexual desire. (Steele, Staley, Fong, & Prause, 2013)
Based on this comparison, that of desire to watch TV in children and desire for sex in adults, the authors then launch into a discussion on event-related potentials (ERPs) and a subsequent description of their study design, followed by results and discussion, and culminating in the following summary:
In conclusion, the first measures of neural reactivity to visual sexual and non-sexual stimuli in a sample reporting problems regulating their viewing of similar stimuli fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality, as measured by questionnaires. Specifically, differences in the P300 window between sexual and neutral stimuli were predicted by sexual desire, but not by any (of three) measures of hypersexuality. (Steele et al., 2013)
With this statement the authors put forward the premise that high desire, even if it is problematic to those who experience it, is not pathologic, no matter the consequence.
Others have described significant limitations of this study. For instance, author Nicole Prause stated in an interview, ‘Studies of drug addictions, such as cocaine, have shown a consistent pattern of brain response to images of the drug of abuse, so we predicted that we should see the same pattern in people who report problems with sex if it was, in fact, an addiction’. John Johnson has pointed out several critical issues with this use of the Dunning et al. (2011) paper she cites as a basis for comparison with the Steele et al. paper. First, the Dunning et al. paper used three controls: abstinent cocaine users, current users, and drug naïve controls. The Steele et al. paper had no control group of any kind. Second, the Dunning et al. paper measured several different ERPs in the brain, including early posterior negativity (EPN), thought to reflect early selective attention, and late positive potential (LPP), thought to reflect further processing of motivationally significant material. Furthermore, the Dunning study distinguished the early and late components of the LPP, thought to reflect sustained processing. Moreover, the Dunning et al. paper distinguished between these different ERPs in abstinent, currently using, and healthy control groups. The Steele et al. paper, however, looked only at one ERP, the p300, which Dunning compared to the early window of the LLP. The Steele et al. authors even acknowledged this critical flaw in design: ‘Another possibility is that the p300 is not the best place to identify relationships with sexually motivating stimuli. The slightly later LPP appears more strongly linked to motivation’. Steel et al. admit that they are in fact not able to compare their results to the Dunning et al. study, yet their conclusions effectively make such a comparison. Regarding the Steele et al. study, Johnson summarized, ‘The single statistically significant finding says nothing about addiction. Furthermore, this significant finding is a negative correlation between P300 and desire for sex with a partner (r=−0.33), indicating that P300 amplitude is related to lower sexual desire; this directly contradicts the interpretation of P300 as high desire. There are no comparisons to other addict groups. There are no comparisons to control groups. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are a quantum leap from the data, which say nothing about whether people who report trouble regulating their viewing of sexual images have or do not have brain responses similar to cocaine or any other kinds of addicts’ (personal communication, John A. Johnson, PhD, 2013).
Although other serious deficiencies in this study design include lack of an adequate control group, heterogeneity of study sample, and a failure to understand the limitations of the ability of the P300 to qualitatively and quantitatively discriminate and differentiate between ‘merely high sexual desire’ and pathologically unwanted sexual compulsions, perhaps the most fundamental flaw relates to the use and understanding of the term ‘desire’. It is clear that in constructing this definitional platform, the authors minimize the concept of desire with the word ‘merely’. Desire, as related to biological systems in the context of sexuality, is a complex product of mesencephalic dopaminergic drive with telencephalic cognitive and affective mediation and expression. As a primal salience factor in sex, dopamine is increasingly recognized as a key component in sexual motivation, which has been widely conserved in the evolutionary tree (Pfaus, 2010). Genes relating to both the design and expression of sexual motivation are seen across phyla and also span intra-phyla complexity. While there are obvious differences between sex, food seeking, and other behaviors, which are essential to evolutionary fitness, we now know there are similarities in the molecular machinery from which biologically beneficial ‘desire’ emanates. We now know that these mechanisms are designed to ‘learn’, in a neural connecting and modulating way. As Hebb’s law states, ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’. We became aware of the brain’s ability to alter its structural connectivity with reward learning in early studies relating to drug addiction, but have now seen neuronal reward-based learning with such seemingly diverse natural desires relating to sex and salt craving.
Definitions relating to desire are important here; biological salience, or ‘wanting’, is one thing, whereas we consider ‘craving’ to have more ominous implications as it is used in the literature relating to drug addiction and relapse. Evidence demonstrates that craving states relating to appetites for biologically essential necessities such as salt and sex invoke – with deprivation followed by satiation – a neuroplastic process involving a remodeling and arborizing of neuronal connections (Pitchers et al., 2010; Roitman et al., 2002). Notably, a desperate desire is effected by craving states associated with conditions that portend the possible death of the organism such as salt deficiency, which induces the animal to satiate and avoid death. Drug addiction in humans, interestingly, can affect a comparable craving leading to a similar desperation to satiate in spite of the risk of death, an inversion of this elemental drive. A similar phenomenon occurs with natural addictions as well, such as the individual with morbid obesity and severe cardiac disease continuing to consume a high fat diet, or one with a sexual addiction continuing to engage in random sexual acts with strangers despite an elevated probability of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. That gene sets driving signaling cascades essential to this craving conundrum are identical for both drug addiction and the most basic of natural cravings, salt, supports a hijacking, usurping role for addiction (Liedtke et al., 2011). We also better understand how complex systems associated with and effecting these changes involve genetic molecular switches, products, and modulators such as DeltaFosB, orexin, Cdk5, neural plasticity regulator activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (ARC), striatally enriched protein tyrosine phosphatase (STEP), and others. These entities form a complex signaling cascade, which is essential to neural learning.
What we experience affectively as ‘craving’, or very ‘high desire’, is a product of mesencephalic and hypothalamic impetus which projects to, participates in, and is part of cortical processing resulting from this convergence of conscious and unconscious information. As we demonstrated in our recent PNAS paper, these natural craving states ‘likely reflect usurping of evolutionary ancient systems with high survival value by the gratification of contemporary hedonic indulgences’ (Liedtke et al., 2011, PNAS), in that we found that these same salt ‘craving’ gene sets were previously associated with cocaine and opiate addiction. The cognitive expression of this ‘desire’, this focus on getting the reward, the ‘craving’ to experience satiation again is but a conscious ‘cortical’ expression of a deeply seated and phyolgenetically primitive drive originating in the hypothalamic/mesencephalic axis. When it results in an uncontrolled and – when expressed – destructive craving for a reward, how do we split neurobiological hairs and term it ‘merely’ high desire rather than addiction?
The other issue relates to immutability. Nowhere in the Steele et al. paper is there a discussion as to why these individuals have ‘high desire’. Were they born that way? What is the role, if any, of environment on both qualitative and quantitative aspect of said desire? Can learning affect desire in at least some of this rather heterogeneous study population? (Hoffman & Safron, 2012). The authors’ perspective in this regard lacks an understanding of the process of constant modulation at both cellular and macroscopic levels. We know, for instance, that these microstructural changes seen with neuronal learning are associated with macroscopic changes as well. Numerous studies confirm the importance of plasticity, as many have compellingly argued: ‘Contrary to assumptions that changes in brain networks are possible only during critical periods of development, modern neuroscience adopts the idea of a permanently plastic brain’ (Draganski & May, 2008); ‘Human brain imaging has identified structural changes in gray and white matter that occur with learning … learning sculpts brain structure’ (Zatorre, Field, & Johansen-Berg, 2012).
Finally, consider again the author’s term ‘merely high sexual desire’. Georgiadis (2012) recently suggested a central dopaminergic role for humans in this midbrain to striatum pathway. Of all the natural rewards, sexual orgasm involves the highest dopamine spike in the striatum, with levels up to 200% of baseline (Fiorino & Phillips, 1997), which is comparable with morphine (Di Chiara & Imperato, 1988) in experimental models. To trivialize, minimize, and de-pathologize compulsive sexuality is to fail to understand the central biological role of sexuality in human motivation and evolution. It demonstrates a naiveté with regard to what is now an accepted understanding of current reward neuroscience, in that it pronounces sexual desire as inherent, immutable, and uniquely immune from the possibility of change either qualitatively or quantitatively. Even more critically, however, as illustrated by the Steele et al. paper, is that this myopic dogma fails to comprehend the truth that neuroscience now tells us that ‘high desire’, when it results in compulsive, unwanted, and destructive behavior, is ‘merely’ an addiction.
References
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Excerpt critiquing Steele et al., 2013 (Citation 25 is Steele et al.)
Our findings suggest dACC activity reflects the role of sexual desire, which may have similarities to a study on the P300 in CSB subjects correlating with desire[25]. We show differences between the CSB group and healthy volunteers whereas this previous study did not have a control group. The comparison of this current study with previous publications in CSB focusing on diffusion MRI and the P300 is difficult given methodological differences. Studies of the P300, an event related potential used to study attentional bias in substance use disorders, show elevated measures with respect to use of nicotine [54], alcohol [55], and opiates [56], with measures often correlating with craving indices. The P300 is also commonly studied in substance-use disorders using oddball tasks in which low-probability targets are frequently mixed with high-probability non-targets. A meta-analysis showed that substance-use-disordered subjects and their unaffected family members had decreased P300 amplitude compared to healthy volunteers [57]. These findings suggest substance-use disorders may be characterized by impaired allocation of attentional resources to task-relevant cognitive information (non-drug targets) with enhanced attentional bias to drug cues. The decrease in P300 amplitude may also be an endophenotypic marker for substance-use disorders. Studies of event-related potentials focusing on motivation relevance of cocaine and heroin cues further report abnormalities in the late components of the ERP (>300 milliseconds; late positive potential, LPP) in frontal regions, which may also reflect craving and attention allocation [58]–[60]. The LPP is believed to reflect both early attentional capture (400 to 1000 msec) and later sustained processing of motivationally significant stimuli. Subjects with cocaine use disorder had elevated early LPP measures compared to healthy volunteers suggesting a role for early attentional capture of motivated attention along with attenuated responses to pleasant emotional stimuli. However, the late LPP measures were not significantly different from those in healthy volunteers [61]. The generators of the P300 event-related potential for target-related responses is believed to be the parietal cortex and cingulate [62]. Thus, both dACC activity in the present CSB study and P300 activity reported in a previous CSB study may reflect similar underlying processes of attentional capture. Similarly, both studies show a correlation between these measures with enhanced desire. Here we suggest that dACC activity correlates with desire, which may reflect an index of craving, but does not correlate with liking suggestive of on an incentive-salience model of addictions.
Excerpt critiquing Steele et al., 2013 (citation 303):
An EEG study on those complaining of problems regulating their viewing of internet pornography has reported the neural reactivity to sexual stimuli [303]. The study was designed to examine the relationship between ERP amplitudes when viewing emotional and sexual images and questionnaire measures of hypersexuality and sexual desire. The authors concluded that the absence of correlations between scores on hypersexuality questionnaires and mean P300 amplitudes when viewing sexual images “fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality” [303] (p. 10). However, the lack of correlations may be better explained by arguable flaws in the methodology. For example, this study used a heterogeneous subject pool (males and females, including 7 non-heterosexuals). Cue-reactivity studies comparing the brain response of addicts to healthy controls require homogenous subjects (same sex, similar ages) to have valid results. Specific to porn addiction studies, it’s well established that males and females differ appreciably in brain and autonomic responses to the identical visual sexual stimuli [304, 305, 306]. Additionally, two of the screening questionnaires have not been validated for addicted IP users, and the subjects were not screened for other manifestations of addiction or mood disorders.
Moreover, the conclusion listed in the abstract, “Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed” [303] (p. 1) seems out of place considering the study’s finding that P300 amplitude was negatively correlated with desire for sex with a partner. As explained in Hilton (2014), this finding “directly contradicts the interpretation of P300 as high desire” [307]. The Hilton analysis further suggests that the absence of a control group and the inability of EEG technology to discriminate between “high sexual desire” and “sexual compulsion” render the Steele et al. findings uninterpretable [307].
Finally, a significant finding of the paper (higher P300 amplitude to sexual images, relative to neutral pictures) is given minimal attention in the discussion section. This is unexpected, as a common finding with substance and internet addicts is an increased P300 amplitude relative to neutral stimuli when exposed to visual cues associated with their addiction [308]. In fact, Voon, et al. [262] devoted a section of their discussion analyzing this prior study’s P300 findings. Voon et al. provided the explanation of importance of P300 not provided in the Steele paper, particularly in regards to established addiction models, concluding,
“Thus, both dACC activity in the present CSB study and P300 activity reported in a previous CSB study[303] may reflect similar underlying processes of attentional capture. Similarly, both studies show a correlation between these measures with enhanced desire. Here we suggest that dACC activity correlates with desire, which may reflect an index of craving, but does not correlate with liking suggestive of on an incentive-salience model of addictions.” [262] (p. 7)
So while these authors [303] claimed that their study refuted the application of the addiction model to CSB, Voon et al. posited that these authors actually provided evidence supporting said model.
Excerpt analyzing Steele et al., 2013 (citation 48):
A 2013 EEG study by Steele et al. reported higher P300 amplitude to sexual images, relative to neutral pictures, in individuals complaining of problems regulating their Internet pornography use [48]. Substance abusers also exhibit greater P300 amplitude when exposed to visual cues associated with their addiction [148]. In addition, Steele et al. reported a negative correlation between P300 amplitude and desire for sex with a partner [48]. Greater cue reactivity to Internet pornography paired with less sexual desire for partnered sex, as reported by Steele et al., aligns with the Voon et al. finding of “diminished libido or erectile function specifically in physical relationships with women” in compulsive Internet pornography users [31]. Supporting these findings, two studies assessing sexual desire and erectile function in “hypersexuals” and compulsive Internet pornography users reported associations between measures of hypersexuality, and reduced desire for partnered sex and sexual difficulties [15,30]. Additionally, the 2016 survey of 434 men who viewed Internet pornography at least once in the last three months reported that problematic use was associated with higher levels of arousabilty, yet lower sexual satisfaction and poorer erectile function [44]. These results should be viewed in light of the multiple neuropsychology studies that have found that sexual arousal to Internet pornography cues and cravings to view pornography were related to symptom severity of cybersex addiction and self-reported problems in daily life due to excessive Internet pornography use [52,53,54,113,115,149,150]. Taken together, multiple and varied studies on Internet pornography users align with the incentive-salience theory of addiction, in which changes in the attraction value of an incentive correspond with changes in activation of regions of the brain implicated in the sensitization process [31,106]. To sum up, in alignment with our hypothesis, various studies report that greater reactivity toward pornographic cues, cravings to view, and compulsive pornography use are associated with sexual difficulties and diminished sexual desire for partners.
In the excerpts below these 3 citations indicate the following Nicole Prause EEG studies (#14 is Steele et al., 2013):
7 – Prause, N.; Steele, V.R.; Staley, C.; Sabatinelli, D. Late positive potential to explicit sexual images associated with the number of sexual intercourse partners. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosc. 2015, 10, 93–100.
8 – Prause, N.; Steele, V.R.; Staley, C.; Sabatinelli, D.; Hajcak, G. Modulation of late positive potentials by sexual images in problem users and controls inconsistent with “porn addiction”. Biol. Psychol. 2015, 109, 192–199.
14 – Steele, V.R.; Staley, C.; Fong, T.; Prause, N. Sexual desire, not hypersexuality, is related to neurophysiological responses elicited by sexual images. Socioaffect. Neurosci. Psychol. 2013, 3, 20770
Event-related potentials (ERPs) have often been used as a physiological measure of reactions to emotional cues, e.g., [24]. Studies utilizing ERP data tend to focus on later ERP effects such as the P300 [14] and Late-Positive Potential (LPP) [7, 8] when investigating individuals who view pornography. These later aspects of the ERP waveform have been attributed to cognitive processes such as attention and working memory (P300) [25] as well as sustained processing of emotionally-relevant stimuli (LPP) [26]. Steele et al. [14] showed that the large P300 differences seen between viewing of sexually explicit images relative to neutral images was negatively related to measures of sexual desire, and had no effect on participants’ hypersexuality. The authors suggested that this negative finding was most probably due to the images shown not having any novel significance to the participant pool, as participants all reported viewing high volumes of pornographic material, consequently leading to the suppression of the P300 component. The authors went on to suggest that perhaps looking at the later occurring LPP may provide a more useful tool, as it has been shown to index motivation processes. Studies investigating the effect pornography use has on the LPP have shown the LPP amplitude to be generally smaller in participants who report having higher sexual desire and problems regulating their viewing of pornographic material [7, 8]. This result is unexpected, as numerous other addiction-related studies have shown that when presented with a cue-related emotion task, individuals who report having problems negotiating their addictions commonly exhibit larger LPP waveforms when presented images of their specific addiction-inducing substance [27]. Prause et al. [7, 8] offer suggestions as to why the use of pornography may result in smaller LPP effects by suggesting that it may be due to a habituation effect, as those participants in the study reporting overuse of pornographic material scored significantly higher in the amount of hours spent viewing pornographic material.
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Studies have consistently shown a physiological downregulation in processing of appetitive content due to habituation effects in individuals who frequently seek out pornographic material [3, 7, 8]. It is the authors’ contention that this effect may account for the results observed.
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Future studies may need to utilise a more up-to-date standardised image database to account for changing cultures. Also, maybe high porn users downregulated their sexual responses during the study. This explanation was at least used by [7, 8] to describe their results which showed a weaker approach motivation indexed by smaller LPP (late positive potential) amplitude to erotic images by individuals reporting uncontrollable pornography use. LPP amplitudes have been shown to decrease upon intentional downregulation [62, 63]. Therefore, an inhibited LPP to erotic images may account for lack of significant effects found in the present study across groups for the “erotic” condition.
Excerpts analyzing Steele et al., 2013 (which is citation 68):
Klucken and colleagues recently observed that participants with CSB as compared to participants without displayed greater activation of the amygdala during presentation of conditioned cues (colored squares) predicting erotic pictures (rewards) [66]. These results are like those from other studies examining amygdala activation among individuals with substance use disorders and men with CSB watching sexually explicit video clips [1, 67]. Using EEG, Steele and colleagues observed a higher P300 amplitude to sexual images (when compared to neutral pictures) among individuals self-identified as having problems with CSB, resonating with prior research of processing visual drug cues in drug addiction [68, 69].
YBOP comments: In the above excerpt the authors of the current review are saying that Steele et al’s findings indicate cue-reactivity in frequent porn users. This aligns with the addiction model and cue-reactivity is a neuro-physiological marker for addiction. While Steele et al. spokesperson Nicole Prause claimed that the subjects’ brain response differed from other types of addicts (cocaine was the example given by Prause) – this was not true, and not reported anywhere in Steele et al., 2013
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Furthermore, habituation may be revealed through decreased reward sensitivity to normally salient stimuli and may impact reward responses to sexual stimuli including pornography viewing and partnered sex [1, 68]. Habituation has also been implicated in substance and behavioral addictions [73-79].
YBOP comments: In the above excerpt the authors of this review are referring to Steele et al’s finding of greater cue-reactivity to porn related to less desire for sex with a partner (but not lower desire to masturbate to porn). To put another way – individuals with more brain activation and cravings related to porn preferred to masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. That’s less reward sensitivity to “partnered sex”, which is “normally salient stimuli”. Together these two Steele et al. findings indicate greater brain activity to cues (porn images), yet less reactivity to natural rewards (sex with a person). Both are hallmarks of an addiction.
Excerpt critiquing Steele et al., 2013 (citation 105 is Steele et al.)
Evidence of this neural activity signalizing desire is particularly prominent in the prefrontal cortex [101] and the amygdala [102,103], being evidence of sensitization. Activation in these brain regions is reminiscent of financial reward [104] and it may carry a similar impact. Moreover, there are higher EEG readings in these users, as well as the diminished desire for sex with a partner, but not for masturbation to pornography [105], something that reflects also on the difference in erection quality [8]. This can be considered a sign of desensitization. However, Steele’s study contains several methodological flaws to consider (subject heterogeneity, a lack of screening for mental disorders or addictions, the absence of a control group, and the use of questionnaires not validated for porn use) [106]. A study by Prause [107], this time with a control group, replicated these very findings. The role of cue reactivity and craving in the development of cybersex addiction have been corroborated in heterosexual female [108] and homosexual male samples [109].
First, Steele et al. (2013) found that individuals with viewing of visual sexual stimuli (VSS) induced a greater amplitude of the P300 component when viewing erotic images than when viewing neutral images. The results seem to confirm the notion that online pornography leads to an individual’s hunger for online pornography, but Steele’s research lacks normal subjects for reference. In addition, LPP components appear later than P300. Late positive potential is associated with the stimulation of significant material processing and better reflects the individual’s desire to watch pornographic material (Hilton, 2014) (the greater the individual’s desire to watch pornography, the greater the LPP volatility). In this regard, Prause and Steele et al. (2015) added individuals who viewed less pornographic material to VSS individuals in the improvement experiment, and found that subjects who had excessively viewed pornographic material problems and reported more sexual desire were watching erotic images. The induced LPP amplitude is smaller, and this result seems to be contrary to the idea that online pornography-related clues induce a sense of craving. Actually, some scholars have pointed out that the erotic images used in the study by Prause and Steele may be an addiction in itself. Consumer goods, not addictive cues (Gola et al., 2017; Gola, Wordecha, Marchewka, & Sescousse, 2016). Therefore, according to the Theory of Incentive-Salience Theory (IST) in drug addiction, as the degree of addiction deepens, the cues of addiction can induce the addicted desire of addicted individuals to become more and more addicted. (Berridge, 2012; Robinson, Fischer, Ahuja, Lesser, & Maniates, 2015), but the addiction to the addicted individuals has gradually decreased, and the decrease in LPP amplitude indicates that CA may be addicted to drugs.
The validity of an argument depends on the soundness of its premises. In the recent paper by Steele et al., conclusions are based on the initial construction of definitions relating to ‘desire’ and ‘addiction’. These definitions are based on a series of assumptions and qualifications, the limitations of which are acknowledged by the authors initially, but inexplicably ignored in reaching the firm conclusions the authors make. Yet, the firmness of these conclusions is unwarranted, not only as a result of conceptually problematic initial premises but also due to problematic methodology.
Consider, for instance, the concept of ‘sexual desire’. The first paragraph acknowledges that ‘sexual desires must be consistently regulated to manage sexual behaviors’, and must be controlled when either illegal (pedophilia) or inappropriate (infidelity). The paragraph ends with the inference that the term ‘sexual addiction’ does not describe a problematic entity per se, but that it merely describes a subset of individuals with high levels of desire.
The next paragraph references a paper by Winters et al., which suggests that ‘dysregulated sexuality … may simply be a marker of high sexual desire and the distress associated with managing a high degree of sexual thoughts, feelings, and needs’ (Winters, Christoff, & Gorzalka, 2010). It is based on these assumptions that Steele et al. then proceeds to question a disease model for this ‘distress’ associated with controlling sexual ‘desire’. For a comparison of different ‘desire’ templates, television viewing in children is used as an example. The last two sentences in this paragraph establish the premise that the rest of the paper then tries to prove:
Treatments focus on reducing the number of hours viewing television behaviorally without a disease overlay such as ‘television addiction’ and are effective. This suggests a similar approach might be appropriate for high sexual desire if the proposed disease model does not add explanatory power beyond merely high sexual desire. (Steele, Staley, Fong, & Prause, 2013)
Based on this comparison, that of desire to watch TV in children and desire for sex in adults, the authors then launch into a discussion on event-related potentials (ERPs) and a subsequent description of their study design, followed by results and discussion, and culminating in the following summary:
In conclusion, the first measures of neural reactivity to visual sexual and non-sexual stimuli in a sample reporting problems regulating their viewing of similar stimuli fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality, as measured by questionnaires. Specifically, differences in the P300 window between sexual and neutral stimuli were predicted by sexual desire, but not by any (of three) measures of hypersexuality. (Steele et al., 2013)
With this statement the authors put forward the premise that high desire, even if it is problematic to those who experience it, is not pathologic, no matter the consequence.
Others have described significant limitations of this study. For instance, author Nicole Prause stated in an interview, ‘Studies of drug addictions, such as cocaine, have shown a consistent pattern of brain response to images of the drug of abuse, so we predicted that we should see the same pattern in people who report problems with sex if it was, in fact, an addiction’. John Johnson has pointed out several critical issues with this use of the Dunning et al. (2011) paper she cites as a basis for comparison with the Steele et al. paper. First, the Dunning et al. paper used three controls: abstinent cocaine users, current users, and drug naïve controls. The Steele et al. paper had no control group of any kind. Second, the Dunning et al. paper measured several different ERPs in the brain, including early posterior negativity (EPN), thought to reflect early selective attention, and late positive potential (LPP), thought to reflect further processing of motivationally significant material. Furthermore, the Dunning study distinguished the early and late components of the LPP, thought to reflect sustained processing. Moreover, the Dunning et al. paper distinguished between these different ERPs in abstinent, currently using, and healthy control groups. The Steele et al. paper, however, looked only at one ERP, the p300, which Dunning compared to the early window of the LLP. The Steele et al. authors even acknowledged this critical flaw in design: ‘Another possibility is that the p300 is not the best place to identify relationships with sexually motivating stimuli. The slightly later LPP appears more strongly linked to motivation’. Steel et al. admit that they are in fact not able to compare their results to the Dunning et al. study, yet their conclusions effectively make such a comparison. Regarding the Steele et al. study, Johnson summarized, ‘The single statistically significant finding says nothing about addiction. Furthermore, this significant finding is a negative correlation between P300 and desire for sex with a partner (r=−0.33), indicating that P300 amplitude is related to lower sexual desire; this directly contradicts the interpretation of P300 as high desire. There are no comparisons to other addict groups. There are no comparisons to control groups. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are a quantum leap from the data, which say nothing about whether people who report trouble regulating their viewing of sexual images have or do not have brain responses similar to cocaine or any other kinds of addicts’ (personal communication, John A. Johnson, PhD, 2013).
Although other serious deficiencies in this study design include lack of an adequate control group, heterogeneity of study sample, and a failure to understand the limitations of the ability of the P300 to qualitatively and quantitatively discriminate and differentiate between ‘merely high sexual desire’ and pathologically unwanted sexual compulsions, perhaps the most fundamental flaw relates to the use and understanding of the term ‘desire’. It is clear that in constructing this definitional platform, the authors minimize the concept of desire with the word ‘merely’. Desire, as related to biological systems in the context of sexuality, is a complex product of mesencephalic dopaminergic drive with telencephalic cognitive and affective mediation and expression. As a primal salience factor in sex, dopamine is increasingly recognized as a key component in sexual motivation, which has been widely conserved in the evolutionary tree (Pfaus, 2010). Genes relating to both the design and expression of sexual motivation are seen across phyla and also span intra-phyla complexity. While there are obvious differences between sex, food seeking, and other behaviors, which are essential to evolutionary fitness, we now know there are similarities in the molecular machinery from which biologically beneficial ‘desire’ emanates. We now know that these mechanisms are designed to ‘learn’, in a neural connecting and modulating way. As Hebb’s law states, ‘Neurons that fire together, wire together’. We became aware of the brain’s ability to alter its structural connectivity with reward learning in early studies relating to drug addiction, but have now seen neuronal reward-based learning with such seemingly diverse natural desires relating to sex and salt craving.
Definitions relating to desire are important here; biological salience, or ‘wanting’, is one thing, whereas we consider ‘craving’ to have more ominous implications as it is used in the literature relating to drug addiction and relapse. Evidence demonstrates that craving states relating to appetites for biologically essential necessities such as salt and sex invoke – with deprivation followed by satiation – a neuroplastic process involving a remodeling and arborizing of neuronal connections (Pitchers et al., 2010; Roitman et al., 2002). Notably, a desperate desire is effected by craving states associated with conditions that portend the possible death of the organism such as salt deficiency, which induces the animal to satiate and avoid death. Drug addiction in humans, interestingly, can affect a comparable craving leading to a similar desperation to satiate in spite of the risk of death, an inversion of this elemental drive. A similar phenomenon occurs with natural addictions as well, such as the individual with morbid obesity and severe cardiac disease continuing to consume a high fat diet, or one with a sexual addiction continuing to engage in random sexual acts with strangers despite an elevated probability of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV and hepatitis. That gene sets driving signaling cascades essential to this craving conundrum are identical for both drug addiction and the most basic of natural cravings, salt, supports a hijacking, usurping role for addiction (Liedtke et al., 2011). We also better understand how complex systems associated with and effecting these changes involve genetic molecular switches, products, and modulators such as DeltaFosB, orexin, Cdk5, neural plasticity regulator activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (ARC), striatally enriched protein tyrosine phosphatase (STEP), and others. These entities form a complex signaling cascade, which is essential to neural learning.
What we experience affectively as ‘craving’, or very ‘high desire’, is a product of mesencephalic and hypothalamic impetus which projects to, participates in, and is part of cortical processing resulting from this convergence of conscious and unconscious information. As we demonstrated in our recent PNAS paper, these natural craving states ‘likely reflect usurping of evolutionary ancient systems with high survival value by the gratification of contemporary hedonic indulgences’ (Liedtke et al., 2011, PNAS), in that we found that these same salt ‘craving’ gene sets were previously associated with cocaine and opiate addiction. The cognitive expression of this ‘desire’, this focus on getting the reward, the ‘craving’ to experience satiation again is but a conscious ‘cortical’ expression of a deeply seated and phyolgenetically primitive drive originating in the hypothalamic/mesencephalic axis. When it results in an uncontrolled and – when expressed – destructive craving for a reward, how do we split neurobiological hairs and term it ‘merely’ high desire rather than addiction?
The other issue relates to immutability. Nowhere in the Steele et al. paper is there a discussion as to why these individuals have ‘high desire’. Were they born that way? What is the role, if any, of environment on both qualitative and quantitative aspect of said desire? Can learning affect desire in at least some of this rather heterogeneous study population? (Hoffman & Safron, 2012). The authors’ perspective in this regard lacks an understanding of the process of constant modulation at both cellular and macroscopic levels. We know, for instance, that these microstructural changes seen with neuronal learning are associated with macroscopic changes as well. Numerous studies confirm the importance of plasticity, as many have compellingly argued: ‘Contrary to assumptions that changes in brain networks are possible only during critical periods of development, modern neuroscience adopts the idea of a permanently plastic brain’ (Draganski & May, 2008); ‘Human brain imaging has identified structural changes in gray and white matter that occur with learning … learning sculpts brain structure’ (Zatorre, Field, & Johansen-Berg, 2012).
Finally, consider again the author’s term ‘merely high sexual desire’. Georgiadis (2012) recently suggested a central dopaminergic role for humans in this midbrain to striatum pathway. Of all the natural rewards, sexual orgasm involves the highest dopamine spike in the striatum, with levels up to 200% of baseline (Fiorino & Phillips, 1997), which is comparable with morphine (Di Chiara & Imperato, 1988) in experimental models. To trivialize, minimize, and de-pathologize compulsive sexuality is to fail to understand the central biological role of sexuality in human motivation and evolution. It demonstrates a naiveté with regard to what is now an accepted understanding of current reward neuroscience, in that it pronounces sexual desire as inherent, immutable, and uniquely immune from the possibility of change either qualitatively or quantitatively. Even more critically, however, as illustrated by the Steele et al. paper, is that this myopic dogma fails to comprehend the truth that neuroscience now tells us that ‘high desire’, when it results in compulsive, unwanted, and destructive behavior, is ‘merely’ an addiction.
References
Di Chiara, G., & Imperato, A. (1988). Drugs abused by humans preferentially increase synaptic dopamine concentrations in the mesolimbic system of freely moving rats. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 85(14), 5274–5278. Publisher Full Text
Draganski, B., & May, A. (2008). Training-induced structural changes in the adult human brain. Behavioral Brain Research, 192(1), 137–142. Publisher Full Text
Dunning, J. P., Parvaz, M. A., Hajcak, G., Maloney, T., Alia-Klein, N., Woicik, P. A., et al. (2011). Motivated attention to cocaine and emotional cues in abstinent and current cocaine users: An ERP study. European Journal of Neuroscience, 33(9), 1716–1723. PubMed Abstract | PubMed Central Full Text | Publisher Full Text
Fiorino, D. F., & Phillips, A. G. (1997). Dynamic changes in nucleus accumbens dopamine efflux during the Coolidge Effect in male rats. Journal of Neuroscience, 17(12), 4849–4855. PubMed Abstract
Georgiadis, J. R. (2012). Doing it … wild? On the role of the cerebral cortex in human sexual activity. Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, 2, 17337. Publisher Full Text
Hoffman, H., & Safron, A. (2012). Introductory editorial to ‘The Neuroscience and Evolutionary Origins of Sexual Learning’. Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, 2, 17415.
Liedtke, W. B., McKinley, M. J., Walker, L. L., Zhang, H., Pfenning, A. R., Drago, J., et al. (2011). Relation of addiction genes to hypothalamic gene changes subserving genesis and gratification of a classic instinct, sodium appetite. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(30), 12509–12514. Publisher Full Text
Pfaus, J. G. (2010). Dopamine: Helping males copulate for at least 200 million years. Behavioral Neuroscience, 124(6), 877–880. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text
Pitchers, K. K., Balfour, M. E., Lehman, M. N., Richtand, N. M., Yu, L., & Coolen, L. M. (2010). Neuroplasticity in the mesolimbic system induced by natural reward and subsequent reward abstinence. Biological Psychiatry, 67, 872–879. PubMed Abstract | PubMed Central Full Text | Publisher Full Text
Roitman, M. F., Na, E., Anderson, G., Jones, T. A., & Berstein, I. L. (2002). Induction of a salt appetite alters dendritic morphology in nucleus accumbens and sensitizes rats to amphetamine. Journal of Neuroscience, 22(11), RC225: 1–5.
Steele, V. R., Staley, C., Fong, T., & Prause, N. (2013). Sexual desire, not hypersexuality, is related to neurophysiological responses elicited by sexual images. Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, 3, 20770. Publisher Full Text
Winters, J., Christoff, K., & Gorzalka, B. B. (2010). Dysregulated sexuality and high sexual desire: Distinct constructs? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(5), 1029–1043. PubMed Abstract | Publisher Full Text
Zatorre, R. J., Field, R. D., & Johansen-Berg, H. (2012). Plasticity in gray and white: Neuroimaging changes in brain structure during learning. Nature Neuroscience, 15, 528–536. PubMed Abstract | PubMed Central Full Text | Publisher Full Text
*Donald L. Hilton
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Original post: http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/23833/32589
What does it mean to say that sex addiction “exists” or “doesn’t exist” apart from the fact that denying its existence or rebutting the denials can get you your 15 minutes of fame. A diagnostic term is always a provisional construct, a tool for organizing information about phenomena we are trying to understand and work with. A construct will be “correct” as long as it is optimally useful.
A recent study at UCLA came out with the conclusion that that people with problematic porn use may not be “sex addicts” and that they might just have a high “sexual desire.” They admitted this was a very tentative conclusion, and they hinted that no useful conclusions about sex addiction are yet supported by the data they collected. But the headlines sound so important. Sex addiction doesn’t exist!
The study did an EEG test on people who reported problems with porn use and found that their brains did not respond the way the researchers hypothesized they would. From this the researchers concluded that people with problem porn use may not be addicts. This is a gross oversimplification of a study that is too convoluted and confusingly designed to go into in any detail without putting you and myself to sleep.
The response to this study was that it was, to say the least, no big deal.
An article in PsychologyToday.com by a colleague of the researcher brings out some of the many questionable aspects of the study. Other articles such as a critique by Dr. Rory Reid, and a critique on PornStudySkeptics, have attempted to actually address the problems with the study such as the lack of a control group, the use of certain questionnaires, the limitation of the subjects to porn use rather than including other forms of sexually addictive behavior, the use of still photos as sexual stimuli, the use of content that was one woman and one man having sex, and the use of the comparison with a past study of the same EEG response in cocaine addicts viewing pictures related to drugs.
The question that we need to ask is “is the term sex addiction the most useful way to describe a set of behaviors and experiences from a clinical and research standpoint?” I think the answer at this point in history is “yes”.
Theoretical constructs
When we use words to describe phenomena in science and medicine we look for a construct that can be consistently tied to some quantifiable data and that works as an accurate description of the specific set of facts we are trying to work on. Then we use that term as long as it is the most productive construct around, productive in terms of helping us understand things and organize our research questions in such a way as to push our knowledge forward. That construct will be correct as long as it is useful. (I am deliberately leaving out consideration of the DSM criteria for addiction, tolerance, withdrawal etc. as they may or may not end up being critical to the research and treatment issues.)
I believe that the term sex addiction is by far the most useful and productive way to think about the phenomenon and that the alternatives are misleading in terms of how we use the terms in clinical work and research.
“Hypersexuality” is a useful way to describe a symptom more than it is a description of a disease entity. It is a symptom of dozens of other disorders including everything from bipolar disorder to brain damage. It has no “face validity,” meaning it doesn’t seem like it alone can describe what our patients are experiencing. It may have seemed like a way to get sexual addiction into the DSM which would have been useful in its own right had it happened.
“High sexual desire” and “high sex drive” are similarly not very useful. Sex is overly important to sex addicts but to apply the label “high desire” has no established explanatory power in this area and in fact is circular.
Some of our colleagues argue that the person who struggles with the shame and ravages of sex addiction is simply amoral or irresponsible. This position is totally useless and does nothing to push forward the frontiers of knowledge. (See also my blog “Sex Addiction Deniers: What Makes Them So Mad?’)
Some important features of “sex addiction” as a diagnosis
There is a saying that “sex addiction isn’t about sex, it’s about pain.” For sex addicts sex is a drug to kill pain and escape unpleasant emotions. It may function like “speed” through amping up general level of arousal, as when engaging in risky activities like hook-ups with strangers or illicit behaviors. Or it may be used to numb out as with the addict who gets lost in fantasy or porn. It becomes the addict’s drug of choice.
Addiction has for many years been described as being a pathological relationship with a substance or behavior. Concepts like hypersexuality appear to be inside the patient. Presumably someone could have a heightened sex drive without ever doing anything in particular. Sex addiction is understood as a damaging way of relating to something.
Sex addiction researchers have found that those experiencing sex addiction usually also suffer from other co-addictions as well. They believe there is a common underlying process that involves the loss of control over the behaviors. In fact the treatment approach is one that looks for a “primary” addiction but assumes that the person’s other addictions need to be addressed as part of the same treatment process.
Attempting to find a new construct which distinguishes sexually addictive behavior from its fellow-travelers means failing to make use of the great and increasing body of work in the general field of addiction research. Much useful information can be transposed from findings about gambling, smoking and so on. And useful hypotheses may emerge from this body of work in the investigation of sex addiction in particular. But research showing that there is no parallel on one measure does not prove anything. In fact it would be a tedious and pointless endeavor to try to take all the research findings about addiction over many decades and prove that they do not apply to sex addiction. And who would want to do that?
Dr. Linda Hatch was born and grew up in New York City and has worked as a licensed clinical psychologist in California since the 1970’s. She completed her BA, MA and PhD at Cornell University and University of California Riverside. She also taught at UCLA as an acting assistant professor and received a post-doctoral fellowship at UCLA in social psychology.
Dr. Hatch has been in private practice combined with teaching and consulting for most of her career. For many years she consulted with the Superior Court, the Probation Department, the Board of Prison Terms, and the State Department of Mental Health during which time she provided forensic assessment and expert testimony as well as psychotherapy. She did considerable work with both adult and juvenile sex offenders, mentally disordered offenders and sexually violent predators both in and outside of the courts and prison system. Her earlier experience also includes several years in university student counseling and crisis intervention/critical incident debriefing. She also worked as a staff psychologist and as training coordinator for the Santa Barbara County Department of Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Services before choosing to specialize in the field of sex addiction.
Currently Dr. Hatch is in private practice in Santa Barbara as a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist (CSAT). Prior to this she was affiliated with Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles. Her practice is limited to the field of sexual addiction treatment including the treatment of sex addicts and sex offenders, as well as their partners and families.
Dr. Hatch is a member of the American Psychological Association, and the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health. She received her CSAT certification through the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals.
This EEG study was touted in the media as evidence against the existence of porn addiction (or alternately, sex addiction). In reality, this study provides evidence supporting the existence of porn addiction. Why? The study reported higher EEG readings (P300) when subjects were exposed to porn photos. A higher P300 occurs when addicts are exposed to cues (such as images) related to their addiction. In addition, the study reported greater cue-reactivity for porn correlating to less desire for partnered sex.Put simply: The study found greater brain activation for porn and less desire for sex (but not less desire for masturbation). Not exactly what the headlines stated or the authors claimed in the media
It’s clear that few bothered to read the study, and most everyone bought the concocted headlines and unsupported claims. Below, we dismantle the unfounded claims and reveal what the study actually found, and why it should never have passed peer-review. I suggest the short version, which addresses the three main claims promulgated in the media. The long version contains all the gory details along with supporting citations.
UPDATE: 8 peer-reviewed analysis of Steele et al., 2013 align with the following critique. Paper #1 is solely devoted to Steele et al. Papers 2-8 contain sections analyzing Steele et al.
Update 3: In this 2018 presentation Gary Wilson exposes the truth behind 5 questionable and misleading studies, including this study (Steele et al., 2013): Porn Research: Fact or Fiction?
Update 7 (August, 2020): Court rulings fully exposed Nicole Prause as the perpetrator, not the victim. In March of 2020, Prause sought a groundless temporary restraining order (TRO) against me using fabricated “evidence” and her usual lies (falsely accusing me of stalking). In Prause’s request for the restraining order she perjured herself, saying I posted her address on YBOP and Twitter (perjury is nothing new with Prause). I filed an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against Prause for misusing the legal system (TRO) to silence and harass me. On August 6, the Los Angeles County Superior Court ruled that Prause’s attempt to obtain a restraining order against me constituted a frivolous and illegal “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (commonly called a “SLAPP suit”). Prause lied throughout her fraudulent TRO, providing zero verifiable evidence to support her outlandish claims that I stalked or harassed her. In essence, the Court found that Prause abused the restraining order process to bully me into silence and undercut his rights to free speech. By law, the SLAPP ruling obligates Prause to pay my attorney fees.
Update 9 (January, 2021): Prause filed a second frivolous legal proceeding against me in December, 2020 for alleged defamation. At a hearing on January 22, 2021 an Oregon court ruled in my favor and charged Prause with costs and an additional penalty. This failed effort was one of a dozen lawsuits Prause publicly threatened and/or filed in the previous months. After years of malicious reporting, she has escalated to threats of actual lawsuits to try to silence those who reveal her close ties to the porn industry and her malicious conduct, or who have made sworn statements in the 3 defamation suits currently active against her.
MAIN ARTICLE – INTRODUCTION
Participants: 52 test subjects were recruited through ads “requesting people who were experiencing problems regulating their viewing of sexual images.” The participants (average age 24) were a mix of males (39) and females (13). 7 participants were non-heterosexual.
What They Did: EEG readings (electrical activity on the scalp) were taken as participants viewed 225 pictures. 38 of the pictures were sexual, and all involved one woman and one man. This particular EEG reading (P300) measures attentiveness to stimuli.
Participants also completed 4 questionnaires: Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI), Sexual Compulsivity Scale (SCS), Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes of Sexual Behavior Questionnaire (SBOSBQ), and the Pornography ConsumptionEffect Scale (PCES).
Purpose: To seek a correlation between EEG reading averages and participants’ scores on the various questionnaires—on the theory that any correlation would shed light on whether problematic porn use is a function of addiction or mere high libido.
Outcome: The authors of the study claim to have found a single statistically significant correlation among all the data gathered:
“Larger P300 amplitude differences to pleasant sexual stimuli, relative to neutral stimuli, wasnegativelyrelated to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.”
Translation: Negatively means lower desire. Individuals with greater cue-reactivity to porn had lower desire to have sex with a partner (but not lower desire to masturbate). To put another way – individuals with more brain activation and cravings for porn would rather masturbate to porn than have sex with a real person. This finding is followed by this conclusion:
Conclusion: Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed.
Huh? How did negatively (lower) get turned into positively (higher)? Why did greater cue-reactivity to porn correlating with lower desire to have sex with a partner lead to a conclusion saying hypersexuality is to be understood as high desire? No one knows, but this bizarre turnaround was the basis for many of the headlines. Nicole Prause functioned as the spokesman for Steele et al., 2013 In the media Prause presents the following arguments to support her claim that “porn addiction does not exist”:
THE SHORT VERSION
Study spokesperson Nicole Prause presents the following arguments to support their claim that “porn addiction does not exist”:
In TV interviews and in the UCLA press release researcher Nicole Prause claims that subjects’ brains did not respond like other addicts.
The headlines and the study’s conclusion suggest that “hypersexuality” is understood as “high desire“, yet the study reports that subjects with greater brain activation to porn have less desire for sex.
Prause argues that the lack of correlations between EEG readings and certain questionnaires means porn addiction doesn’t exist.
You can read the whole analysis, but here’s the scoop on 1, 2 and 3 above.
CLAIM NUMBER 1: Subjects’ brain response differs from other types of addicts (cocaine was the example).
Much of the hype and headlines surrounding this study rest upon this completely unsupported claim. Here’s the hype:
“If they indeed suffer from hypersexuality, or sexual addiction, their brain response to visual sexual stimuli could be expected be higher, in much the same way that the brains of cocaine addicts have been shown to react to images of the drug in other studies.”
Reporter: “They were shown various erotic images, and their brain activity monitored.”
Prause: “If you think sexual problems are an addiction, we would have expected to see an enhanced response, maybe, to those sexual images. If you think it’s a problem of impulsivity, we would have expected to see decreased responses to those sexual images. And the fact that we didn’t see any of those relationships suggests that there’s not great support for looking at these problem sexual behaviors as an addiction.”
Prause: Our study tested whether people who report such problems look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images. Studies of drug addictions, such as cocaine, have shown a consistent pattern of brain response to images of the drug of abuse, so we predicted that we should see the same pattern in people who report problems with sex if it was, in fact, an addiction.
Does this prove sex addiction is a myth?
Prause: If our study is replicated, these findings would represent a major challenge to existing theories of sex “addiction”. The reason these findings present a challenge is that it shows their brains did not respond to the images like other addicts to their drug of addiction.
The above claims that subjects brains did not “respond like other addicts is without support. This assertion is nowhere to be found in the actual study. It’s only found in Prause’s interviews. In this study subjects had higher EEG (P300) readings when viewing sexual images – which is exactly what occurs when addicts view images related to their addiction (as in this study on cocaine addicts). 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? I think it could be due to her preconceptions–what she expected to find.”
Mustanski asks, “What was the purpose of the study?” And Prause replies, “Our study tested whether people who report such problems [problems with regulating their viewing of online erotica] look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images.”
But the study did not compare brain recordings from persons having problems regulating their viewing of online erotica to brain recordings from drug addicts and brain recordings from a non-addict control group, which would have been the obvious way to see if brain responses from the troubled group look more like the brain responses of addicts or non-addicts.
Instead, Prause claims that their within-subject design was a better method, where research subjects serve as their own control group. With this design, they found that the EEG response of their subjects (as a group) to erotic pictures was stronger than their EEG responses to other kinds of pictures. This is shown in the inline waveform graph (although for some reason the graph differs considerably from the actual graph in the published article).
So this group who reports having trouble regulating their viewing of online erotica has a stronger EEG response to erotic pictures than other kinds of pictures. Do addicts show a similarly strong EEG response when presented with their drug of choice? We don’t know. Do normal, non-addicts show a response as strong as the troubled group to erotica? Again, we do not know. We don’t know whether this EEG pattern is more similar to the brain patterns of addicts or non-addicts.
The Prause research team claims to be able to demonstrate whether the elevated EEG response of their subjects to erotica is an addictive brain response or just a high-libido brain response by correlating a set of questionnaire scores with individual differences in EEG response. But explaining differences in EEG response is a different question from exploring whether the overall group’s response looks addictive or not.
Simple: The claims that the subjects’ brains differed from other types of addicts is without support. In fact, the 2014 Cambridge University study (Voon et al.) analyzed Steele et al. 2013 and agreed with Johnson: Steele et al. reported higher P300 in response to sexual images relative to neutral pictures (citation 25). From the Cambridge study:
“Our findings suggest dACC activity reflects the role of sexual desire, which may have similarities to a study on the P300 in CSB subjects correlating with desire [25] ……Studies of the P300, an event related potential used to study attentional bias in substance use disorders, show elevated measures with respect to use of nicotine [54], alcohol [55], and opiates [56], with measures often correlating with craving indices.”…..Thus, both dACC activity in the present CSB study and P300 activity reported in a previous CSB study may reflect similar underlying processes.”
“So while these authors [303] claimed that their study refuted the application of the addiction model to CSB, Voon et al. posited that these authors actually provided evidence supporting said model.”
CLAIM NUMBER 2: The headlines & study’s conclusion suggest that “hypersexuality” is understood as “high desire“, yet the study reports that subjects with greater brain activation to porn have less desire for sex.
What you didn’t read in interviews and articles is that the study reported a negative correlation between “partnered sexual desire questions” and P300 readings. In other words, greater brain activation correlated with less desire for sex (but not less desire to masturbate to porn). Note Prause’s wording in this interview:
What is the main finding in your study?
“We found that the brain’s response to sexual pictures was not predicted by any of three different questionnaire measures of hypersexuality. Brain response was only predicted by a measure of sexual desire. In other words, hypersexuality does not appear to explain brain differences in sexual response any more than just having a high libido.”
Note that Prause said by “a measure” of sexual desire, not by “the entire Sexual Desire Inventory”. When all 14 questions were calculated there was no correlation, and no headline. Even more confusing is the study title which used “sexual desire”, rather than what was actually found: “negative correlation with selected questions about partnered sex from the SDI“, but no correlation when all SDI questions were calculated“.
“The Prause group reported that the only statistically significant correlation with the EEG response was a negative correlation (r=-.33) with desire for sex with a partner. In other words, there was a slight tendency for subjects with strong EEG responses to erotica to have lower desire for sex with a partner. How does that say anything about whether the brain responses of people who have trouble regulating their viewing of erotica are similar to addicts or non-addicts with a high libido?”
A month later John A. Johnson PhD published a Psychology Today blog post about Prause’s EEG study and what he perceived as biases on both sides of the issue. Nicole Prause (as anonymous) commented underneath taking Johnson to task for linking to this YBOP critique. Johnson replied with the following comment for which Prause had no response:
If the point of the study was to show that “all people” (not just alleged sex addicts) show a spike in P300 amplitude when viewing sexual images, you are correct–I do not get the point, because the study employed only alleged sex addicts. If the study *had* employed a non-addict comparison group and found that they also showed the P300 spike, then the researchers would have had a case for their claim that the brains of so-called sex addicts react that same as non-addicts, so maybe there is no difference between alleged addicts and non-addicts. Instead, the study showed that the self-described addicts showed the P300 spike in response to their self-described addictive “substance” (sexual images), just like cocaine addicts show a P300 spike when presented with cocaine, alcoholics show a P300 spike when presented with alcohol, etc.
As for what the correlations between P300 amplitude and other scores show, the only significant correlation was a *negative* correlation with desire for sex with a partner. In other words, the stronger the brain response to the sexual image, the *less* desire the person had for sex with a real person. This sounds to me like the profile of someone who is so fixated on images that s/he has trouble connecting sexually with people in real life. I would say that this person has a problem. Whether we want to call this problem an “addiction” is still arguable. But I do not see how this finding demonstrates the *lack* of addiction in this sample.
Simple: No correlation existed between EEG readings and the 14-question sexual desire inventory. Goodbye study title and headlines. Even if a positive correlation existed, the claim that “high desire” is mutually exclusive from “addiction” is preposterous. More to the point, P300 readings were negatively correlated (r=-.33) with desire for sex with a partner. Put simply –less desire for sex, but greater cue reactivity for porn.
CLAIM NUMBER 3: Porn addiction doesn’t exist because of a lack of correlation between subjects’ EEG readings and subjects’ scores on the Sexual Compulsivity Scale.
The lack of correlations between EEG and questionnaires is easily explained by many factors:
1) The subjects were men and women, including 7 non-heterosexuals, but were all shown standard, possibly uninteresting, male+female images. This alone discounts any findings. Why?
Study after study confirm that men and women have significantly different brain responses to sexual images or films.
Valid addiction brain studies involve homogenous subjects: same sex, same sexual orientation, along with similar ages and IQ’s.
How can researchers justify non-heterosexuals in an experiment with only heterosexual porn – and then draw vast conclusions from a (predictable) lack of correlation?
2) The subjects were not pre-screened. Valid addiction brain studies screen individuals for pre-existing conditions (depression, OCD, other addictions, etc.). See the Cambridge study for an example of proper screening & methodology.
3) Subjects experienced varying degrees of compulsive porn use, from severe to relatively minor. A quote from Prause:
“This study only included people who reported problems, ranging from relatively minor to overwhelming problems, controlling their viewing of visual sexual stimuli.”
This alone could explain varying results that didn’t correlate in a predictable way. Valid addiction brain studies compare a group of addicts to non-addicts. This study had neither.
4) The SCS (Sexual Compulsivity Scale) isn’t a valid assessment test for Internet-porn addiction or for women. It was created in 1995 and designed with uncontrolled sexual relations in mind (in connection with investigating the AIDS epidemic). The SCS says:
“The scale has been should [shown?] to predict rates of sexual behaviors, numbers of sexual partners, practice of a variety of sexual behaviors, and histories of sexually transmitted diseases.”
Moreover, the SCS’s developer warns that this tool won’t show psychopathology in women,
“Associations between sexual compulsivity scores and other markers of psychopathology showed different patterns for men and women; sexual compulsivity was associated with indexes of psychopathology in men but not in women.”
Like the SCS, the second questionnaire (the CBSOB) has no questions about Internet porn use. It was designed to screen for “hypersexual” subjects, and out of control sexual behaviors.
Simple: A valid addiction “brain study” must: 1) have homogenous subjects and controls, 2) screen for other mental disorders and addictions, 3) use validated questionnaires and interviews to assure the subjects are actually addicts. This EEG study on porn users did none of these. This alone discounts the study’s results.
An EEG study on those complaining of problems regulating their viewing of internet pornography has reported the neural reactivity to sexual stimuli [303]. The study was designed to examine the relationship between ERP amplitudes when viewing emotional and sexual images and questionnaire measures of hypersexuality and sexual desire. The authors concluded that the absence of correlations between scores on hypersexuality questionnaires and mean P300 amplitudes when viewing sexual images “fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality” [303] (p. 10). However, the lack of correlations may be better explained by arguable flaws in the methodology. For example, this study used a heterogeneous subject pool (males and females, including 7 non-heterosexuals). Cue-reactivity studies comparing the brain response of addicts to healthy controls require homogenous subjects (same sex, similar ages) to have valid results. Specific to porn addiction studies, it’s well established that males and females differ appreciably in brain and autonomic responses to the identical visual sexual stimuli [304,305,306]. Additionally, two of the screening questionnaires have not been validated for addicted IP users, and the subjects were not screened for other manifestations of addiction or mood disorders.
Moreover, the conclusion listed in the abstract, “Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed” [303] (p. 1) seems out of place considering the study’s finding that P300 amplitude was negatively correlated with desire for sex with a partner. As explained in Hilton (2014), this finding “directly contradicts the interpretation of P300 as high desire” [307]. The Hilton analysis further suggests that the absence of a control group and the inability of EEG technology to discriminate between “high sexual desire” and “sexual compulsion” render the Steele et al. findings uninterpretable [307].
Finally, a significant finding of the paper (higher P300 amplitude to sexual images, relative to neutral pictures) is given minimal attention in the discussion section. This is unexpected, as a common finding with substance and internet addicts is an increased P300 amplitude relative to neutral stimuli when exposed to visual cues associated with their addiction [308]. In fact, Voon, et al. [262] devoted a section of their discussion analyzing this prior study’s P300 findings. Voon et al. provided the explanation of importance of P300 not provided in the Steele paper, particularly in regards to established addiction models, concluding,
Thus, both dACC activity in the present CSB study and P300 activity reported in a previous CSB study[303] may reflect similar underlying processes of attentional capture. Similarly, both studies show a correlation between these measures with enhanced desire. Here we suggest that dACC activity correlates with desire, which may reflect an index of craving, but does not correlate with liking suggestive of on an incentive-salience model of addictions. [262] (p. 7)
So while these authors [303] claimed that their study refuted the application of the addiction model to CSB, Voon et al. posited that these authors actually provided evidence supporting said model.
THE LONG VERSION
The Results Say One thing, While the Study’s Conclusions and Author’s Imply the Opposite
The study’s title, along with the many headlines, state that a correlation (relation) was found between “sexual desire” as measured by the Sexual Desire Inventory and EEG readings. According to everything we can find, the SDI is a 14-question test. Nine of its questions address partnered (“dyadic”) sexual desire and four address solo (“solitary”) sexual desire. Just for clarification, the study’s negative correlation was attained with only the partnered sex questions from the SDI. There was no significant correlation between P300 readings and all the questions on the SDI. The study’s results taken from the abstract:
RESULTS: “Larger P300 amplitude differences to pleasant sexual stimuli, relative to neutral stimuli, was negatively related to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.”
Translation: Subjects with greater cue-reactivity to porn (higher EEG’s) scored lower in their desire for sex with a partner (but not their desire to masturbate). To put it another way, greater cue-reactivity correlated with less desire to have sex (yet still desiring to masturbate to porn). Yet the very next sentence turns lower desire for sex with a partner into highsexual desire:
CONCLUSION: Implications for understanding hypersexualityas high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed.
Is Steele et al., 2013 now claiming that they really found high sexual desire correlating with higher P300 readings? Well, that didn’t happen, as John Johnson PhD explained in this peer-reviewed rebuttal:
‘The single statistically significant finding says nothing about addiction. Furthermore, this significant finding is a negative correlation between P300 and desire for sex with a partner (r=−0.33), indicating that P300 amplitude is related to lower sexual desire; this directly contradicts the interpretation of P300 as high desire. There are no comparisons to other addict groups. There are no comparisons to control groups. The conclusions drawn by the researchers are a quantum leap from the data, which say nothing about whether people who report trouble regulating their viewing of sexual images have or do not have brain responses similar to cocaine or any other kinds of addicts’
Why must John A. Johnson remind the authors and everyone else, that Steele et al. actually found “lower desire for sex with a partner”, rather than “high sexual desire”? Because most of Steele et al. and the media blitz imply that cue-reactivity to porn correlated with high sexual desire. The conclusion taken from the abstract:
Conclusion: Implications for understanding hypersexuality as high desire, rather than disordered, are discussed.
Say what? But study reported that subjects with greater cue-reactivity had lower desire for sex with a partner.
In addition, the phrase “sexual desire” is repeated 63 times in the study, and the study’s title (Sexual Desire, Not Hypersexuality….) implies that higher brain activation to cues was associated with higher sexual desire. Read the study’s full conclusion and you too might assume Steele et al. found higher rather than lower sexual desire:
In conclusion, the first measures of neural reactivity to visual sexual and non-sexual stimuli in a sample reporting problems regulating their viewing of similar stimuli fail to provide support for models of pathological hypersexuality, as measured by questionnaires. Specifically, differences in the P300 window between sexual and neutral stimuli were predicted by sexual desire, but not by any (of three) measures of hypersexuality. If sexual desire most strongly predicts neural responses to sexual stimuli, management of sexual desire, without necessarily addressing some of the proposed concomitants of hypersexuality, might be an effective method for reducing distressing sexual feelings or behaviors.
Nowhere do we see lower sexual desire. Instead we are given – “predicted by sexual desire” and “management of sexual desire” and “reducing distressing sexual feelings or behaviors.” Not only did the study hypnotize readers into believing porn addiction was really just high libido, Prause reinforced this meme in in her interviews: (note the wording)
What is the main finding in your study?
“We found that the brain’s response to sexual pictures was not predicted by any of three different questionnaire measures of hypersexuality. Brain response was only predicted by a measure of sexual desire. In other words, hypersexuality does not appear to explain brain differences in sexual response any more than just having a high libido.“
Prause said by “a measure” of sexual desire, not by “the entire Sexual Desire Inventory”. When all 14 questions were calculated there was no correlation, and no headline to turn upside down. Prause makes the same claims in her UCLA press release:
“The brain’s response to sexual pictures was not predicted by any of the three questionnaire measures of hypersexuality,” she said. “Brain response was only related to the measure of sexual desire. In other words, hypersexuality does not appear to explain brain responses to sexual images any more than just having a high libido.“
In both interviews it is suggested that higher P300 readings were related to “higher libido”. Everyone in the media bought it. Considering the findings, Steele et al. should have been called – “negative correlation with questions about partnered sex, but no correlation when all SDI questions were calculated“.
Simple: Cue-reactivity (P300 readings) were negatively correlated (r=-.33) with desire for sex with a partner. Put simply: less desire for sex correlated greater cue-reactivity for porn (as the Cambridge University fMRI study reported) . Overall, no correlation existed between EEG readings and the entire 14-question sexual desire inventory. Even if a positive correlation existed, the claim that “high desire” is mutually exclusive from “addiction” is preposterous.
Finally, it’s important to note that the study contains two errors in regard to the SDI. Quoting the study:
“The SDI measures levels of sexual desire using two scales composed of seven items each.“
In fact, the Sexual Desire Inventory contains nine partnered questions, four solitary questions, and one question that cannot be categorized (#14).
Second mistake: Table 2 says the Solitary test score range is “3-26,” and yet the female mean exceeds it. It’s 26.46–literally off the charts. What happened? The four solitary sex questions (10-13) add up to a possible score of “31”.
The lively media blitz, which accompanied publication of this study, bases its attention-grabbing headlines on partial SDI results. Yet the study write-up contains glaring errors about the SDI itself, which do not engender confidence in the researchers.
High Desire is Mutually Exclusive with Addiction?
Although Steele et al. actually reported less desire for partnered sex correlating to cue-reactivity, it’s important to address the unbelievable claim that “high sexual desire” is mutually exclusive to porn addiction. Its irrationality becomes clear if one considers hypotheticals based on other addictions. (For more see this critique of Steele et al. – High desire’, or ‘merely’ an addiction? A response to Steele et al., by Donald L. Hilton, Jr., MD*.)
For example, does such logic mean that being morbidly obese, unable to control eating, and being extremely unhappy about it, is simply a “high desire for food?” Extrapolating further, one must conclude that alcoholics simply have a high desire for alcohol, right? In short, all addicts have “high desire” for their addictive substances and activities (called “sensitization”), even when their enjoyment of such activities declines due to other addiction-related brain changes (desensitization).
Most addiction experts consider “continued use despite negative consequences” to be the prime marker of addiction. After all, someone could have porn-induced erectile dysfunction and be unable to venture beyond his computer in his mother’s basement. Yet, according to these researchers, as long as he indicates “high sexual desire,” he has no addiction. This paradigm ignores everything known about addiction, including symptoms and behaviors shared by all addicts, such as severe negative repercussions, inability to control use, cravings, etc.
Is this study part of a rash of studies based on the peculiar logic that any measure of “high desire,” however questionable, grants immunity from addiction? A Canadian sexologist endeavored to paint this same picture in a 2010 paper entitled, Dysregulated sexuality and high sexual desire: distinct constructs? Noting that people who seek treatment for sexual behavior addictions report both dysregulated sexuality and high desire, he boldly concluded:
“The results of this study suggest that dysregulated sexuality, as currently conceptualized, labeled, and measured, may simply be a marker of high sexual desire and the distress associated with managing a high degree of sexual thoughts, feelings, and needs.”
Again, sexual behavior addiction itself produces cravings that often show up as “a high degree of sexual thoughts, feelings, and needs.” It’s simply wishful thinking to suggest “high sexual desire” eliminates the existence of addiction. Below are studies that directly refute “porn addiction is really high desire” model:
Quote: “Moreover, it was shown that problematic cybersex users report greater sexual arousal and craving reactions resulting from pornographic cue presentation. In both studies, the number and the quality with real-life sexual contacts were not associated to cybersex addiction.”
This fMRI study found that higher hours per week/more years of porn viewing correlated with less brain activation when exposed to photos of vanilla porn. Said the researchers:
“This is in line with the hypothesis that intense exposure to pornographic stimuli results in a downregulation of the natural neural response to sexual stimuli.”
Kühn & Gallinat 2014 also reported more porn use correlating with less reward circuit grey matter and disruption of the circuits involved with impulse control. In this article researcher Simone Kühn, said:
“That could mean that regular consumption of pornography more or less wears out your reward system.”
Kühn says existing psychological, scientific literature suggests consumers of porn will seek material with novel and more extreme sex games.
“That would fit perfectly the hypothesis that their reward systems need growing stimulation.”
Put simply, men who use more porn may need greater stimulation for the response level seen in lighter consumers, and photos of vanilla porn are unlikely to register as all that interesting. Less interest, equates to less attention, and lower EEG readings. End of story.
This study found that porn addicts had same brain activity as seen in drug addicts and alcoholics. The researchers also reported that 60% of subjects (average age: 25) had difficulty achieving erections/arousal with real partners, yet could achieve erections with porn. This finding completely dismantles the claim that compulsive porn users simply have higher sexual desire than those who aren’t compulsive porn users.
Why No Correlations Between Questionnaires And EEG Readings?
A major claim by Steele et al is that the lack of correlations between subjects EEG readings (P300) and certain questionnaires means porn addiction doesn’t exist. Two major reasons account for the lack of correlation:
The researchers chose vastly different subjects (women, men, heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals), but showed them all standard, possibly uninteresting, male+female sexual images. Put simply, the results of this study were dependent on the premise that males, females, and non-heterosexuals are no different in their response to sexual images. This is clearly not the case (below).
The two questionnaires Steele et al. relied upon in both EEG studies to assess “porn addiction” are not validated to screen for internet porn use/addiction. In the press, Prause repeatedly pointed to the lack of correlation between EEG scores and “hypersexuality” scales, but there is no reason to expect a correlation in porn addicts.
Unacceptable Diversity Of Test Subjects: The researchers chose vastly different subjects (women, men, heterosexuals, non-heterosexuals), but showed them all standard, possibly uninteresting, male+female porn. This matters, because it violates standard procedure for addiction studies, in which researchers select homogeneous subjects in terms of age, gender, orientation, even similar IQ’s (plus a homogeneous control group) in order to avoid distortions caused by such differences. In fact, a comprehensive meta-analysis of cue-reactivity in addiction studies reported significant differences between males and females:
“Gender seems to impact on neural cue reactivity. Thus bilateral cue reactivity to drug cues in culmen and caudate body is exclusively present in male drug dependent patients. In addition, the bilateral response of insula to natural stimuli appear store present a further male-specific neuronal reaction, whereas the bilateral activation of anterior cingulated cortex is rather a feature of female cue reactivity. These results of the sensitivity analysis suggest the existence of gender-specific components in neuronal cue reactivity.”
This is especially critical for studies like this one, which measured arousal to sexual images, as research confirms that men and women have significantly different brain responses to sexual images or films. This flaw alone explains the lack of correlations between EEG readings and questionnaires. Previous studies confirm significant differences between males and females in response to sexual images. See, for example:
Surprisingly, Prause herself stated in an earlier study (2012) that individuals vary tremendously in their response to sexual images:
“Film stimuli are vulnerable to individual differences in attention to different components of the stimuli (Rupp & Wallen, 2007), preference for specific content (Janssen, Goodrich, Petrocelli, & Bancroft, 2009) or clinical histories making portions of the stimuli aversive (Wouda et al.,1998).”
“Still, individuals will vary tremendously in the visual cues that signal sexual arousal to them (Graham, Sanders, Milhausen, & McBride, 2004).”
In a Prause study published a few weeks before this one she said:
“Many studies using the popular International Affective Picture System (Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1999) use different stimuli for the men and women in their sample.”
Maybe Prause should read her own statements to discover the reason why her current EEG readings varied so much. Individual differences are normal, and large variations are to be expected with a sexually diverse group of subjects.
Irrelevant Questionnaires: The SCS (Sexual Compulsivity Scale) cannot assess Internet-porn addiction. It was created in 1995 and designed with uncontrolled sexual relations in mind (in connection with investigating the AIDS epidemic). The SCS says:
“The scale has been should [shown?] to predict rates of sexual behaviors, numbers of sexual partners, practice of a variety of sexual behaviors, and histories of sexually transmitted diseases.”
Moreover, the SCS’s developer warns that this tool won’t show psychopathology in women:
“Associations between sexual compulsivity scores and other markers of psychopathology showed different patterns for men and women; sexual compulsivity was associated with indexes of psychopathology in men but not in women.”
Furthermore, the SCS includes partner-related questions that Internet-porn addicts might score quite differently compared with sex addicts, given that compulsive porn users often have a far greater appetite for cyber erotica than actual sex.
Like the SCS, the second hypersexuality questionnaire (the CBSOB) has no questions about Internet porn use. It was designed to screen for “hypersexual” subjects, and out-of-control sexual behaviors – not strictly the overuse of sexually explicit materials on the internet.
Another questionnaire the researchers administered is the PCES (Pornography Consumption Effect Scale), which has been called a “psychometric nightmare,” and there’s no reason to believe it can indicate anything about Internet porn addiction or sex addiction.
Thus, the lack of correlation between EEG readings and these questionnaires contributes no support to the study’s conclusions or the author’s claims.
No Pre-Screening:Steele et al’s subjects were not pre-screened. Valid addiction brain studies screen out individuals with pre-existing conditions (depression, OCD, other addictions, etc.). This is the only way responsible researchers can draw conclusions about addiction. See the Cambridge study for an example of proper screening & methodology.
Prause’s subjects were also not pre-screened for porn addiction. Standard procedure for addiction studies is to screen subjects with an addiction test in order to compare those who test positive for an addiction with those who do not. These researchers did not do this, even though an Internet porn-addiction test exists. Instead, researchers administered the Sexual Compulsivity Scale after participants were already chosen. As explained, the SCS is not valid for porn addiction or for women.
Use of Generic Porn For Diverse Subjects:Steele et al. admits that its choice of “inadequate” porn may have altered results. Even under ideal conditions, choice of test porn is tricky, as porn users (especially addicts) often escalate through a series of tastes. Many report having little sexual response to porn genres that do not match their porn-du-jour—including genres that they found quite arousing earlier in their porn-watching careers. For example, much of today’s porn is consumed via high-definition videos, and the stills used here may not elicit the same response.
Thus, the use of generic porn can affect results. If a porn enthusiast is anticipating viewing porn, reward circuit activity presumably increases. Yet if the porn turns out to be some boring heterosexual pictures that don’t match his/her current genre or stills instead of high-definition fetish videos, the user may have little or no response, or even aversion. “What was that?”
This is the equivalent of testing the cue reactivity of bunch of food addicts by serving everyone a single food: baked potatoes. If a participant doesn’t happen to like baked potatoes, she must not have a problem with eating too much, right?
A valid addiction “brain study” must: 1) have homogenous subjects and controls, 2) screen out other mental disorders and other addictions, and 3) use validated questionnaires and interviews to assure the subjects are actually porn addicts. Steele et al. did none of these, yet drew vast conclusions and published them widely.
No Control Group, Yet Claims Required One
The researchers did not investigate a control group of non-problem porn users. That didn’t stop the authors from making claims in the media which required a control group comparison. For example:
“If they indeed suffer from hypersexuality, or sexual addiction, their brain response to visual sexual stimuli could be expected be higher, in much the same way that the brains of cocaine addicts have been shown to react to images of the drug in other studies.”
Reporter: “They were shown various erotic images, and their brain activity monitored.”
Prause: “If you think sexual problems are an addiction, we would have expected to see an enhanced response, maybe, to those sexual images. If you think it’s a problem of impulsivity, we would have expected to see decreased responses to those sexual images. And the fact that we didn’t see any of those relationships suggests that there’s not great support for looking at these problem sexual behaviors as an addiction.”
“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? I think it could be do to her preconceptions–what she expected to find.”
In short, what Prause boldly proclaimed in her many media interviews is not backed up by the results. Another claim from the interview that required a control group:
Mustanski: What was the purpose of the study?
Prause: Our study tested whether people who report such problems look like other addicts from their brain responses to sexual images. Studies of drug addictions, such as cocaine, have shown a consistent pattern of brain response to images of the drug of abuse, so we predicted that we should see the same pattern in people who report problems with sex if it was, in fact, an addiction.
Prause’s reply to Mustanski indicates that her study was designed to see if the brain response to sexual images for people reporting problems with sex was similar to the brain response of drug users when they encounter images of the drug to which they are addicted.
A reading of the cocaine study she cites (Dunning, et al., 2011), however, indicates that the design of Steele et al. was quite different from the Dunning study, and that Steele et al. did not even look for the kind of brain responses recorded in the Dunning study.
The Dunning study used three groups: 27 abstinent cocaine users, 28 current cocaine users, and 29 non-using control subjects. Steele et al. used only one sample of persons: those who reported problems regulating their viewing of sexual images. Whereas the Dunning study was able to compare the responses of cocaine addicts to healthy controls, the Prause study did not compare the responses of the troubled sample with a control group.
There are more differences. The Dunning study measured several different event-related potentials (ERPs) in the brain, because previous research had indicated important differences in the psychological processes reflected in the ERPs. The Dunning study separately measured early posterior negativity (EPN), thought to reflect early selective attention, and late positive potential (LPP), thought to reflect further processing of motivationally significant material. The Dunning study further distinguished the early component of LPP, thought to represent initial attention capture, from the later component of LPP, thought to reflect sustained processing. Distinguishing these different ERPs is important because differences among the abstinent addicts, current users, and non-using controls depended on which ERP was being assessed.
In contrast, Steele et al. looked only at the ERP called P300, which Dunning compares to the early window of LPP. By their own admission, Prause and her colleagues report that this might not have been the best strategy:
“Another possibility is that the P300 is not the best place to identify relationships with sexually motivating stimuli. The slightly later LPP appears more strongly linked to motivation.“
The upshot is that Steele et aldid not in fact examine whether the brain responses of sexually troubled individuals “showed the same pattern” as the responses of addicts. They did not use the same ERP variables used in the cocaine study and they did not use an abstinent group and a control group, so they should not have compared their results to the Dunning study claiming the comparison was “apples to apples.”
EEG Technology Limitations
Finally, EEG technology cannot measure the results the researchers claim it can. Although the researchers insist that, “Neural responsivity to sexual stimuli in a sample of hypersexuals could differentiate these two competing explanations of symptoms [evidence of addiction versus high sexual desire],” in fact it’s unlikely that EEGs can do this at all. Although EEG technology has been around for 100 years, debate continues as to what actually causes brain waves, or what specific EEG readings really signify. As a consequence, experimental results may be interpreted in a variety of ways. See Brainwashed: The Seductive Appeal of Mindless Neuroscience for a discussion of how EEGs can be misused to draw unfounded conclusions.
EEGs measure electrical activity on the outside of the skull, and addiction researchers who use EEGs look for very narrow signals of specific aspects of addiction. For example, this recent EEG study on Internet addicts shows how accomplished Internet-addiction neuroscientists conduct such experiments. Note that researchers isolate narrow aspects of the brain’s activity, such as impulsivity, and avoid overly broad claims of the type made here by SPAN Lab. Also note the control group and pre-screening for addiction, both of which are absent in this SPAN Lab effort.
Perhaps the authors are unaware of the technology’s inability to distinguish among overlapping cognitive processes:
“The P300 [EEG measurement] is well known and often used to measure neural reactivity to emotional, sometimes sexual, visual stimuli. A drawback to indexing a large, slow ERP component is the inherent nature of overlapping cognitive processes that underlie such a component. In the current report, the P300 could be, and most-likely is, indexing multiple ongoing cognitive processes.” (Emphasis added.)
Never mind that, by their own admission, P300 might not be the best choice for an ERP study of this type. Never mind that conducting statistical analyses with difference scores has been recognized as problematic for over 50 years, such that now alternatives to difference scores are usually used (see http://public.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/faculty/edwardsj/Edwards2001b.pdf). Never mind that we do not really know what the amplitude of P300 to particular images relative to neutral images really signifies. P300 involves attention to emotionally significant information, but as Prause and her colleagues admit, they couldn’t predict whether P300 in response to sexual images would be especially elevated for people with high sexual desire (because they experience strong emotions to sexual situations) or whether the P300 would be especially flat (because they were habituated to sexual imagery).
Nor could they delineate between greater attention (higher P300) caused by sexual arousal, or greater attention caused by strong negative emotions, such as disgust. Nor can EEG technology delineate between a higher P300 reading arising from sexual arousal versus shock/surprise. Nor can EEG technology tell us if the brain’s reward circuitry was activated or not.
There is a more fundamental problem here: Steele et al. seems to want to take an either/or approach the viewing of sexual images—that EEG responses are either due to sexual desire or to an addictive problem – as if desire can be separated completely from addictive problems. Would anyone suggest that EEG responses in alcoholics or cocaine addicts might be due either entirely to their desire for the addictive substance or to their addictive problem?
Other factors can influence EEG readings. What if an image is related to a genre you like, but the pornstar reminds you of a person you dislike/fear/don’t care to see naked. Your brain will have conflicting associations for such erotica. These conflicts may well be more likely in the case of porn images than in the case of, say, cocaine visuals of powder and noses (used when testing cocaine addicts).
The point is that multiple associations with a stimulus as complex as sexuality could easily skew EEG readings.
Also, Steele et al. assumed higher EEG averages indicate higher sexual arousal, but subjects’ EEG averages were in fact all over the map. Is this because some of them were addicts and others not? Or watching porn that turned them off. Many factors can affect P300 readings. Consider the following, from another P300 study:
Although the functional significance of P300 is still debated1, 2, its amplitude indexes the allocation of resources for the evaluation of stimuli….Reduced P300 amplitude has been reported in many psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia4, depression5, and alcoholism6.
In short, the author’s hypothesis that brains of addicts will show either evidence of addiction or evidence of “high sexual desire” is uninformed. Yet the abstract creates in the reader the impression that the study’s results will show us that these hypersexuals either exhibited (1) evidence of addiction or (2) a positive correlation with “high sexual desire.” And the study’s title then misleadingly proclaims “sexual desire” the winner.
Cues confounded with addictive behavior
Another problem with the study’s design is that SPAN Lab confuses addiction-related cues with addiction itself (behavior). In this study, the researchers claim that watching porn is a cue, not unlike an alcoholic viewing a picture of a vodka bottle, and that masturbation is the addictive activity. This is incorrect.
Watching porn, which is what researchers asked these subjects to do, is the addictive activity for an Internet porn addict. Many users watch even when masturbation isn’t an option (e.g., while riding the bus, on library computers, at work, in waiting rooms, etc.). Viewing porn for stimulation is their uncontrolled behavior.
In contrast, true cues for porn addicts would be such things as seeing bookmarks of their favorite porn sites, hearing a word or seeing an image that reminds them of their favorite porn fetish or porn star, private access to highspeed Internet, and so forth. To be sure, seeing a visual that signals a fetish might serve as a cue for someone with an addiction to that genre of fetish porn, but here researchers used generic porn, not porn tailored to subjects’ individual tastes.
The assumption that this study is “just like” drug studies, is one of the many shaky assumptions Steele et al. makes Keep in mind that a picture of a blackjack table is not gambling; a picture of a bowl of ice cream is not eating. Viewing porn, in contrast, is the addictive activity. No one has any idea what EEG readings should be for porn addicts engaging in their addictive activity.
By discussing their results in light of genuine cue research relating to other addictions, the researchers imply that they are comparing “apples to apples.” They are not. First, the other addiction studies Steele et al. cites involve chemical addictions. Porn addiction is not as easy to test in the lab for reasons already explained. Second, the design of Steele et al. is entirely different from those studies it cites (no control groups, etc.).
Future studies on cue-reactivity to sexual images or explicit films must be very cautious in their interpretation of the results. For example a diminished brain response could indicate desensitization or habituation, rather than “not being addicted”.
Conclusion
First, one can make a strong argument that this study should have never been published. Its diversity of subjects, questionnaires incapable of assessing internet porn addiction, lack of screening for co-morbidities, and absence of control group resulted in unreliable results.
Second, the solitary correlation – less desire for partnered sex correlating with higher P300 – indicates that more porn use leads to greater cue-reactivity (cravings for porn), yet less desire to have sex with a real person. Put simply: Subjects using more porn craved porn, but their desire for real sex was lower than in those who viewed less. Not exactly what the headlines stated or the authors claimed in the media (that more porn use was correlated with higher desire “sexual desire”).
Third, the “physiological” finding of higher P300 when exposed to porn indicates sensitization (hyper-reactivity to porn), which is an addiction process.
Finally, we have the authors making claims to the media that are light years away from the data. From the headlines, it’s clearly journalists bought the spin. This points to the bleak state of science journalism. Science bloggers and news outlets simply repeated what they were fed. No one in the media read the study, checked the facts, or asked for an educated second opinion from actual addiction neuroscientists. If you want to promote a certain agenda, all you need to do is concoct a clever press release. It matters not what your study actually found, or that your flawed methodology may only produce a jumbled data salad.
Similar to Prause’s current study, her second study from 2013 found significant differences between controls and “porn addicts” – “No Evidence of Emotion Dysregulation in “Hypersexuals” Reporting Their Emotions to a Sexual Film (2013).” As explained in this critique, the title purposely hides the actual findings. In fact, “porn addicts” had less emotional response when compared to controls. This is not surprising as many porn addicts report numbed feelings and emotions. Prause justified the title by saying she expected “greater emotional response”, but provided no citation for her dubious “expectation.” A more accurate title would have been: “Subjects who have difficulty controlling their porn use show less emotional response to sexual films“. They were simply bored with still images of vanilla porn.
In a nationally distributed study published last week, a group of researchers argued that what is often termed as “sexual addiction” could be better understood as a pathological variation of “high sexual desire.” After the publication of this article, a multitude of media outlets suggested that the conclusions of this study demonstrate that there is no scientific basis for the diagnosis of sexual addiction. This has occurred despite the study being the first of its kind, riddled with methodological errors, and at best inconclusive with its findings. Nevertheless, it continues to get a lot of media attention, most likely because it addresses problematic human sexual behavior, which is always a media attention-getter.
In the study, researchers monitored the brain activity (using EEG technology) of 52 men and women who self-reported as having “problems controlling their viewing of sexual images.” The researchers then asked these individuals to look at more than 225 still photos – pictures of everything from violence to people skiing to men and women being sexual together – while the EEG measured their brain activity. Participants also completed several questionnaires about their sexual desire and activity. Essentially, researchers were looking for a correlation between EEG readings and the participants’ scores on the various questionnaires, thinking that any correlations might shed light on whether problematic porn use is caused by addiction (which is in essence a neurobiological dysfunction) or merely a high libido.
Sincethe study’s release, critics have cited numerous flaws in it, including concerns that the sample group differed significantly from treatment-seeking sex addicts and that the individual test subjects were not screened for other possible co-morbid conditions that could have interfered with the results. Additionally, there are serious questions about the strategy used to score one of the instruments in the study, which likely invalidated the measure and distorted the statistics. Basically, the researchers’ determination of a subject’s hypersexuality was primarily based on that individual’s responses to questions about having sex with a partner, whereas the brain scans were used to monitor solo sexual activity. As any sex addict can tell you, there is a huge difference in how most of them feel about and respond to in-the-flesh sex versus on-the-screen activity. The most readily apparent methodological error was the research team’s misuse of the Sexual Desire Inventory (SDI). Oddly, the researchers decided to use only part of this comprehensive questionnaire – inexplicably ignoring the questions about solo sexual activity, which, once again, was the exact activity they were monitoring with the brain scans.
Feeling confused? So are we.
Furthermore, the pre-screening of test subjects was wildly inadequate. The study lumped anyone who reported “issues with porn” into the same category. This means that some of the subjects were not likely porn addicts, while others may have been severely addicted. Adding to the quagmire is the fact that the researchers chose vastly different test subjects – men, women, heterosexuals, and homosexuals – and then showed them all the same heterosexually oriented sexual images (when clearly a gay participant would not respond to heterosexual images in the same way). In addition, the test subjects were shown only still images – hardly the streaming HD videos and live webcam shows that most were likely used to using.
Another criticism is the authors’ reliance on EEGs to measure subjects’ brain activity. Yes, EEGs are a useful scientific tool, but only to a certain extent. The simple truth is EEGs measure brain activity from the outside of the skull, making them the neurological equivalent of a blunt instrument. This is hardly definitive when looking at the complicated interplay of the numerous brain regions involved in the creation and expression of sexual desire (rewards, mood, memory, decision-making, etc.)
So, in a nutshell, this study is inconclusive at best, with conclusions drawn by the authors that don’t correlate to the data.
At least the researchers are not overtly indicating that the issue doesn’t exist. Instead, they argue that the problem is not an addiction and that conceptualizing it as “high sexual desire” would be more accurate. However, these researchers did not study the same areas of the brain or use the same technologies that have been utilized in previous research looking at process (behavioral) addictions. In an article released in the journal Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology, Dr. Donald Hilton summarizes much of the brain research that does lead scientists to believe that sex (and other natural processes) can be addictions. For a thorough review of this scientific literature see his article here. None of the brain regions looked at in Dr. Hilton’s work or the studies he cited were discussed or examined in the recently released study.
Amazingly, despite the study’s poor design, bad execution, and obvious limitations, the authors chose to formulate misguided conclusions and publish, even sending out an international press release touting their “achievement.”
Dr. Hilton argues that we are on the brink of a paradigm shift in our conceptualization of process addictions. He states, “During the shift, crisis and tension predominate, clouding the significance of the shift in the present. Nevertheless, the new combined paradigm that amalgamates addictions to both substances and processes is beginning to assert itself.” This assertion is evidenced by the fact that in the PubMed literature database the term “sexual addiction” is used almost three times as often as any other term that describes the disease. So is this current media frenzy simply part of the “crisis and tension” clouding our view during the midst of a shift?
Why is it that when two excellent articles come out, one supporting the addiction framework and one questioning it, that the media hones in on one and distorts its conclusions for shock value? What are the resulting repercussions for the tens of thousands of patients whose reality is denied and invalidated? In the 1980s sex addicts were told by mental health practitioners that their problem didn’t exist. Well, it did exist, and because therapists didn’t help them they created their own support groups, and now that network of “S-fellowships” provides critical, free care to tens of thousands of people daily. So while we as clinicians can continue to argue whether this is an addiction, a compulsion, an impulse control problem, or high sexual desire, we should not be arguing that the problem doesn’t exist. And the media shouldn’t either.
A similar phenomenon occurred with alcoholism at the turn of the century. Alcohol addiction was seen as a “moral failing” brought on by a “lack of willpower.” It wasn’t until many years later, when we began to fully understand the disease concept of addiction, that it became better understood. So why is it that society would rather call sex addicts “womanizers” and “schmucks” than use a paradigm that is helpful?
So, let’s consider the repercussions of our labels… So far we have sex addiction, sexual compulsion, impulse control disorder, hypersexual behavior disorder, out-of-control sexual behavior, problematic sexual behavior, and now a new one: high sexual desire. Using the label “sex addiction” rather than the others has a multitude of advantages. First, it is the language that the clients speak. Clients do not come to therapy because they think they have “hypersexual behavior disorder,” they come because they are “sex addicts.” Second, it is the term most often used by physicians. Third, by using an addiction perspective you can reduce the shame, normalize the behavior, provide lots of ancillary resources and materials, and immerse the client in a community of support that involves accountability and taking responsibility for one’s behavior. In contrast, how are we as therapists to effectively help a patient with his or her “high sexual desire”?
And when did high sexual desire and sexual addiction become mutually exclusive concepts? Simply put, diagnosing a person as having a high sexual desire does not rule out sexual addiction. In fact, the research discussed above does nothing to refute the concept of sexual addiction and the growing body of literature that supports that idea. Either way, until a definitive ruling is out, let’s stick to the label that’s clinically useful (especially since it looks like the majority of the existing research supports that paradigm).
Robert Weiss LCSW, CSAT-S is Senior Vice President of Clinical Development with Elements Behavioral Health. A licensed UCLA MSW graduate and personal trainee of Dr. Patrick Carnes, he founded The Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles in 1995. He has developed clinical programs for The Ranch in Nunnelly, Tennessee, Promises Treatment Centers in Malibu, and the aforementioned Sexual Recovery Institute in Los Angeles.He has also provided clinical multi-addiction training and behavioral health program development for the US military and numerous other treatment centers throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia.
Dr. Stefanie Carnes, Ph.D. is a licensed marriage and family therapist and an AAMFT approved supervisor. Her area of expertise includes working with patients and families struggling with multiple addictions such as sexual addiction, eating disorders and chemical dependency. Dr. Carnes is also a certified sex addiction therapist and supervisor, specializing in therapy for couples and families struggling with sexual addiction. Currently, she is the president of the International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals. She is also the author of numerous research articles and publications including her books, Mending a Shattered Heart: A Guide for Partners of Sex Addicts, Facing Addiction: Starting Recovery from Alcohol and Drugs, and Facing Heartbreak: Steps to Recovery for Partners of Sex Addicts.
