Porn addiction doesn’t exist! At least, that’s the mantra of porn-harms science-deniers. In a frenzied attempt to cover up the harms of porn on the brain, a group of scientists are hell-bent on convincing people that porn addiction doesn’t exist.
Known as “Real Your Brain on Porn”, this group (or certain individuals who represent this group) go to great lengths to dismiss, minimise and publicly attack anyone who speaks up about the harms of porn. The name of this group sounds deceivingly similar to the world-renowned and well-respected “Your Brain on Porn” site, run by Gary Wilson. Gary was among the first to raise the alarm as to what regular porn use is doing to some brains in his 2012 TEDx talk, The Great Porn Experiment.
Needless to say, Gary has received nothing but what can only be described as relentless harassment from this group. Why? Because he highlights the science that affirms addiction and other porn-related harms, phenomena observed by researchers, clinicians and therapists all over the world. Gary has even found himself having to defend his Your Brain on Porn trademark from those who actively seek to undermine his contributions. Additionally, those who speak out against porn harms are being forced to defend themselves through costly, drawn-out lawsuits and other public or legal battles.
For the sake of staying on point, I won’t detail the horrific antics because Gary has documented them here, here, here and here.
So is porn addiction real or not?
Given I’m not a neuroscientist or clinician, I will leave the explanation of what’s going on with the brain to the experts.
In 2016, Paula Hall, a leading expert in the field of sex and porn addiction, states:
Sex addiction is a real problem, but professionals can’t agree if addiction is the right name for it. Or if it should be called an impulse control disorder or hypersexuality or sexual compulsivity and a whole host of other names. And until we do get an accurate clinical diagnosis, chances are that doubts and misunderstandings will continue. But professionals do agree that more and more people are struggling with sexual behaviours that feel out of their control.
For most, that includes internet pornography, but for some, it’s also cybersex, visiting sex workers, cruising, multiple affairs, dating sites. The type of behaviour is not what defines it as an addiction, but the dependency on it. When we talk about alcohol addiction, we don’t differentiate between those who drink whiskey or beer or tequila. And alcohol addiction is defined as a dependency on alcohol to make my film more manageable. And of course, there are lots of people who can drink alcohol recreationally—maybe even a little too much at times—but they don’t become dependent on it. You know you’re addicted to alcohol if it’s causing significant problems in your life, but in spite of those problems, you still can’t control your drinking or stop. And the same is true for those who become dependent on internet pornography or any other kind of sexual behaviour. The reason that many people prefer the name addiction, including myself, is because that’s actually how people who struggle with this say that it feels. It feels like an addiction. There’s also a growing body of research that is showing that compulsive pornography use impacts the brain in a very similar way to chemical dependencies … One only needs to read the comments from people at the bottom of Paula’s TEDx talk to see how relieved people are to gain understanding about a range of behaviours under the banner of “sex addiction”, of which, one is porn addiction.
When Dr Donald Hilton was asked in 2015, “Do you think porn addiction has been proven beyond doubt?”, he responded by saying: To me, the proof has been there for several years.
Sex addiction and porn addiction are an outworking of compulsive sexual behaviour, often incorrectly presumed to result due to some form of underlying trauma. However, Dr Rob Weiss has the following to say:
“For a long time, therapists treating sex and porn addiction found that all (or at least the vast majority) of their clients had deep and powerful underlying early-life trauma issues—neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, covert incest, etc. This put sex and porn addicts very much in line with alcoholics, drug addicts, compulsive gamblers, and the like. In fact, there is a large body of research showing unresolved early-life trauma to be a huge risk factor for later-life addiction (of all types).
Recently, however, sexual disorders therapists like myself have encountered a new and rapidly growing subcategory of sex and porn addicts. These are individuals who readily meet the criteria for sex and porn addiction but lack the underlying early-life trauma that typically drives an addiction.”
Gabe Deem, the founder of Reboot Nation, often describes this group of consumers as “opportunity addicts”. This is when someone develops porn addiction because they enjoy the content—then they develop emotional, social or mental health issues as a result of excessive porn use.
Aside from doing all they can to deny the impacts of porn on the brain, porn-harms science-deniers typically create contention and unnecessary confusion around the supposed difference between “compulsive sexual behaviour” and “addiction”. Yet those suffering from compulsive behaviour are less concerned with labels and more concerned with getting help. The new CSBD diagnosis will make that help possible.
Interestingly, most of the research on which the world health experts relied upon when adopting “Compulsive sexual behaviour disorder” was done on internet pornography users. In adopting the new diagnosis, it’s clear that the experts were concerned about the potential impact of today’s pornography on users’ health.
So where does one get clarity?
When a person is struggling with the amount of porn they use or the impacts it’s having on their relationships, a starting point would be to assess their behaviours using the ICD-11 diagnostic tool that defines compulsive sexual behaviour disorder. According to the American Psychological Association (APA), the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is produced by the World Health Organisation, a global health agency with a constitutional public health mission, while the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is produced by a single national professional association (in the U.S.). The DSM uses the ICD coding and was last updated in 2013. It’s already out of date in the fast-moving world of pornography research. The new ICD diagnosis is being used by academics, and others will incorporate it over time.
The ICD-11 states that 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.
While addiction is not mentioned in the definition and guidelines for diagnosing someone with compulsive sexual behaviour (CSB) disorder, a person with addictive sexual behaviours, including compulsive pornography use, would meet the above test.
Where can porn addicts find more information … and hope?
There are several things someone can do when they recognise their consumption is out of control or bordering on porn addiction.
Take a look at the ICD-11 definition of Compulsive Sexual Behaviour Disorder and reflect on whether this could apply. Avoid the urge to try and self-diagnose, but this could be a useful yard-stick to start finding answers.
Seek professional help from someone well-informed about behavioural addictions.
Read about other people’s experiences. Great places to start are on forums such as NoFap and Reboot Nation – millions of people struggle with porn addiction, and online communities can help give hope and encouragement for those who previously felt they were alone. Who better to learn from than those who have recovered or are facing the same challenges!
Expand your understanding of why pornography is a public health crisis. Every click creates demand for exploitation, and porn sites are complicit in allowing child sexual exploitation material, revenge porn, rape and other non-consensual materials on their sites.
If you have kids, it’s likely that you don’t want them to struggle with porn addiction so it’s important to reframe your understanding and pass on helpful information for their healthy sexual development. Visit the Culture Reframed Parents Program to help you build young people’s resilience and resistance. Also, Porn Resilient Kids equips families for tricky conversations through educational resources and blogs, children’s books, resource links and a closed Facebook group.
If you are still confused, know this: The porn industry is well-aware that their content is addictive and they’ve been known to brag about it. If you are one of the millions who have been caught up in their targeted efforts to create life-long consumers, you are not alone and you can recover. I’m told that it is harder to kick than cigarettes, but the health benefits are overwhelmingly worth it.
Next time someone says porn addiction doesn’t exist, ask more questions, look behind the smokescreen, and form your own conclusion. The weight of the evidence does not favour the deniers. I’ll just keep educating and encouraging people to raise kids with skills for critical porn analysis—until a new generation of scientists can all see through the industry’s smokescreen and add to our understanding of porn addiction. Currently, it’s a condition that impacts millions because of the unregulated industry that drives it.
If you or loved ones are struggling with pornography’s impacts, you need to know that you are not alone. Click through for educational information, resources and links to online support services. And if you are looking for a presenter, professional development, curriculum to deliver in schools, or support for families, visit Youth Wellbeing Project and send us an email.
About Liz Walker
An accredited sexuality educator, speaker, author, Liz Walker is dedicated to culture-shifting initiatives that respond to pornography harms on children & young people.
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. 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, which resulted in this extensive page documenting he close relationships with many in the porn industry: Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry? Note: within months of that 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.
Exposing Prause claims of victim-hood as the “Big Lie”: She is the perpetrator, not the victim.
1) Gary Wilson “physically stalked” Prause in Los Angeles.
Reality: I haven’t been in Los Angeles in years. Prause provides no documentation for this claim, which she initiated in April, 2013 (see below), and began publicizing in July, 2013 (a few days after I critiqued her EEG study). The only police report made public by Prause (April, 2018) says nothing about me stalking her; it didn’t report any crime. Instead, Prause me reported to the LAPD for attending a German conference, which Prause falsely claimed she wanted to attend (screenshot). It’s true that I traveled to Germany and attended the 2018 5th International Conference on Behavioral Addictions, which ran from April 23-25 (note that Prause filed her police report on April 25th), and features experts on behavioral addictions from all over the world.
The untrue part is Prause’s claim that she ever had any intention of attending the ICBA conference in Germany. Prause has never attended or been invited to present at an ICBA conference. Prause doesn’t believe in behavioral addictions. Throughout her entire career, Prause has waged a war against the concept of behavioral addiction, especially sex and porn addiction. Prause thus filed a false police report.
Important to note that her false accusations of stalking began almost as soon as our paths crossed. In fact, she accused my wife and myself of stalking in an April, 2013 email exchange that occurred a few weeks after I published a response to David Ley’s Psychology Today blog post where Prause and he targeted my website: “Your Brain on Porn – It’s NOT Addictive.” Ley’s blog was about Nicole Prause’s unpublished, yet to be peer-reviewed EEG study (this was the first I had heard of Prause).
Prause initiated her only contact with me in 2 emails and a comment under my Psychology Today response. Simultaneously, she contacted Psychology Today editors, who forwarded her second email. The following 2 emails are from the end of our brief exchange (screenshots of Prause & Wilson’s entire email exchange):
As you can see, Prause is accusing us of stalking her, although all I did was respond to two emails she sent my way. This is where Prause’s fabricated “stalking” claims began.
Question: Did I drive 800 miles to Los Angeles on the same day I published my detailed critique to hover around UCLA, or did Prause initiate a fabricated campaign of being stalked on the day after my critique? Let’s go to trial and expose the truth.
2) Dr. Prause requires “armed guards at talks” because Gary Wilson has threatened to attend
3) Dr. Prause has filed numerous “police & FBI reports” on Gary Wilson
Reality: Starting in July, 2013 (a few days after I published a careful critique of Prause’s first EEG study), various usernames began posting defamatory comments wherever my name appeared. The comments were very similar in content and tone, falsely claiming that “Wilson has a police report filed on him,” “Wilson is charged with stalking a poor woman,” and “Wilson stole a woman’s pictures and placed them on a porn site,” and “Wilson has been reported to LAPD (which agrees that he’s dangerous) and the UCLA campus police.”
By 2016, as Prause was no longer employed by UCLA or any other institution that could rein in her cyber-harassment, she finally began to identify Gary Wilson as the “person” she had reported to the LAPD and the UCLA campus police. I haven’t been to LA in years. It’s almost 2020, and no law enforcement agency has ever contacted me. (Any harasser can file a fake police report, or misuse the courts)
I presumed that Prause had, in fact, filed fraudulent, groundless reports (which were subsequently disregarded), but it turned out Prause was lying – again. In late 2017 a call to the Los Angeles Police Department and the UCLA campus police revealed no report in their systems on a “Gary Wilson,” nor any report filed by a “Nicole Prause.” I created this section to report my findings: Los Angeles Police Department and UCLA campus police confirm that Prause lied about filing police reports on Gary Wilson.
As chronicled above, I discovered in March of 2019 that Prause had finally filed a fraudulent police report on April 25, 2018. Note that I did not learn of this empty police report from the police. I learned of it a year later, when student journalists (and misinformed Prause devotees) publicly reproduced it online in a university newspaper. It has since been removed by University of Wisconsin authorities.
Prause’s LAPD report was categorized as “cyberstalking”, not physical stalking (I’ve done neither). She didn’t (dare) report any actual crime. Instead, Prause had reported me to the LAPD for:
attending a German conference, which Prause falsely claimed she wanted to attend (but didn’t dare because she claimed to be frightened of me). Important to note that Prause could not have known that I was planning to attend (and she filed her police report the day after the conference was over).
If I have been physically stalking her, why doesn’t any police report describe me as doing so? It’s simple: Prause is afraid of being arrested for knowingly filing a police report falsely accusing me of an actual crime.
In 2019, Diana Davison became the first journalist to do an investigation into Prause’s claims of victim-hood. During their week of communications Prause was unable to provide any evidence other than Prause’s silly LAPD of me attending a German conference Prause lied about wanting to attend. Davison’s expose’ is here: The Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause. Diana Davison also produced this 6-minute video about Prause’s fake victim-hood and the defamation lawsuits filed against Prause.
The Diana Davison video provided a link to the timeline of events chronicling Prause’s nearly 7-year campaign of harassment, defamation, threats, and false accusations: VSS Academic War Timeline (Prause got the timeline removed.)
Below are very revealing comments under the Diana Davison video (in response to an obsessive commenter and Prause fan):
Reality: No such order exists. Prause is trying to trick the public into believing that a court has formally sanctioned me, i.e., that she has obtained a restraining order or an injunction. She hasn’t. But that doesn’t stop her from publicly and falsely accusing me and other victims of her malice of “violating no contact orders” and of “harassment.” The clear, and clearly false, implication of her statements is to suggest I and others are acting illegally. Her aggressive tactics and knowingly false accusations are calculated to bully and intimidate the victims of her online cyber-harassment into fear and silence. Two defamation suits have been filed against her. Enough said.
I have only responded to a handful of Prause’s defamatory online attacks, ignoring countless “contacts” from her. For example, in a single 24-hr period Prause posted 10 Quora comments about me – which resulted in her permanent suspension. In another example Prause (using RealYBOP Twitter) posted over 120 tweets about me in a 4-day period (PDF of tweets). A few examples of Prause initiating harassment and defamation followed by claiming victim-hood and ending with claims about her fictitious “no-contact orders”:
5) Gary Wilson has employed misogynistic language to denigrate Dr. Prause
Reality: Absolutely false. Prause and Ley provide only a solitary non-example. I accidentally typed “Miss” Prause in a reply to Dr. Prause asking about the size of my penis. That’s the extent of her evidence of my supposed misogyny. Not kidding.
Link to my full answer. Portion of my comment where I used “Miss” Prause:
Prause is certainly being sexist when she demands details about the size of my penis. Nevertheless, she has transformed my inadvertently typing “Miss” in my reply to her questions about my manhood into part of her never ending baseless campaign to paint me and others as misogynists. In this section are just a few examples of how Prause has weaponized her bizarre interest in my penis size and my response.
Over the last few years, Dr. Prause appears to have taken great pains to position herself as a “woman being subjected to misogynistic oppression when she tells truth to power.” She frequently tweets the following infographic that she apparently also shares at her public lectures, suggesting she is being victimized “as a woman scientist,” and painting herself as a trailblazer forging ahead to prove porn’s harmlessness despite prejudiced attacks.
It accuses me, my wife, Don Hilton MD, and nofap founder Alexander Rhodes of misogyny with utterly unconvincing “evidence.” Any suggestion that I (or my wife), Hilton, or Rhodes are motivated by misogyny is fabricated, as our objections have nothing to do with Dr. Prause as a person or as a woman, and only to do with her untrue statements and inadequately supported claims about her research.
As for the Infographic, as explained above, Prause’s only evidence of misogyny is that I accidentally once wrote “Miss Prause” in response to her childish question about my penis size. Her assertion that my wife is a misogynist is laughable. Her claim that Don Hilton MD called her a “child molester” is yet another lie, as this section fully explains.
Put simply, anyone who exposes Prause’s falsehoods or misrepresentations of the research is automatically labeled “a misogynist,” in hopes that gullible people might believe her defamatory statements. She does this to shut down actual debate on Twitter and other social media platforms, to prevent her falsehoods from being exposed.
It’s ironic that her info-graphic contains four instances of misogyny taken from anonymous YouTube comments under her TEDx talk. In 2013, TED closed comments under Gary Wilson’s TEDx talk in response to Nicole Prause’s many hateful and defamatory comments (see this section).
I look forward to the two defamation lawsuits (Donald Hilton, MD & Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes) going to a jury trial, and to being on the stand to present evidence. I especially look forward to Prause and Ley being forced to provide actual evidence or documentation, rather than the few pieces self-generated bogus “evidence”. I look forward to their cross examination and the two harassers being exposed as the perpetrators, not the victims.
Now that SCRAM media has retracted the hit-piece, has published an apology, and has been forced to pay Alex Rhodes considerable monetary damages, Prause and Ley have gone silent. Not a peep from the serial defamers and harassers.
Below we provide:
Press release by Rhodes UK law firm
The apology to Alex Rhodes by Scram Media
Details concerning the articles defamation
Nicole Prause threatening CEO of DonorBox (Charles Zhang) with a small claims lawsuit for revealing her lies, behind the scenes harassment, and malicious reporting
Scram Media Limited and two of its contributors have apologised and agreed to pay defamation damages to US-based NoFap LLC and its founder Alexander Rhodes after publishing an article on ScramNews.com titled “Academic receives “death threats” from far-right after crowdfunding campaign to sue her.”
NoFap runs an online pornography recovery platform that enables users to connect with a supportive community of individuals determined to reduce or eliminate pornography use and free themselves from compulsive sexual behaviours. It receives millions of visitors every month and has been covered by a wide variety of outlets, including CNN, The New York Times, BBC, Business Insider, Time Magazine, MTV, The Washington Post, and Showtime.
The Scram News article contained numerous false and defamatory statements concerning NoFap and Mr Rhodes. In particular, the article wrongly suggested that NoFap and Mr Rhodes were affiliated with extremists (including anti-Semites); that they had brought a frivolous and vexatious defamation claim in the US Federal Court in order to stymie legitimate academic research; that they had incited extremists to harass and threaten the defendant in those proceedings; that a crowdfunding campaign for the litigation had resulted in a defendant being stalked and their address being posted online; and that they had published misleading information about the case by wrongly suggesting that the defendants have ties to the pornography industry in order to secure funding.
Scram has now published a full retraction and apology which can be found here. This acknowledges that the publication was wholly misleading of the work undertaken by NoFap and Mr Rhodes, of the defamation claim brought by Mr Rhodes and the crowdfunding campaign, and that neither Mr Rhodes or NoFap have incited members of such extremist hate groups to harass or threaten the defendant. Mr Rhodes’ defamation claim does not concern the defendants’ research, but rather alleged defamatory attacks on Mr Rhodes and NoFap. The legal Complaint in that claim can be found here.
Scram Media Limited has agreed to pay Mr Rhodes substantial damages and his legal costs. It has undertaken not to republish similar false allegations.
Unlike many initiatives that have traditionally raised concerns about pornography, NoFap LLC prides itself on being secular, apolitical, sex-positive, and science-based. It is used by men and women from all over the world, from a wide variety of backgrounds, religious and spiritual beliefs (or non-belief), sexual orientations and identities, ages, nationalities, ethnicities, and other characteristics.
Commenting on the settlement, Mr Rhodes said:-
“Our success in raising awareness about pornography addiction has resulted in us being the subject of a prolonged smear campaign orchestrated by elements who have close ties with the pornography industry, who have sought to falsely portray us as being affiliated to religious groups, hate groups, and extremists in an attempt to discredit us. Our website unites people from all walks of life to overcome porn addiction together. These elements appear to want to falsely controversialize the issue and misrepresent us to distract people from our actual views, the facts, and the emerging body of scientific research. Despite their ongoing defamation and disinformation campaign, we will continue to provide resources for recovering porn addicts.”
On 20 January 2020 we published an article on scramnews.com entitled “Academic receives “death threats” from far-right after crowdfunding campaign to sue her.”The article contained numerous false and defamatory statements concerning NoFap LLC (‘NoFap’) and its founder Alexander Rhodes. In particular, the article wrongly suggested that NoFap and Mr Rhodes were affiliated with extremists (including anti-Semites); that they had brought a frivolous and vexatious defamation claim in order to stymie legitimate academic research; that they had incited extremists to harass and threaten the defendant in those proceedings (a Dr Nicole Prause); and that they had published misleading information about the campaign in order to secure crowdfunding.
We wish to unequivocally retract the allegations contained within the article and apologise for the damage and distress caused to NoFap and Mr Rhodes by the publication.
We acknowledge that what we published was wholly misleading and an inaccurate representation, both of the work undertaken by NoFap and Mr Rhodes, and of the defamation claim brought by Mr Rhodes against Dr Prause., and that neither Mr. Rhodes or NoFap have incited members of extremist hate groups to harass or threaten Dr Prause.
Mr Rhodes’ defamation claim against Dr Prause does not concern her research, but rather alleged defamatory attacks on Mr Rhodes and NoFap. The formal copy of the legal Complaint in that claim (issued in the US Federal Court) can be found here. We acknowledge that there was, and is, nothing misleading about the crowdfunding campaign associated with this litigation.
NoFap is a pornography recovery online platform which enables users to connect with a supportive community of individuals determined to reduce or eliminate pornography use and free themselves from compulsive sexual behaviours. Unlike many initiatives that have traditionally criticised pornography, Mr Rhodes’ website prides itself on being secular, apolitical, sex-positive, and science-based. We understand that it is used by men and women from all over the world, from a wide variety of backgrounds, religious and spiritual beliefs (or non-belief), sexual orientations and identities, ages, nationalities, ethnicities, and other characteristics.
We wish to apologise to Mr Rhodes, NoFap and our readers. and we have agreed to pay substantial damages to NoFap and Mr Rhodes together with legal costs in respect of the damage/distress caused by the article.
Scram Media Limited Sam Bright Kate Plummer
January 2020: Prause incites defamatory UK article in an effort to have Alex Rhodes’s “Donor Box” fundraising campaign removed
David Ley and RealYBOP team up to spread the factually-inaccurate hit-piece, with RealYBOP tagging DonorBox and its CEO (unconcerned about adding to Rhodes’s concurrent defamation suit against her):
In a legally perilous move RealYBOP retweets the defamatory SCRAM article:
Prause persuaded the outlet to print the falsehood that she had received death threats from members of the far-right after Rhodes’s crowdfunding campaign began. Hilariously, Prause began posting tweets making this phony claim 22 minutes before the campaign itself commenced. Its commencement was slightly delayed, and she impulsively jumped in based on the projected start time Rhodes had announced online.
So it was that Prause claimed the first death threats at 7:50 am, and yet another death threat a few minutes later (all before NoFap commenced its crowdfund):
Notice that Prause never provides screenshots of her claimed death threats. (She’s a serial fabricator.)
The SCRAM article contained other blatant, defamatory misinformation supplied by Prause as well. For example, it claimed Rhodes sued her because her “research was tantamount to defamation.” That’s absurd. Rhodes sued her because of her ongoing campaign of defamation and harassment of him and NoFap. None of his claims challenge her research (although many peer-reviewed papers have implied that she misinterpreted the significance of her research, and that her findings are consistent with the presence of addiction among her subjects).
She also claimed Rhodes engaged in “misogyny” and that Rhodes’s fans have tried to hack her Facebook and email, all with no support whatsoever. The SCRAM article stated that she “believes she is being stalked and that her [home] address has been posted online.”
The latter is especially difficult to take seriously, as she has publicly stated that she never posts her home address online. Prause herself has posted various fake addresses online, including an address she used for the malicious trademark application she filed in an illicit effort to grab the URL for this website! These addresses can readily be found. Save yourself a stamp, however, as any correspondence will be returned as undeliverable (as was YBOP’s attorney’s cease & desist letter for Prause’s trademark infringement).
SCRAM quotes Prause’s dismissive remarks about Rhodes’s suit, but did not ask Rhodes for his side of the story. Finally, SCRAM made the very dubious argument that because Prause claims she has no ties to the porn industry (despite images and other extensive evidence to the contrary), Rhodes’s Donor Box campaign to fund his lawsuit against Prause was fraudulent. Really?
On top of this blatant misuse of their journalistic pen, the SCRAM team deleted comments under the article when readers attempted to counter Prause’s/SCRAM’s untruthful and misleading statements with actual evidence.
So much for responsible journalism.
Shortly after the publication of the now deleted SCRAM article, and RealYBOP tweeting it, Alex Rhodes filed his amended complaint against Nicole Prause. In his new complaint the ScramNews article was added as a new incident of defamation:
March 3, 2020: Even though her RealYBOP Twitter account is now named in the Rhodes’s defamation suit, Prause trolled “The Doctors” to tweet Scram’s defamatory hit-piece under a picture of Alex Rhodes.
Once again, she thus revealed she was the perpetrator, not the victim.
On March 23, 2020 Alex Rhodes filed his opposition to Prause’s motion to dismiss. PDF’s of the 3 court filings:
Rhodes’s new filings contain more about Prause’s hand in the ScramNews hit-piece, including Rhodes hiring a UK law firm to sue ScramNews, and the 2 authors, for defamation.
Nicole Prause threatens CEO of DonorBox (Charles Zhang) with a small claims lawsuit for revealing her lies and behind the scenes harassment
As Zhang revealed in the following threads, Prause relentlessly harassed DonorBox with numerators emails containing lies and threats. She even filed a bogus report to the BBB. All in a failed attempt to take down Rhodes’s crowdfunding.
Charles Zhang May 24 thread starts by exposing the lies published by Scram:
This lawsuit was crazy because Alex is nowhere near right-wing much less far-right. He might even be on the left politically. @scramnews and @NicoleRPrause labeled him as aligned with anti-semitic, white supremacists.
.@scramnews deleted all their extortion petitions against Donorbox. Why? We didn’t sue them. I see they are trying to destroy evidence LOL. Of course we have loads of screenshots.
Prause then threatens Zhang. He tweets about it the next day:
After I included Nicole Prause on a total of TWO short, matter of transpirace tweets (vs 10+ emails she wrote to our company), she demands $10k and accused me of stalking her. (she didn’t block me prior). This is a pattern. She accuses ppl of stalking when we wanna stay far away. pic.twitter.com/rcdXbpXlta
The threats lead to Zhang creating a separate thread, where he tags YBOP:
Rhode vs Prause is a prime example of political tribalism as a weapon. 1. Rhodes who is a leftie creates a site to help with porn addiction. 2. Some right-wing users happen to like it. 3. Prause who is pro-porn makes it into a far-right issue. https://t.co/KINtHAL4P6
Hey I feel for you! I got the same demand, 10K, then she filed a bogus small claims suit against me in CA (I don't live or work there). My details here: https://t.co/8kpyuKbAts
On September 13, 2019 Prause filed 2 documents as part of a failed attempt to have Hilton’s defamation lawsuit dismissed. (She had previously filed numerous documents to dismiss Hilton’s case. These were “extras,” filed without the Court’s leave.)
A 12-page motion to dismiss focused only on a statute that does not apply in Federal Court (where she had had the case transferred) called SLAPP. This motion does not mention me (why would it?).
An 86-page tirade focused largely on Gary Wilson, and not at all on her actual Motion to Dismiss argument (SLAPP).
The 86-page collection of falsehoods and fairy tales contains 220 instances of “Wilson,” far more than the number of times Plaintiff Hilton’s name appears (the suit is between Hilton and Prause)! That’s right. The Hilton lawsuit has nothing to with me. Whether Gary Wilson is a saint or a serial killer has no bearing on Prause making false allegations to the Texas Medical Board, two journals, and the University of Texas San Antonio. The clear purpose of Prause’s irrelevant and defamatory 86-page rant is to create a document that may help to “legitimize” her victim-hood to the court, the public and the media.
Prause’s 86-page rant contains numerous lies by both David Ley and Prause. Both commit perjury throughout this declaration, spewing the same disproven lies that they have initiated and spread over the last 7 years. Nearly every assertion about me in the 86-page document has already been addressed and exposed as false or hopelessly misleading. See these extensive pages:
As documented, Prause has targeted others, including researchers, medical doctors, therapists, psychologists, colleagues from her fleeting stint at UCLA, a UK charity, men in recovery, a TIME magazine editor, several professors, IITAP, SASH, Fight The New Drug, Exodus Cry, 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. There are several additional victims whom we are not at liberty to divulge – as Prause’s victims fear further retribution.
Important point: While Prause continues to falsely claim she is “the victim,” it is Prause who initiated all contact and harassment towards the individuals and organizations listed on the above pages. Her fabricated claims about being a victim of “stalking” or misogyny from “anti-porn activists” lack one iota of objective evidence. All the evidence she provides is self-generated: a single info-graphic, a few emails from her to others describing supposed harassment, and spurious cease and desist letters containing false allegations. You will also see evidence of a number of formal complaints Prause has filed with various regulatory agencies – which have been summarily dismissed or investigated and dismissed. She seems to file these baseless complaints so she can then claim her targets are all “under investigation.”
Conflicts of interest (COI) are nothing new for David Ley. Lawyers pay him to “debunk” sex and porn addiction; he sells two books “debunking” sex and porn addiction; and he collects speaking fees for “debunking” sex and porn addiction. In his most blatant financial conflict of interest to date, Ley is being compensated by porn industry giant xHamster to promote its website (i.e. StripChat), and to convince users that porn addiction and sex addiction are myths. Ley claims to be telling xHamster customers what “medical studies truly say about porn, camming and sexuality.” Spreading the love around, Pornhub (owned by porn giant MindGeek) is one of the five back-cover endorsements listed for Ley’s 2016 book about porn “Ethical Porn for Dicks.”
In summary, Prause and Ley are very tight with the porn industry and have plenty of motivation to defame and harass anyone pointing out the possible harms of internet porn (and to commit perjury?). For much more documentation see: Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry?
Prause’s fabrications of victim-hood exposed as groundless: she is the perpetrator, not the victim
Prause’s 86-page rant contains virtually no evidence for any of her assertions. Mostly it’s just Prause and Ley declaring “truths,” while providing zero supporting evidence. The rare instances of “evidence” usually involve irrelevant screenshots or self-generated materials (like her false 2018 police report, which was ignored by the LAPD). Since many of the Prause and Ley assertions revolve around their mythology of being victimized by “anti-porn activists,” I debunk their fabrications below (and supply additional evidence under each specific claim):
1) Gary Wilson “physically stalked” Prause in Los Angeles.
Reality: I haven’t been in Los Angeles in years. Prause provides no documentation for this claim, which she initiated in April, 2013 (see below), and began publicizing in July, 2013 (a few days after I critiqued her EEG study). The only police report made public by Prause (April, 2018) says nothing about me stalking her; it didn’t report any crime. Instead, Prause me reported to the LAPD for attending a German conference, which Prause falsely claimed she wanted to attend (screenshot). It’s true that I traveled to Germany and attended the 2018 5th International Conference on Behavioral Addictions, which ran from April 23-25 (note that Prause filed her police report on April 25th), and features experts on behavioral addictions from all over the world. The untrue part is Prause’s claim that she ever had any intention of attending the ICBA conference in Germany. Prause has never attended or been invited to present at an ICBA conference. Prause doesn’t believe in behavioral addictions. Throughout her entire career, Prause has waged a war against the concept of behavioral addiction, especially sex and porn addiction. Prause thus filed a false police report.
Important to note that her false accusations of stalking began almost as soon as our paths crossed. In fact, she accused my wife and myself of stalking in an April, 2013 email exchange that occurred a few weeks after I published a response to David Ley’s Psychology Today blog post where Prause and he targeted my website: “Your Brain on Porn – It’s NOT Addictive.” Ley’s blog was about Nicole Prause’s unpublished, yet to be peer-reviewed EEG study (this was the first I had heard of Prause).
Prause initiated her only contact with me in 2 emails and a comment under my Psychology Today response. Simultaneously, she contacted Psychology Today editors, who forwarded her second email. The following 2 emails are from the end of our brief exchange (screenshots of Prause & Wilson’s entire email exchange):
As you can see, Prause is accusing us of stalking her, although all I did was respond to two emails she sent my way. This is where Prause’s fabricated “stalking” claims began.
Question: Did I drive 800 miles to Los Angeles on the same day I published my detailed critique to hover around UCLA, or did Prause initiate a fabricated campaign of being stalked on the day after my critique? Let’s go to trial and expose the truth.
2) Dr. Prause requires “armed guards at talks” because Gary Wilson has threatened to attend
3) Dr. Prause has filed numerous “police & FBI reports” on Gary Wilson
Reality: Starting in July, 2013 (a few days after I published a careful critique of Prause’s first EEG study), various usernames began posting defamatory comments wherever my name appeared. The comments were very similar in content and tone, falsely claiming that “Wilson has a police report filed on him,” “Wilson is charged with stalking a poor woman,” and “Wilson stole a woman’s pictures and placed them on a porn site,” and “Wilson has been reported to LAPD (which agrees that he’s dangerous) and the UCLA campus police.”
By 2016, as Prause was no longer employed by UCLA or any other institution that could rein in her cyber-harassment, she finally began to identify Gary Wilson as the “person” she had reported to the LAPD and the UCLA campus police. I haven’t been to LA in years. It’s almost 2020, and no law enforcement agency has ever contacted me. (Any harasser can file a fake police report.)
I presumed that Prause had, in fact, filed fraudulent, groundless reports (which were subsequently disregarded), but it turned out Prause was lying – again. In late 2017 a call to the Los Angeles Police Department and the UCLA campus police revealed no report in their systems on a “Gary Wilson,” nor any report filed by a “Nicole Prause.” I created this section to report my findings: Los Angeles Police Department and UCLA campus police confirm that Prause lied about filing police reports on Gary Wilson.
As chronicled above, I discovered in March of 2019 that Prause had finally filed a fraudulent police report on April 25, 2018. Note that I did not learn of this empty police report from the police. I learned of it a year later, when student journalists (and misinformed Prause devotees) publicly reproduced it online in a university newspaper. It has since been removed by University of Wisconsin authorities.
Prause’s LAPD report was categorized as “cyberstalking”, not physical stalking (I’ve done neither). She didn’t (dare) report any actual crime. Instead, Prause had reported me to the LAPD for:
attending a German conference, which Prause falsely claimed she wanted to attend (but didn’t dare because she claimed to be frightened of me). Important to note that Prause could not have known that I was planning to attend (and she filed her police report the day after the conference was over).
If I have been physically stalking her, why doesn’t any police report describe me as doing so? It’s simple: Prause is afraid of being arrested for knowingly filing a police report falsely accusing me of an actual crime.
In 2019, Diana Davison became the first journalist to do an investigation into Prause’s claims of victim-hood. During their week of communications Prause was unable to provide any evidence other than Prause’s silly LAPD of me attending a German conference Prause lied about wanting to attend. Davison’s expose’ is here: The Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause. Diana Davison also produced this 6-minute video about Prause’s fake victim-hood and the defamation lawsuits filed against Prause.
Reality: No such order exists. Prause is trying to trick the public into believing that a court has formally sanctioned me, i.e., that she has obtained a restraining order or an injunction. She hasn’t. But that doesn’t stop her from publicly and falsely accusing me and other victims of her malice of “violating no contact orders” and of “harassment.” The clear, and clearly false, implication of her statements is to suggest I and others are acting illegally. Her aggressive tactics and knowingly false accusations are calculated to bully and intimidate the victims of her online cyber-harassment into fear and silence. Two defamation suits have been filed against her. Enough said.
I have only responded to a handful of Prause’s defamatory online attacks, ignoring countless “contacts” from her. For example, in a single 24-hr period Prause posted 10 Quora comments about me – which resulted in her permanent suspension. In another example Prause (using RealYBOP Twitter) posted over 120 tweets about me in a 4-day period (PDF of tweets). A few examples of Prause initiating harassment and defamation followed by claiming victim-hood and ending with claims about her fictitious “no-contact orders”:
5) Gary Wilson has employed misogynistic language to denigrate Dr. Prause
Reality: Absolutely false. Prause and Ley provide only a solitary non-example. I accidentally typed “Miss” Prause in a reply to Dr. Prause asking about the size of my penis. That’s the extent of her evidence of my supposed misogyny. Not kidding.
Link to my full answer. Portion of my comment where I used “Miss” Prause:
Prause is certainly being sexist when she demands details about the size of my penis. Nevertheless, she has transformed my inadvertently typing “Miss” in my reply to her questions about my manhood into part of her never ending baseless campaign to paint me and others as misogynists. In this section are just a few examples of how Prause has weaponized her bizarre interest in my penis size and my response.
Over the last few years, Dr. Prause appears to have taken great pains to position herself as a “woman being subjected to misogynistic oppression when she tells truth to power.” She frequently tweets the following infographic that she apparently also shares at her public lectures, suggesting she is being victimized “as a woman scientist,” and painting herself as a trailblazer forging ahead to prove porn’s harmlessness despite prejudiced attacks.
It accuses me, my wife, Don Hilton MD, and nofap founder Alexander Rhodes of misogyny with utterly unconvincing “evidence.” Any suggestion that I (or my wife), Hilton, or Rhodes are motivated by misogyny is fabricated, as our objections have nothing to do with Dr. Prause as a person or as a woman, and only to do with her untrue statements and inadequately supported claims about her research.
Put simply, anyone who exposes Prause’s falsehoods or misrepresentations of the research is automatically labeled “a misogynist,” in hopes that gullible people might believe her defamatory statements. She does this to shut down actual debate on Twitter and other social media platforms, to prevent her falsehoods from being exposed.
It’s ironic that her info-graphic contains four instances of misogyny taken from anonymous YouTube comments under her TEDx talk. In 2013, TED closed comments under Gary Wilson’s TEDx talk in response to Nicole Prause’s many hateful and defamatory comments (see this section).
Prause & Ley’s 86-page diatribe (filed in Dr. Hilton’s defamation suit against Dr. Prause) includes claims of misogyny, yet fails to provide a single documented instance of misogyny by Don Hilton or any of the 9 people who filed sworn affidavits.
I look forward to the Hilton defamation lawsuit going to a jury trial, and to being on the stand to present evidence. I especially look forward to Prause and Ley being forced to provide actual evidence or documentation, rather than the few pieces self-generated “evidence” found her 86-page defamatory rant. I look forward to their cross examination.
Below are excerpts from the 86-page diatribe that refer to me (in maroon). For each Prause or Ley assertion I point out their lies (perjury), expose their so-called evidence (or lack thereof), and provide the truth.
PRAUSE: “Hilton and Stalker Gary Wilson insisting to reporter Prause attended porn awards she did not attend”
Context: 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)).
Chad Sokol and my email: This brings us to reporter Chad Sokol and his biased article about a February 23, 2019 conference on the harms of porn held at Gonzaga University. In his interviews with some of the presenters (such as Don Hilton) it became apparent that Sokol had already spoken with David Ley and Nicole Prause (and Prause co-author Cameron Staley). Sokol was clearly on the side of the latter and had been prepared with Prause-generated materials and talking points.
In conversations with Hilton, Sokol parroted Prause, suggesting that Hilton’s religious faith skewed his views, making him biased. If bias (not the research) was Sokol’s primary concern, Hilton wondered if Sokol might be willing to examine evidence of Prause and Ley’s biases. This resulted in Sokol receiving evidence of Prause’s pro-porn biases: this page – Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry? – and this email from me to Don Hilton (which was forwarded to Sokol, who forwarded it to Prause): Email from Gary Wilson to Donald Hilton, which was forwarded to reporter Chad Sokol (2/21/2019). The screenshots in my email reveal that Prause:
Prause’s false account from her Motion to Dismiss:
PRAUSE: In February 2019, I received calls and emails from Chad Sokol, a reporter with the Spokesman-Review in Spokane, WA, asking me to comment on statements that Dr. Hilton had made to Sokol for a potential news article in this publication. According to Sokol, Dr. Hilton had stated that I had attended the Adult Video News Awards. Sokol also forwarded a photograph, which he stated Dr. Hilton proved I was at the Adult Industry News awards. I informed Sokol that I have never attended the Adult Video Awards. I informed Mr. Sokol that the photograph was actually taken at the premier of the documentary film “After Porn Ends 2”
Actually, it was not an AVN award ceremony, but rather an X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) award ceremony. Prause lied when she stated that the following photograph was “actually taken at the premier of the documentary film After Porn Ends 2.“ It is a screenshot of the June 22, 2016 tweet: X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) awards ceremony (notice XRCO on the backdrop):
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.
If there’s any doubt, this page on XBIZ announced the 2016 XRCO Awards Winners. There was no category for documentaries, nor for any non-porn film. Put simply, “After Porn Ends 2” would not have been up for any award even it had been released. It had not. “After Porn Ends 2” wasn’t released until nearly a year later on March 28, 2017. Check out AVN’s coverage of the “After Porn Ends 2” screening on March 23, 2017. Prause is also featured in a few photos, none of which were sent to Chad Sokol (and weren’t on YBOP at the time of the Chad Sokol email):
Prause perjured herself.
What about Prause’s claim that she never attended AVN? In a June, 2015 tweet Prause describes hearing Jeanne Silver’s (a porn star) story “at AVN” (we could assume the Adult Video News Awards):
Is Prause lying in the above tweet or lying in her affidavit?
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.” 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.
Prause is caught in yet another falsehood. Cross-examination on this one should be illuminating.
Even though Hilton’s contention is that Prause attended porn-industry awards (XRCO), or tweeted she had attended (2015 AVN), or might attend (2019 AVN), Prause has now enlisted porn-industry allies to debunk her straw man/false claim that Hilton said she is financially supported by the porn industry (he never said that). On November, 24, 2019 she tweeted the following:
It’s fascinating that major players in the porn industry are at her beck and call. Yet, what does this have to do with Hilton’s lawsuit or his statements that Prause attended the 2016 XRCO awards? Nothing. Nevertheless, Prause obtained a rather humorous email from Bob and XRCO. Prause’s tweet (from a string of unhinged tweets threatening The Post Millennial):
Oops. Bob said Prause attended the 2016 XRCO awards (the photo sent to Chad Sokol). Prause caught herself committing perjury.
In the same thread where she lobbed threats, Prause tweeted an email from the folks at AVN:
How does the AVN email “prove” Prause never attended AVN? It says “I have no record of who may have purchased tickets to either show.”
So AVN has “no record of who purchased tickets,” and we have Prause tweeting that she heard Jeanne’s story at AVN. Does this remind you of a dog chasing its tail?
PRAUSE:15. When I became aware of Hilton’s communications with journalist Chad Sokol, I learned that Hilton was working with Gary Wilson. Although Hilton claims he does not follow me on social media, it appears that Hilton obtained the photographs that from Gary Wilson. A reverse Google image search shows the exact images provided in this lawsuit were provided by Gary Wilson from his website yourbrainonporn.com. In his statement, Hilton admits that he obtained my old tweets from Wilson. Wilson also posts extensive false claims that I am in pornography. For example, Wilson falsely claims, that I write for a pornographic website hosted by Mike South, whom I actually do not know. See South Email Correspondence, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(L).
Prause simply lies when she asserts that Gary Wilson said she works in porn or has appeared in porn.
PRAUSE: “Wilson also posts extensive false claims that I am in pornography.”
No evidence provided by Prause. Exhibit L is a two-sentence irrelevant email from Chad Sokol.
In fact, all four assertions in the following 2015 C&D letter are false (Prause provided no documentation to support these claims):
I wrote the following letter asking both Prause and her lawyer to provide evidence to support their allegations:
In the intervening 4+ years neither Prause nor the lawyer has responded. Neither has provided any evidence to support Prause’s allegations – because the allegations are fabricated. Prause’s legal filings repeat this false claim, yet provide zero examples of Hilton or me saying she works “in porn.” As for what I actually say about Prause’s very cozy relationship with the porn industry, see Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry? The page has a section addressing this particular lie: Falsely accusing others of saying the porn industry funds some of her research. Moreover, YBOP explicitly states the following:
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 existed. 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.
Second, here’s Prause assertion and related falsehoods/spin:
PRAUSE: “For example, Wilson falsely claims, that I write for a pornographic website hosted by Mike South, whom I actually do not know. See South Email Correspondence, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(L).”
Typical Prause: she is attempting to turn her cyber-stalking and defamation into victim-hood. I never said that Prause “[wrote] for a pornographic website.” I stated, factually, that Prause placed a defamatory article on Mike South’s website (March 5th, 2018). I stand by my claim. The entire story of Prause obtaining my redacted Southern Oregon University employment records, lying that I was fired, and placing my records (along with her lies) on Twitter, Quora and Mike South’s adult industry website is chronicled here: Nicole Prause & David Ley libelous claim that Gary Wilson was fired from Southern Oregon University.
Prause omits a few outcomes of her defamatory rampage:
Prause’s “evidence” is a solicited email from porn producer Mike South (it contains false information):
The first falsehood is Mike South claiming in July, 2019 that he has never heard of Prause. How can that be when he published her article and tweeted it in March of 2018?
Second falsehood (besides Prause lying about me stalking her) is Prause claiming on July 25, 2019 that I am suing her. I may do so, but I haven’t yet.
Highly unlikely: Prause (not South) claims that the Mike South article was a re-post of her libelous Quora post (the one that got her ultimately banned). She’s claiming that South magically bumped into her Quora post (yeah right). South’s article was posted soon after the Quora mods deleted my employment records and hide Prause’s defamatory post on March 5th.
In addition, the Quora post Mike South supposedly relied on was authored by “VOICE FOR REASON,” whose only Mike South post is the one about me. Moreover, the Mike South article begins with Prause-generated propaganda, not found in her Quora post.
Nicole Prause, Ph.D is an American neuroscientist researching human sexual behavior, addiction, and the physiology of sexual response, as well as a licensed psychologist. In 2013, Prause co-authored a renowned study into the neurophysiology of pornography addiction which concluded that hypersexuality might be better understood as a “non-pathological variation of high sexual desire,” rather than an addiction.
The outspoken Prause and her research have been targeted by Mormon-funded anti-porn groups.
Finally, we have David Ley crowing about (and Prause retweeting it) the Mike South article on social media (how could they both know about it, unless they collaborated with South):
I stand by my claim that Prause was involved in having her defamatory article and my redacted SOU employment records placed on Mike South’s website. In fact, Mike South promptly removed the defamatory article. Let’s see if South is willing to testify, under oath, at Hilton’s defamation trial.
PRAUSE:16. “By working with Wilson and claiming that I am involved in the pornography industry, Hilton knew or should have known that I have been forced to file multiple complaints against Gary Wilson for stalking, harassment, computer intrusion, and criminal threats since 2013. These reports to law enforcement were publicly available, as Gary Wilson posted them on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com, to which Hilton contributes. Although Wilson claims that these reports do not exist and were never filed, I have obtained the reports directly from the FBI. See Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Response for Records of Reports against Gary Wilson and Alexander Rhodes, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(M). Hilton and Wilson also have written and presented together in their anti-pornography activism. Hilton’s collaboration with Wilson, who has physically stalked, cyber stalked and harassed me in the past, caused me to fear that Hilton also intended to harass me further and was supporting Gary Wilson’s escalating behaviors.”
Only evidence provided – a picture of a CD. Not kidding.
Most of the above assertions and lies are addressed in the introduction section and the next section. Since Prause rehashes these very same falsehoods repeatedly throughout her court filing (below), I’ll provide a quick refutation for each:
PRAUSE: “By working with Wilson and claiming that I am involved in the pornography industry, Hilton knew or should have known that I have been forced to file multiple complaints against Gary Wilson for stalking, harassment, computer intrusion, and criminal threats since 2013.”
Prause provides no evidence to suggest that Hilton said she is “involved in the porn industry,” because Hilton has not said this. As for claiming to have filed “multiple complaints against Gary Wilson for stalking, harassment, computer intrusion, and criminal threats,” Prause provides no documentation, only a screen of a CD (huh?):
If Prause has actual police or FBI reports why doesn’t she produce them? Simple: she is either lying about having filed the reports or she is afraid that we will report her to authorities for filing false police reports.
Prause’s supposed reports were addressed in the intro and in the next section. As stated elsewhere, I have never been contacted by any law enforcement agency, and a call in late 2017 to the Los Angeles police and the UCLA campus police revealed no such report in their systems. An FOIA request with the FBI revealed that Prause lied about reporting me (PDF of FOIA request). As a result, I followed the FBI’s advice and reported her to the FBI in December, 2018 (PDF- FBI report on Prause).
PRAUSE: “These reports to law enforcement were publicly available, as Gary Wilson posted them on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com, to which Hilton contributes.”
No evidence provided by Prause. Reports to law enforcement are not publicly available.
Prause is lying, as her claimed police and FBI reports are not publicly available. Only the person who files a police report can obtain it. As chronicled above, I discovered in March of 2019 that Prause had finally filed a fraudulent police report on April 25, 2018 (because it appeared in a student newspaper and was removed in 2 days). Her bogus report didn’t (dare) report any actual crime. Instead, Prause had reported me to the LAPD for attending a German conference, which Prause falsely claimed she had wanted to attend (but didn’t dare because she was purportedly frightened of me). If indeed I have been physically stalking Prause, why isn’t there a police report describing me as doing so? Why didn’t Prause provide copies of the alleged reports in her 86-page diatribe? It’s simple: Prause is afraid of being arrested for knowingly filing a police report falsely accusing me of an actual crime.
As for Don Hilton contributing to www.yourbrainonporn.com, he does not. While YBOP contains a few papers or blog posts by Dr. Hilton, it contains many more articles by Dr. Prause. Does this mean Prause is a YBOP contributor? Hardly.
PRAUSE: “Although Wilson claims that these reports do not exist and were never filed, I have obtained the reports directly from the FBI. See Freedom of Information/Privacy Act Response for Records of Reports against Gary Wilson and Alexander Rhodes, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(M).”
All we have is a picture of a CD (above). Why won’t Prause provide the claimed reports?
PRAUSE: “Hilton and Wilson also have written and presented together in their anti-pornography activism. Hilton’s collaboration with Wilson, who has physically stalked, cyber stalked and harassed me in the past, caused me to fear that Hilton also intended to harass me further and was supporting Gary Wilson’s escalating behaviors.”
No evidence provided by Prause.
Prause’s legal “strategy” is to fabricate victim-hood, so as to avoid discussing the merits of Hilton’s defamation claims. What is true: Hilton and I collaborated with other experts in this field to respond to two Salt Lake Tribune op-eds.
After these comments Prause harassed, defamed and threatened Diana Davison (even sending Davison and The Post Millennial a bogus cease & desist letter). [PDF].
A few Diana Davison tweets in response to Prause’s unhinged and threatening tweets:
Why does Twitter allow people who have blocked you to reply to tweets? I've got some nutter (Nicole Prause) falsely accusing me (surprise, surprise) and other people have to tell me what's going on.
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.
So I've just been threatened with a bogus lawsuit for saying things that are provably true. Interesting. For the person issuing this threat: I have an LA lawyer and you'll be hearing from him if you persist in this attempt at silencing my speech.
To be honest, I kind of feel like I should have an affidavit of being bullied in the lawsuits now. Just got a notice that Prause had my timeline documentation removed from the website that allowed me to track her nefarious activities.
PRAUSE:17. Wilson has a documented history of stalking me. As a result, I qualified for California’s Safe at Home Program, and solicited a no-contact order against Wilson. Wilson has filed complaints with UCLA regarding me, which UCLA investigated and rejected as false. I have also filed a cyberstalking report with the FBI against Wilson. A chronology of these events is as follows:
No evidence provided by Prause. A garbage pile of fabricated fake victim-hood by the actual perpetrator, Prause.
Again, these are unsupported claims. As exposed in the introductory section (Prause’s fabrications of victim-hood), Prause provides zero evidence to support her stalking claims. As explained in that section:
Prause’s “no-contact order” is pure fiction: I have never initiated contact with Prause, yet Prause has contacted me hundreds of time on social media (more below).
Our complaint to UCLA was factually accurate and justified (much more on UCLA below). Reality? UCLA did not renew Prause’s contract (late 2014, early 2015). This coincided with Prause harassing and defaming UCLA colleague Rory Reid (Dr. Reid is still at UCLA).
I’m really looking forward to a jury trial, testifying under oath to Prause’s litany of falsehoods. Even more, I’m looking forward to Prause being cross-examined and exposed as the perpetrator, not the victim.
PRAUSE: A chronology of these events is as follows:
In each section below I expose Prause’s lies, fabrications, tall-tales and so-called “evidence” (usually no evidence). In doing so I provide documentation that reveals Prause as the harasser and stalker. While a few Prause’s claims may be technically accurate (she asked for security guards at a talk, or someone tried to break into her home), to my knowledge, they are nothing more than Prause fairy-tales of faux victim-hood.
PRAUSE: a.April 12, 2013. Following a barrage of emails from Gary Wilson, I instructed him to never contact me again. He has violated this no-contact order at least 50 times.
No evidence provided by Prause. No such order exist, and there was no email barrage. Prause is trying to trick the public into believing that a court has formally sanctioned me, i.e., that she has obtained a restraining order or an injunction. She hasn’t.
Fabricated “no-contact” orders? While claiming she has obtained a fictitious “no-contact order,” Prause has concurrently posted derogatory comments about me hundreds of times on Twitter, Facebook and Quora (page 1, page 2). In addition, Prause has employed over 100 aliases over the years to defame me and others. She has also employed alias email accounts to spread lies about me. Here I provide examples of aliases Prause has employed to harass, disparage, defame, troll (I am unable to link to the numerous other aliases, such as dozens on Psychology Today, and elsewhere):
Answer: Prause is not afraid because she is the perpetrator, not the victim. The defamation lawsuits will expose this, and so much more.
PRAUSE: b.July 3, 2013. Psychology Today editor Lybi Ma instructed Wilson and his wife Marnia Robinson to stop posting false information about me on their Psychology Today column. Wilson and Robinson posted another defamatory column, so Lybi Ma permanently cancelled their Psychology Today column due to their harassment and libel.
No evidence provided by Prause.
Reality: On March 6th, 2013 David Ley and 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 had nothing to do with Your Brain on Porn (my website). Prause and Ley were targeting me. Instead, David Ley’s March, 2013 blog post was about Nicole Prause’s unpublished, still to be peer-reviewed EEG study – Steele et al., 2013.
It’s important to note that only Ley received access to Prause’s unpublished study (it was published 5 months later). The blog post linked to Wilson’s ‘Your Brain on Porn’ website, and suggested that YBOP was in favor of banning porn (untrue). I published a Psychology Today blog post responding to the content in the David Ley post. You can find the original Ley and Wilson blog posts archived here. It’s important to note that my blog post clearly states it was only responding to Ley’s description of the Prause study. 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 provided her unpublished study to anyone else.
The day Steele et al., 2013 and its extensive associated press went public, Ley re-published his blog post. Ley changed the date of his blog post to July 25 2013. Later Nicole Prause would falsely accuse me of misrepresenting her study. In reality, it was Prause who misrepresented her EEG study, falsely claiming that it debunked porn/sex addiction. In the intervening years, eight peer-reviewed critiques of Prause’s EEG study have been published: all 8 agree with my 2013 critique – that Prause’s actual findings support the porn addiction model.
With Prause making numerous threats, and pressure coming from her many allies, Psychology Today did cancel our blog in November of 2013, with no reason given. Lybi Ma had actually liked our posts and Prause never provided a single example of libel in our blog post about Steele et al. That said, Lybi Ma had been telling us for 3 years that she was receiving tremendous pressure about our porn-related blog posts (many are here). In fact, our tenuous position (taking on the porn industry and pro-porn sexologists) was public knowledge. RealYBOP member (and close Prause friend), Jason Winters wrote in 2012 blog post that “Wilson and Robinson were in trouble at PT.”
At the same time that Prause was threatening me and Psychology Today, she forced Psychology Today to remove this second critique of Steele et al., 2013: Misinformed Media Touts Bogus Sex Addiction Study (2013), by Robert Weiss, LCSW & Stefanie Carnes PhD.
PRAUSE:c.July 22, 2013. Gary Wilson created a Google map from his home address in Ashland, Oregon to drive to my laboratory at UCLA. I contacted police (incident #2013-047636) at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). I alerted all of my staff with Wilson’s photo by email to immediately call police if they saw him. I closed the lab for two weeks, instructing my research assistants to work remotely,
No evidence provided by NP. There’s no evidence because she is lying.
I never “created a google map,” and if I had, how would Prause know? Did she hack my computer? Because that’s the only way she could have accessed a “Google map.” Prause worked at UCLA (not the CIA) and her address, office number, phone number and email were available on the UCLA website – as if anyone cares.
While Prause claims to have “closed her lab and sent her assistants home,” she provides no documentation of this alleged occurrence. We seriously question the existence of a Prause only “lab” with paid research assistants at her beckon call. In reality, her “lab” was probably only her office, located in a very large building on the UCLA campus. Her claimed “research assistants” (who were sent home for 2 weeks) are probably just grad students who may occasionally check in with Prause or other researchers (not paid staff in an actual lab).
As elsewhere, Prause provides a case number, yet fails to provide a copy of her claimed incident report. While any harasser can file a fraudulent police report, a 2017 a call to the LAPD and the UCLA campus police revealed no report in their systems on a “Gary Wilson,” nor any report filed by a “Nicole Prause.” If Prause had filed a report, it was ignored by UCLA.
claimed to have filed a police report on me (there’s no evidence she did)
All in a day’s work, and designed to punish critics (hoping to inhibit further criticism) and to create a fabricated trail of victim-hood.
PRAUSE: e. July 24, 2013-August 3, 2013. Wilson posted a private photograph of me on his website that required three DMCA notices to have removed, as he kept migrating the image each time it was legally removed.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause falsehoods: 1) The picture of Prause wasn’t a private photo, as it was on a UCLA-designated website, 2) I did not migrate the image anywhere.
Here’s the reality: I wrote this Psychology Today blog post about this Nicole Prause Psychology Today interview (which contains a picture of Prause). Psychology Todayrequired at least one picture (all of my Psychology Today articles contained pictures). Since this blog post was about Nicole Prause’s interview and her EEG study (Steele et al., 2o13), it seemed appropriate to use a picture of Prause from what purported to be a UCLA website. The picture that accompanied my Psychology Today blog post was also used with this same article on YBOP.
The photo of Prause came from what I reasonably assumed was a UCLA website – SPAN Lab – and it was apparently the photo Prause had chosen to represent herself. Everything about SPAN Lab’s website gave the impression it was owned and run by UCLA. At the bottom each SPAN Lab page was the following:
Note: Prause has forbidden the “Internet WayBack Machine” from showing SPAN Lab’s archive pages, so as to conceal this fact. A screenshot of the SPAN Lab front page from August, 2013:
It is still unclear how Prause could claim copyright of a photo that was on a website that claimed its copyright was owned by UCLA. UCLA is a California state school answering to taxpayers. Presumably, its images are public. Many months later when I wrote UCLA concerning Prause’s libelous PDF, UCLA stated that SPAN Lab was Prause’s site, and not on UCLA servers(!). Why did Prause misrepresent her website as being owned by UCLA? That was the first time I learned this. Undisputed fact: Prause never contacted me to request that her picture be removed from the blog post. I knew nothing until Prause filed a DMCA request, and I found the picture missing from the article critiquing Prause’s interview and study.
So, that’s the “stolen photo’s” claim: A single picture, selected by Prause herself, from (what appeared to be) a UCLA website (but turned out to be misrepresented by Prause as a UCLA website), was used in an article about a study published and promoted by UCLA & Nicole Prause. The “porn site” was YourBrainOnPorn, a claim that is laughable, as YBOP is a porn recovery support website without X-rated content.
Addendum: In 2016, Prause falsely claimed in an AmazonAWS PDF that I migrated the picture of Prause (and the associated article) to other servers. This is completely false. The picture of Prause accompanied a single critique that appeared on two separate websites, PornStudySkeptics and YourBrainOnPorn.com. These two identical articles have remained on those two websites since July, 2013: Article 1, Article 2. In her PDF, Prause also claims that [my] ISP told [me] that they would “close his website if he did it a fourth time.” This is fabricated nonsense.
Most of these comments falsely claimed that I “stole” and placed Prause’s picture on a pornographic website.
Prause never contacted me about the picture.
Prause filed a DMCA take down about her picture, taken from a public website labeled “copyright UCLA,” which forced the company hosting YBOP to remove the picture without first contacting me.
Similar groundless comments continue to be posted to this day by Prause sockpuppets, and by Prause, on her Twitter, Quora, and Facebook accounts. The comments are often identical to the July, 2013 “anonymous” comments.
PRAUSE: d.July 30, 2013. Gary Wilson and his wife sent nearly 100-page complaint about me to UCLA. UCLA was unable to verify any of their claims and dismissed it.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is lying.
While we wrote UCLA on July 22, 2013 concerning Prause’s harassment, threats and removal of our Psychology Today blog post, our email was only 2 pages long. More importantly, our email was factually accurate and justified (it is reproduced below).
NOTE: The links in the email further explain Prause’s threats & harassment, her misrepresentation of Steele’s actual findings, and her playing games with the correlation between “sexual desire” and EGG readings. In short, Prause’s carefully orchestrated PR campaign resulted in worldwide media coverage with all the headlines misleadingly claiming that sex addiction had been debunked. In TV interviews and in the UCLA press release Nicole Prause made two wholly unsupported claim 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 claimed. What Steele et al., 2013 actually stated as its “brain findings”:
“the P300 mean amplitude for the pleasant–sexual condition was more positive than the unpleasant, and pleasant–non-sexual conditions”
Translation: First, 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. Second, here’s 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 negatively related to measures of sexual desire, but not related to measures of hypersexuality.”
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 addiction, indicating both sensitization and desensitization. Eight peer-reviewed papers subsequently exposed expose the truth: Peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013.
More about Prause’s brief UCLA stint. While Prause claims that she was compelled to leave a dream job at UCLA to pursue “groundbreaking research,” certain facts cannot be denied:
I urge the court to investigate the actual events surrounding Prause’s departure from UCLA, her harassment of Rory Reid, and any legal threats made by Prause towards UCLA.
PRAUSE: f. July 30, 2013. I filed a cyberstalking report with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding Gary Wilson. See Exhibit 1(M).
PRAUSE: g. October 18, 2013. Gary Wilson and his wife Marnia Robinson sent another complaint to UCLA claiming that I fabricated my data and was harassing them. The university found this complaint was false and responded to Wilson and his wife Robinson that was the case on November 8, 2013.
No evidence provided by NP. Once again, Prause has the letter in question, yet won’t cough it up because it will expose her as lying. Two lies by Prause:
Our email to UCLA was sent on December 2, 2013.
We never said that Prause “fabricated her data” (though she did misrepresent the findings of Steele et al., 2013).
Back story: In November 2013, Nicole Prause placed a PDF on her SPAN Lab website attacking Gary Wilson (screenshot below). It contained several instances of libel. The PDF’s contents are very similar to hundreds of other comments that were posted by various usernames. Posts were written by GaryWilson Stalker, GaryWilson IsAFraud and other sock puppets, apparently Prause’s. If there was ever any doubt as to who was actually behind these comments, the PDF puts an end to it. Its URL was – http://www.span-lab.com/WilsonIsAFraud.pdf.
How did I discover the above PDF? My Internet browser was redirected to the PDF when I visited the SPAN lab website (misrepresenting itself as a UCLA website). Knowing my IP address, Prause made a habit of redirecting my Internet browser to other URLs, such as porn sites or pictures of mutilated penises. This started before the PDF appeared, and continued after the PDF was removed. Also, two PDFs containing material nearly identical to Prause’s libelous PDF were uploaded onto DocStoc a few days after I published his critique of Prause’s 2013 EEG study:
I contacted UCLA to report the PDF’s defamatory statements, believing SPAN Lab was a UCLA website (at the time, SPAN Lab’s copyright was wrongly designated, by Prause, as “UCLA” and its address was within a UCLA building).
I did not hear from UCLA, so I sent a short follow-up email pointing out that the PDF remained on SPAN Lab’s website.
On March 4, 2014, UCLA acknowledged the existence of the PDF, and its subsequent removal in a letter. The CYA reply by UCLA:
UCLA’s March 2014 reply was the first indication that the SPAN Lab was really a Prause owned and maintained site. UCLA’s “bafflement” as to who might have uploaded the libelous PDF is a brilliant ass-covering response by a public institution faced with a litigious, vindictive, and soon-to-be ex-employee. Note: The SPAN Lab website was never migrated to UCLA servers.
PRAUSE: h. December 2L 2013. Gary Wilson and his wife Marnia Robinson sent yet another complaint to UCLA with false claims. UCLA also dismissed these false claims on March 4, 2014 after repeated contact by Wilson demanding “answers”.
No evidence provided by NP. See preceding sections.
As with our initial July 2013 letter, Prause fails to provide a copy of our December, 2013 letter. She knows doing so would expose her as perjuring herself.
PRAUSE: i. December 16, 2013. I filed a cyberstalking report with the FBI regarding Gary Wilson due to his increasing violations of my no-contact request and harassment with UCLA. See Exhibit 1(M).
No evidence provided by NP. Only a 2019 picture of someone holding a CD. Already debunked in a preceding section. As explained in previous sections:
I am not subject to any “no contact order.” Only courts and regulatory bodies issue “orders,” as that word is commonly understood, and only then after giving both parties the chance to be heard. This has never occurred, although I would have welcomed it.
As for initiating “contact,” Prause has mentioned me hundreds of times on social media. Her many aliases have also directly “contacted,” harassed and defamed me on multiple platforms.
More lies by Prause (the link is dead). Gnostic Media is not a “white-supremacist” or antisemitic podcast, and its host Jan Irvin is not a white supremacist or antisemitic. To the contrary, Jan Irvin was a regular guest on the Joe Rogan experience, and has been recently attacked for being a “shill for the Jews.” Regardless of Jan Irvin’s beliefs in 2014, or his current beliefs, Irvin and I discussed only the effects of internet pornography. A link to the 2014 podcast: https://logosmedia.com/2014/01/.
It’s true that that 2014 Jan Irvin (Gnostic Media) interview was posted on the now-defunct Daily Stormer website, but so were countless other articles, videos, and podcasts that had nothing to do race, religion, or white supremacy. Importantly, anyone (including those endeavoring to fuel a smear campaign) could have posted Irvin’s podcast on The Daily Stormer, and then mischaracterized it – just as anyone can post anything on Reddit or Quora.
Important to note: because Jan Irvin is not a white supremacist or antisemitic, none of his other podcasts ever made it on to the Daily Stormer website. We have long suspected that Prause herself may have posted my podcasts on white-supremacist forums (even though my podcasts have nothing to with race or politics and the hosts are not white supremacists).
Note: The entire original Daily Stormer site was taken down (along with the Jan Irvin podcast I did). But as soon as its successor site appeared, my podcast was mysteriously re-posted, and news of its presence was tweeted by Prause’s biggest fans and an account that regularly joins her in cyberstalking me: @sexualsocialist.
It was clear that Prause created the above screenshot as @sexualsocialist would not know about its existence, and the YourBrainOnPorn UK trademark was provided to Prause’s lawyers in my trademark infringement case. Moreover, Prause has been falsely claiming for over 3 years that I am paid by The Reward Foundation. It’s no coincidence that PornHub, Prause’s regular account and David Ley all liked the defamatory tweet (PornHub’s was the first Twitter account to tweet about RealYBOp’s new Twitter account and website when it appeared):
Since @sexualsocialist “found it” RealYBOP & Prause have tweeted this screenshot dozens of times.
The truth: I am, in fact, a far left liberal and the very antithesis of a white supremacist. I abhor, and condemn, such views. I spent my adolescence living in a predominantly black neighborhood and two of my close relatives are married to African Americans. For my account of the truth, listen to this interview: Porn Science and Science Deniers (Interview with Wilson).
A second truth: For over 3 years Prause and David Ley (and colleagues) have been waging a disgusting smear campaign to falsely paint Alex Rhodes and me as white supremacists or anti-Semites. One of the reasons Alex Rhodes is now suing Prause for defamation is that she falsely accused Alex of being a supporter of white supremacists and anti-Semites. On the following pages I have documented Ley and Prause’s revolting history of posting fabricated evidence to connect me, Alex, Gabe Deem and other targets, to white supremacy and antisemitism. These extensive sections contain over 100 instances of Prause, Ley, RealYBOP and their Twitter cronies cyberstalking Gabe, Alex and me with false accusation of being white supremacists/Nazis.
Rather than painting me as a white supremacist, Prause’s numerous libelous claims that I am a white supremacist (using only fabricated “non-evidence)” expose her and David Ley as serial cyberstalkers, harassers and smear campaigners.
PRAUSE: k. September 24, 2015. Following further escalation of unwanted contact, I filed a protective order against Gary Wilson in Oregon. The Oregon courts stated that it needed to be filed in Los Angeles. I was concerned that Wilson would use that appearance to discover my home address, and declined to move the filing to Los Angeles.
No evidence provided by NP. As with nearly every other claim by Prause, she cannot provide documents that should be in her possession – such as a “protective order” filed in Oregon. Funny how the Oregon courts never informed me of this supposed order. Prause was “concerned,” because she would have to provide evidence of my stalking her when she has none.
PRAUSE:l.October 15, 2015. I hired an attorney, Jed White, JD, to send a cease and desist letter to Gary Wilson and his wife Marnia Robinson to stop their defamation and to stop contacting me. See Cease and Desist Correspondence, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(N).
Context: Prause has a history of sending spurious cease and desist (C&D) letters to people who question her unsupported assertions. She claims to have sent (at least) seven such letters, which she has repeatedly, maliciously mischaracterized on social media as “no contact orders.” Only courts and regulatory bodies issue “orders,” as that word is commonly understood, and only then after giving both parties the chance to be heard. Prause’s C&D letters to anyone who questions her come from her lawyer, not a judge, and seem expressly intended to stifle criticism and honest debate. She then uses them to send to journalists and producers as “fact” to discourage them from hosting or quoting her critics.
Worse, on the basis of merely sending these unsubstantiated letters, Prause insists she has the legal right to prevent anyone who has received such a letter from defending against, or replying to, her demeaning online statements about them or others – even if they simply wish to supply evidence that counters her untrue statements. When those letter-recipients try to speak out, she publicly and falsely accuses them of “violating no contact orders” and of “harassment.” The clear, and clearly false, implication of her statements is to suggest these people are acting illegally. Her aggressive tactics and knowingly false accusations appear calculated to bully and intimidate her detractors into silence.
Finally, the recipients of the various C&D letters report that Prause’s lists of wrongdoings were manufactured lies. Anyone can pay an internet-based lawyer, or any lawyer of questionable ethics, to write spurious C&D letters.
On to her lies about me and my unanswered rebuttal. On October 15, 2015, I received a cease and desist letter from a lawyer representing Nicole Prause. A year later Prause published her cease and desist letter on AmazonAWS, and linked to it under a petition to Psychology Today (the petition asked Psychology Today to reconsider its editorial policy). Prause commented under the petition multiple times saying that members of two organizations (IITAP & SASH) were all “openly sexist and assaultive to scientists.” In a strange disconnect, the main evidence Prause supplied for this blanket statement was the cease and desist letter sent only to me, reproduced below. I am not a member of SASH or IITAP.
All four claims in the above cease & desist letter are empty. Gary Wilson wrote the following letter asking both Prause and her lawyer to provide evidence to support their allegations. Wilson’s letter in full:
In the intervening 4.5 years neither Prause nor her lawyer has responded. Neither has provided any evidence to support Prause’s allegations – because the allegations are false.
It’s clear that Prause’s motivation was threefold:
to intimidate me so that I might remove my critiques of Prause’s studies,
to create a letter she could show her allies as “proof positive” that I was harassing her (even though it is proof of nothing and fabricated),
to produce an “official letter” to show journalists and producers, so as to discourage them from contacting me.
PRAUSE: m.October 27, 2015. Gary Wilson contacted the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property requesting information about my company’s participation in their startup program.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is lying. I did not do this. Prause was long gone from UCLA by then. I have no reason to think she was ever in UCLA’s startup program. And whether she was or wasn’t, why should she care who seeks information about it? As with nearly every other claim by Prause, she cannot provide documents that should be in her possession – such as emails from me to the UCLA Office of Intellectual Property. This is because they do not exist.
PRAUSE:n. March 2016. Someone tried to gain entry to my home, asking where my unit was using my name, but they were stopped by the management company.
No evidence provided by NP. If “they” were stopped by the management company, there should be a record of the incident and description of the individual. Where’s the documentation?
Various friends and relatives are prepared to testify under oath that they fear for my safety. They are concerned that Prause might track me down, maybe try to kill me (I’m not kidding). This is how completely unhinged Prause appears to observers.
PRAUSE: o. March 10, 2016. 1 ordered and installed security hardware for my home due to Wilson’s continued harassment and fear that he had physically located my home.
No evidence provided by NP. Fabricated victim-hood. I can’t recall being in Los Angeles since before I heard of Nicole Prause (March, 2013), and I have never stated an intention to visit Los Angeles.
Again, various friends and relatives are prepared to testify under oath that they fear for my safety. They are concerned that Prause might track me down, maybe try to kill me. This is how completely unhinged Prause appears to observers.
PRAUSE: p. April 5, 2016. 1 required security at a public talk at a Jewish center in San Francisco from fear Gary Wilson would try to attend or send white supremacists to attack the center.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause and David Ley’s disgusting smear campaign to paint me, Alex Rhodes, Gabe Deem and others as white supremacists is addressed elsewhere on this page (Ley is now being paid by the porn industry). This revolting lie, in part, led to Alex Rhodes suing Prause for defamation. Prause has gone so far as to say that Jews who are anti-porn are antisemitic!
Again, various friends and relatives are prepared to testify under oath that they fear for my safety, given Prause’s vicious and irrational actions. They are concerned that Prause might track me down and try to kill me. This is how completely unhinged Prause appears to observers.
PRAUSE: q April 12, 2016. Gary Wilson and Marnia Robinson contacted UCLA after they knew I no longer worked there, demanding that UCLA investigate me, demanding that UCLA publicly denounce me, claiming UCLA was being naïve and making additional false claims. UCLA also found no grounds for these
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is lying. We did not contact UCLA in 2016 (or in 2015). Yet another example of Prause possessing any emails in question, yet mysteriously unable to provide the court with said emails.
Our last email to UCLA occurred on March 10, 2014 and was in response to UCLA’s March 4, 2014 ass-covering reply produced in above section:
That’s the last time we wrote UCLA.
PRAUSE: r. August 9, 2016. 1 required security from Gary Wilson at a talk for the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.
No evidence provided by NP. More fabricated victim-hood. I have never stated an intention to attend any presentation by Prause. Quite the opposite, as I find her actions unconscionable and her propaganda nauseating. Once again, we have Prause making claims she cannot back up.
PRAUSE: s. October 4, 2016. Gary Wilson joked on Twitter about physically stalking me.
No evidence provided by NP. I have never stalked anyone, including Prause. As explained in the intro, I can’ remember being in Los Angeles since I first heard of Prause’s existence (March, 2013). Once again, Prause should be able to provide a screenshot of my supposed tweet, but cannot. If Prause doesn’t want to be the butt of jokes then I suggest she refrain from falsely accusing me of things I did not do.
PRAUSE: t. December 2016. Gary Wilson and Stefanie Carnes sent identical complaints to the California Board of Psychology against my professional license making false allegations already reviewed and dismissed by UCLA. The Board of Psychology has informed my attorney and I that there are no negative findings. No patients were ever involved. The board concluded the complaints were low priority. Wilson continues to regularly post publicly that I am “under investigation by the state of California” without admitting he filed the fraudulent complaints himself in an obvious abuse of state resources.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause has a copy of my complaint, yet fails to provide it to the court.
First, I never publicly stated that Prause was under investigation by California until after she publicly stated in a June, 2018, factually inaccurate hit-piece, that I had filed a complaint (in October, 2016). Prause falsely stated that the California Psychology Board complaint had terminated, which I knew to be untrue:
In my comment (which was edited by admins) under the factually inaccurate hit-piece, I corrected Prause’s falsehood:
Second, I have no idea what Stefanie Carnes filed with California, but I know it was not “identical” to my complaint. I sent California the entire contents (as of October, 2016) of the 2 main pages chronicling Prause’s long history of defamation and harassment:
I seriously doubt that Stefanie Carnes merely sent the contents of the above two pages to the California Psychology Board as her complaint.
PRAUSE: u. June 12, 2017. A Gary Wilson follower posts that I should be raped.
No evidence provided by NP.
I have no “followers.” I run YourBrainOnPorn.com. It has no forum and doesn’t allow anyone to comment. Once again, if Prause possessed a screenshot of a so-called Gary Wilson “follower” threatening to rape her, she would have supplied it to the court.
Prause is lying, just as she lied about Alex Rhodes and Fight The New Drug telling their “followers” to rape her. Prause makes these libelous assertions, yet has never provided any evidence. These sections expose Prause’s false rape allegations:
As Diana Davison revealed in the comments section under her 6-minute expose’ Prause failed to provide one iota of evidence to support her claims:
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All you need to know: Prause cut off communications with investigative journalist Davison when asked for any evidence to support her claims.
PRAUSE: v. September 1, 2017. Gary Wilson appeared on white supremacist show Stefan Molyneux (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhqx7yctQVk) and extensively promotes this show on his Twitter @YourBrainOnPorn,
More lies by Prause. Where are the links to my Twitter account’s tweets purportedly extensively promoting the Molyneux podcast? They don’t exist. Unlike Prause, I haven’t deleted my tweets, so they should be easy to find. Nor is the Molyneux interview promoted on my website YBOP, as it has never been placed on the front page. It was just another podcast.
NOTE: I have no idea what Molyneux’s politics are. Nor did I know when he asked to interview me years ago. At that time, I investigated him and couldn’t find anything indicating his views on race. As you can hear in our interview below, we talked about porn’s effects, not politics. I have done dozens of interviews and podcasts. How am I supposed to find every lame idea expressed by a potential interviewer (or what an interviewer might say after our interview)?
Since then, trademark infringing RealYBOP Twitter (apparently managed by Prause and Daniel Burgess) and several members of RealYBOP, have been spreading Molyneux’s podcast interview with me via social media and private emails, claiming that Molyneux is a white supremacist and that my appearance on his show means I’m a white supremacist. Let’s be very clear: my harassers and cyberstalkers, Nicole Prause and David Ley, are the ones who initiated this disgusting smear campaign about me years ago. They are the ones who, with the aid of their colleagues, are promoting it. Whatever Molyneux’s views, it is, of course, absurd to suggest that his views are mine without any evidence whatsoever. Is Joe Rogan now a white supremacist because he regularly invited Stefan Molyneux onto his podcast?
Unlike me, Joe Rogan was well aware of Molyneux’s views. I, in contrast, was only a guest on Molyneux’s podcast, there to discuss internet porn (and nothing else).
The truth: I am, in fact, a far left liberal and the very antithesis of a white supremacist. I abhor, and condemn, such views. I spent my adolescence living in a predominantly black neighborhood and two of my close relatives are married to African Americans. For my account of the truth, listen to this interview: Porn Science and Science Deniers (Interview with Wilson).
Several supporters wonder why I haven’t removed this interview from the backwaters of my 13,000 page website. The answer: because my harassers Nicole Prause and RealYBOP on Twitter have falsely claimed numerous times that “Gary Wilson is trying to hide the Molyneux podcast.” In fact, I am neither hiding nor promoting it. It was just another podcast – out of the dozens I have done. It doesn’t discuss racial politics at all, and I want listeners to be able to hear it and judge the truth for themselves.
Please note that labeling others (and then attempting to establish “guilt by association”) is a favorite tactic of those who can’t take on the substance of the porn debate. Have a look at these sections of a page documenting some of the many related attacks I and others have been subjected to:
Perhaps most illustrative of Prause’s character in this saga is her charge that Rhodes is a Nazi and white-supremacist, as detailed in the lawsuit. This should not surprise anyone who has been paying attention since 2016. The minute an SJW disagrees with someone, that person becomes a Nazi. Rhodes’s crime? He allowed political commentator Gavin McInnes to interview him while he was still working for Vice. And since Prause found out that Rhodes spoke to McInnes one time and didn’t throw a drink in his face, she has been accusing him of supporting the Proud Boys (who got in a lot of trouble for street brawling with Antifa). It’s still a stretch, in my opinion, to call the Proud Boys anything but a male drinking club, but Rhodes actually has disavowed the Proud Boys as an “extremist group” on several occasions. He was never a member, nor a supporter. No Fap has never been political and is dedicated to providing addiction help to anyone who needs it. This does not stop Prause from continuing to link him to “white supremacists” through the weak association of one interview with McInnes, who isn’t a white supremacist either.
The lawsuit should be interesting to watch as it opens up statements on Twitter to legal scrutiny. Will Prause be held accountable for publishing false claims on social media?
Investigative journalist Diana Davison also questioned Prause and Ley’s fabrications in her Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause. In her article, Davison debunks the Prause talking point that Rhodes is connected to Proud Boys and thus a white supremacist (which was repeated in VICE’s hit-piece featuring Ley, Prause, and two Porn industry executives):
In a recent Vice article, Prause is quoted saying “”Alexander Rhodes and NoFap’s lawsuit has no merit nor do his libelous and unfounded assertions regarding me, my character, or my business,” adding that Rhodes is “entitled to his opinions, however he is not entitled to spread complete falsehoods about me to profit himself and silence speech.”
The author of the same Vice article then goes on to call NoFap’s principles “slippery,” and attempts to link Rhodes to white supremacists by citing an April 2016 interview with Gavin McInnes, founder of the Proud Boys, despite that group being founded many months later. Ironically, McInnes was a co-founder of Vice and thus has a much stronger connection to their own publication than to Alexander Rhodes or NoFap.
It’s highly likely that Prause fed VICE the easily disproven “link” between Alex Rhodes and the Proud Boys. As explained in Rhodes’s defamation suit complaint against Prause, her false allegations that Rhodes “works with the Proud Boys” is one of the reasons she is being sued:
Defendants published and re-published the False Statements of and concerning Plaintiff Rhodes on the Internet, and other mediums, asserting and creating the false impression that, among other things, Plaintiff Rhodes stalks women, makes rape threats, is a misogynist, works with the extremist group “Proud Boys”, and is in violation of no-contact/restraining orders. Further, Defendants published and republished allegations that NoFap supports the extremist/hate group “Proud Boys”, promotes misogyny, promotes rape threats, and generally is a hate group.
PRAUSE: w. January 18, 2018. Gary Wilson was ejected from a scientific conference, the annual conference of the European Society for Sexual Medicine, by their attorney prior to the conference start when they discovered his true background. He was not giving a keynote address as he claimed. I had just given an actual keynote address at this conference, so Wilson knew I was attending. I had no control over their decision to eject him.
No evidence provided by NP. Multiple instances of Prause perjuring herself.
Context: In the fall of 2017, the Scientific Chairs of the World Meeting on Sexual Medicine, organized by the International Society for Sexual Medicine (ISSM) and the European Society for Sexual Medicine (ESSM), invited me to give a keynote address at their combined conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Unlike sexology conferences, the speakers and attendees at this one are primarily medically oriented urologists. The conference committee wanted me to present about porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. I was, after all, the second author on the highly cited “Is Internet Pornography Causing Sexual Dysfunctions? A Review with Clinical Reports” and had given a very popular TEDx talk, “The Great Porn Experiment,” which touched on porn-induced ED. A screenshot of the formal invitation:
Addressing Prause’s falsehoods claim by claim:
PRAUSE: “He was not giving a keynote address as he claimed.”
Contrary to this lie, I was invited European Society for Sexual Medicine to give a keynote address (they sought me out; I did not ask to speak at the 2018 conference). Vivian Gies, of the ISSM Executive Office, sent four emails attempting to invite me to Portugal to give a Keynote lecture (the emails ended up in a spam folder and were later discovered). Below is a screenshot of last two of ISSM’s four emails attempting to invite me:
It was ultimately decided that the talk would be entitled, “Porn-Induced Sexual Dysfunctions.” It would be modeled on my July, 2017, Mexico City presentation to urologists. Screenshot of the keynote lecture as it originally appeared (before Prause lied to ISSM, which resulted in my talk’s cancellation): https://issmessm2018.org/
PRAUSE: “I had just given an actual keynote address at this conference, so Wilson knew I was attending.”
Prause’s fabricated narrative is that I knew she was attending, so I therefore contacted the ISSM, asking for a speaking gig. Not true, as the ISSM contacted me. Prause neither attended nor was scheduled to speak. Screenshot of the very first email from the ISSM on July 7, 2017 inviting me to speak (email temporarily went to a spam folder):
PRAUSE: “Gary Wilson was ejected from a scientific conference, the annual conference of the European Society for Sexual Medicine, by their attorney prior to the conference start when they discovered his true background.”
First, I was not ejected from the conference, but my keynote address was mysteriously canceled on January 12, 2018 (“due to program issues”):
Far from being “ejected,” I was thoroughly compensated for the “program-issues” cancellation. In fact, the ISSM went beyond the usual compensation and paid for plane flights and hotel for both my wife and me. Countering Prause’s lie that I was “ejected from the conference,” even after the canceled talk, I was invited to attend the conference, free of charge (and asked if I wanted a room in the conference hotel):
In relation to Prause’s assertions about the committee discovering my true background, it’s important to point out that I had initially informed the organizing committee that I did not have a PhD or MD. The committee assured me this was not a problem, and insisted I present. Here’s the email confirming this account:
PRAUSE: ” I had no control over their decision to eject him.”
Cleverly worded to obfuscate the fact it was most likelyh Prause herself who contacted ISSM organizers and fed them a bunch lies (perhaps via her close friend Jim Pfaus), which resulted in my talked being cancelled. Twelve days later (January 24, 2018) Prause informs David Ley that Gary Wilson was “removed for an actual good reason from a conference.” (She’s the only one who seems to “know” this.)
A double lie by Prause:
I was not removed for “an actual good reason.” Prause no doubt lied to ISSM supplying her fake “evidence.”
Prause’s claim that I posted on Quora more “than a hundred times in the last month” is also false. In my 4 years on Quora, I only posted 122 times. Between the time that I received the email from the ISSM committee (1-12-2018), and Prause’s Facebook comment above (1-24-18), I posted exactly zero times on Quora. PDF of Quora posts during this period. See my my entire timeline of Quora posts.
PRAUSE: x. March 7., 2018. Gary Wilson is banned from the Quora platform because he created a second fake account to stalk my own account. This was a violation of their terms of service.
No evidence provided by NP. Quite the opposite is true: Prause was permanently banned from Quora for posting my employment records and harassing me.
The story: On March 3rd 2018, Nicole Prause posted a defamatory article on Quora: https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-about-your-brain-on-porn-movement/answer/Nicole-Prause. In her hit-piece, Prause posted redacted copies of my employment records and knowingly, falsely stated that Southern Oregon University had fired me. On March 3rd & 4th Prause posted ten more demeaning and untruthful comments about me and my work, all containing a link to her defamatory piece:
I reported Prause to both Quora and Twitter for violation of terms of service and harassment. Both acted upon my complaints, removing my employment document and Prause’s false interpretation of it. Confirmation of Quora acting on my complaint (not the first violation for harassing me):
As a result, Quora permanently bans Nicole Prause for harassment:
In addition to the permanent Quora ban, on March 12, 2018 Prause’s Twitter account was suspended for posting my private information in violation of Twitter rules. I reported Prause’s violation. Twitter’s reply:
PRAUSE: April 22, 2018. Wilson appeared uninvited to a Behavioral Addictions meeting in Cologne, Germany, scaring a number of scientists in attendance who discussed security concerns regarding his presence.
No evidence provided by NP. This is pure fiction. Yes, I traveled to Germany to attend the 2018 5th International Conference on Behavioral Addictions, for which I had registered months earlier. No one was “frightened.” As for “being invited,” anyone can register to attend an ICBA conference. They feature experts on behavioral addictions from all over the world, and my website features much research by experts who present at the ICBA.
As discussed elsewhere, Prause reported me to the LAPD for attending a German conference,falsely claiming she wanted to attend (but didn’t dare because she was supposedly frightened of me). The untrue part is that Prause had any intention of attending the ICBA conference in Germany. Prause has never attended, or presented, at an ICBA conference. Prause doesn’t believe in behavioral addictions. Throughout her entire career Prause has waged a war against the concept of behavioral addiction, especially sex and porn addiction. Prause thus filed a false police report.
PRAUSE: Finally, Hilton has sent the lawsuit documents to Gary Wilson before they were publicly available for all three filings, which Wilson did post on both his website (www.yourbrainonporn.com) and his wife’s website (www.pornstudycritiques.com), never with my response. Wilson further submitted Hilton’s statement to Google Scholar, which would result in Hilton’s statement to the court being emailed to thousands of scientists.
No evidence provided by NP. Another instance of Prause perjuring herself.
Don Hilton did not send his “lawsuit documents” to me. All court documents were available online via PACER, at this link – https://www.pacermonitor.com/case/28807982/Hilton_v_Prause_et_al
Nor did I submit “Hilton’s statement to Google Scholar.” I didn’t even know one could submit links to Google Scholar (if this is in fact true). That said, I do hope that researchers read the documents, follow the links, and discover the truth about Nicole Prause. She has been skewing the field with her harassment, scare tactics, defamation, and falsehoods for way too long. There needs to be a full investigation into her behind-the-scenes activities at academic journals, governing boards and media outlets. Just for starters.
PRAUSE: z. April 25, 2018 I reported these escalations to physical stalking to the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) report # 180809436 and the FBI. See Exhibit 1(M).
No evidence other than a screenshot of a CD! Seven years of claimed police and FBI reports and no law enforcement agency has bothered to contact me. Prause is either lying about her many reports or the law enforcement agencies think she is a lunatic.
LAPD report # 180809436: As chronicled in the introduction, here’s the reality:
Starting in July, 2013 (a few days after I published a careful critique of Prause’s first EEG study), various usernames began posting defamatory comments wherever my name appeared. The comments were very similar in content and tone, falsely claiming that “Wilson has a police report filed on him,” “Wilson is charged with stalking a poor woman,” and “Wilson stole a woman’s pictures and placed them on a porn site,” and “Wilson has been reported to LAPD (which agrees that he’s dangerous) and the UCLA campus police.”
By 2016, as Prause was no longer employed by UCLA or any other institution that could rein in her cyber-harassment, she finally began to identify Gary Wilson as the “person” she had reported to the LAPD and the UCLA campus police. I can’t remember having been to LA in years. It’s almost 2020, and no law enforcement agency has ever contacted me. (Any harasser can file a fake police report.)
I presumed that Prause had, in fact, filed fraudulent, groundless reports (which were subsequently disregarded), but it turned out Prause was lying – again. In late 2017 a call to the Los Angeles Police Department and the UCLA campus police revealed no report in their systems on a “Gary Wilson,” nor any report filed by a “Nicole Prause.” I made this section to report my findings: Los Angeles Police Department and UCLA campus police confirm that Prause lied about filing police reports on Gary Wilson.
Note that I did not learn of this malicious police report from the police. I learned of it a year later, when college journalists (and misinformed Prause devotees) publicly reproduced it online in the university newspaper. It has since been removed by University of Wisconsin authorities.
If I have been physically stalking her, why doesn’t any police report describe me as doing so? It’s simple: Prause is afraid of being arrested for knowingly filing a police report falsely accusing me of an actual crime.
As described here in the introduction, Diana Davison became the first journalist to investigate Prause’s claims of victim-hood. Over the week of their communications, Prause was unable to provide any evidence other than her silly LAPD report (above) of me attending a German conference Prause lied about wanting to attend. Davison’s expose’ is here: The Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause. Diana Davison also produced this 6-minute video about Prause’s fake victim-hood and the defamation lawsuits filed against Prause.
Diana Davison explained in the comment section that Prause failed to provide any evidence of being stalked, cyberstalked or harassed.
Davison makes fun of Prause’s ludicrous police report where I was supposedly wearing a sleeping bag and armed with a long sleeve sweater (note that Prause’s report never claimed I was seen in LA or that I was stalking her).
When asked to provide any other evidence, Prause ceased communications with Davison.
I request that the court demand from Prause all her supposed reports claimed to have been filed on me, Alex Rhodes and others. If Prause has indeed filed a police or FBI report on me I will report her to California authorities for filing a false police report.
PRAUSE: aa. August 31, 2018. I required security from Gary Wilson at a talk for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality where I would be debating Dr. Marc Potenza regarding sex addiction.
No evidence provided by NP. For the tenth time or so, I have never had, or expressed, an intention to attend any presentation by Prause. Quite the opposite, as I find her actions and misrepresentation of the research shocking. More fake victim-hood from a pathological liar.
PRAUSE: bb. February 19, 2019. Gary Wilson and his wife Marnia Robinson contacted the National Organization of Rare Diseases (NORD) requesting that my competitive grant from them, which had nothing to do with pornography, be rescinded. NORD requested my assistance in getting Wilson and Robinson to stop harassing them, as the pair continued to email NORD over and over.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is perjuring herself. Neither I nor my wife have ever contacted NORD, nor have we ever been contacted by NORD. If Prause had any documentation she would provide it. She doesn’t, because she is lying.
Nicole Prause’s Malicious Reporting and Malicious Use of Process
Nicole Prause has shown a consistent and troubling pattern of (1) filing groundless, malicious complaints and lawsuits, and (2) threatening or publicly claiming she has filed such actions when she has not done so. (Three main pages documenting Prause’s behaviors: 1, 2, 3.)
Below is a partial list of such complaints and false claims. (Out of fear of reprisal we have been asked to omit additional individuals and organizations.) Also, Prause regularly claims “whistleblower status” to keep her activities under the radar. So, there are likely other, non-public complaints in addition to those listed here.
The baseless administrative complaints Prause actually lodged were generally dismissed as nuisance filings. However, a few led to time-consuming investigations that were ultimately dismissed or produced little in the way of substantive results. (PDF Documenting Prause’s Malicious Reporting Pattern & Malicious Use of Process).
Fight the New Drug – Reported to Utah’s Division of Child and Family Services on the theory that sharing first-hand stories of porn recovery constituted the abuse of minors. DCFC took no action.
Rory Reid PhD – Prause’s former colleague at UCLA. Appears to have been reported to UCLA (and perhaps to the California Psychology Board). Prause’s attacks on him began concurrently with UCLA’s decision not to renew her contract, bringing her academic career to an end.
Five documents currently on Prause’s AmazonAWS website urging readers to report Rory Reid to the state of California: page1, page2, page3, page4, page5.
Prause reported Rhodes to the Pennsylvania Board of Psychology for practicing psychology without a license because CNN filmed him in a group with other young men, all talking about porn’s effects. No therapy was offered or provided. (Investigation in progress). RealYBOP tweet asking followers to report Rhodes to psych Board.
Don Hilton, MD – Reported to the university where he mentors neurosurgery students, the Texas Medical Board, and academic journals with unfounded claims that he faked his credentials (No action)
Keren Landman, MD – Prause asked VICE magazine to terminate expert Dr. Landman for writing an article recommending use of condoms in porn in support of Proposition 60. Unbelievable.
(Apparently) reported Wilson to the ISSM (International Society for Sexual Medicine) for heaven knows what, which canceled his keynote address scheduled for March, 2018 in Lisbon without giving a reason. Then Prause began a social media campaign saying someone had been “removed for an actual good reason from a conference,” and claimed (again) that Gary had misrepresented his credentials (he hadn’t). Gary soon received his Oregon Psychology Board exoneration (see above), so she may also have told the ISSM earlier that he had been “reported for practicing psychology without a license” among other untruths – in order to persuade the ISSM to cancel him.
February, 2020: When the above C&D failed, Prause called Wilson’s local Ashland Police, attempting to file a false police report, lying that her home address was on YBOP. Officer Jason St. John determined Prause’s claims did not allege a crime and that this was a civil matter.
On February 12 or thereabouts, Prause sought a temporary restraining order against Wilson, based in part on pictures of people (quite obviously not Wilson) holding guns. The judge denied the TRO, but set a hearing for a permanent restraining order on March 6, 2020. Prause did not serve Wilson, but Wilson’s counsel appeared as if she had, thus waiving service. The judge continued the matter until March 25, 2020, stating that he intends to force the parties to attend mediation before ruling, if Prause serves Wilson.
Prause has also repeatedly, publicly urged members of the public, via social media, to report professionals and professional organizations to psychology boards, to the FTC, and to the Attorney General. Sections of Prause page with documentation:
After years of malicious administrative reporting, spurious cease & desist letters, and misuse of law enforcement personnel, Prause, in 2019, began abusing the court system (and the targets of her wrath) with malicious legal proceedings (and continued threats of legal proceedings) in order to silence anyone who calls attention to her bias or activity.
As recounted above, she filed an invalid small claims court suit against therapist Sprout, and a baseless restraining order against Wilson.
PRAUSE: cc. Feb 22, 2019. Gary Wilson tells reported Chad Sokol with Donald Hilton that I am involved in the pornography industry and attended the AVN awards.
No evidence provided by NP. Everything associated with the Sokol email and Prause lying about attending the XRCO were fully addressed in this earlier section. Once again, here’s the PDF of Gary Wilson’s email to Don Hilton, MD. The following was forwarded to reporter Chad Sokol:
Thu 2/21/2019 4:32 PM
Hi Don,
Here are the 4 main pages that were created to counter the ongoing harassment and false claims made by former UCLA researcher Nicole Prause as part of an ongoing “astroturf” campaign to persuade people that anyone who disagrees with her conclusions deserves to be reviled:
Prause has harassed and defamed at least four of the speakers in the February 23 conference: Don Hilton, Gail Dines, Clay Olsen and Stefanie Carnes. One can search the table of contents for each name or organization (i.e. Fight The New Drug, IITAP): Nicole Prause’s Unethical Harassment and Defamation of Gary Wilson & Others. For example, Prause has defamed you on multiple occasions, as documented in these sections of the “Prause pages”:
Anyone investigating this should know that Dr. Prause has not been employed by any university for 4 years. Her contract with UCLA was not renewed. Freed from any oversight and now self-employed, Prause added two media managers/promoters from Media 2×3 to her company’s tiny stable of “Collaborators.” Their job is to place articles in the press featuring Prause, and find her speaking engagements in pro-porn and mainstream venues. Odd behavior for a supposedly impartial scientist.
Since I was Prause’s primary target (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.
After years of sitting on the evidence, Prause’s unilateral aggression had 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 felt compelled to examine her possible motives. So we created this extensive page, which is just the tip pf the Prause iceberg: Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry?
In addition, 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 Twitter account permanently banned for harassment and cyber-stalking. 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. Prause immediately 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):
Many more examples of Prause supporting the porn industry’s agenda and having close relationships with performers, producers, the AVN and the FSC, are this page: Is Nicole Prause Influenced by the Porn Industry?).
As for Prause attending the AVN convention, Prause clearly indicated that she would be at there in 2019.
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 is she would like to pick up her t-shirt at the AVN awards (we must therefore assume that Prause will be attending).
PRAUSE: dd. April 11, 2019. Wilson emailed my colleague Dr. Michael Seto, claiming to have proof I was involved in the pornography industry.
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is perjuring herself. I have never emailed Dr. Seto. If Prause had any documentation she would provide it. See a pattern here?
PRAUSE: ee. April 19, 2019. I received a series of anti-Semitic, misogynist death threats through a forum on Psychology Today. See Psychology Today Emails, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(0).
This has nothing to do with me, or anyone else I know. Just a few random, anonymous comments, out of millions, posted under Psychology Today blog post by anonymous trolls. We don’t know who posted these comments. For all we know it could have been Prause herself who posted the comments to prop up her fabricated victim-hood, as her skill in creating aliases is quite impressive (PDF of Nicole Prause aliases she used to harass & defame). I don’t say this lightly as I have first-hand knowledge of Prause fabricating similar “threats” and lying about them having come from particular individuals she wishes to smear. I will be more than happy to testify under oath about such allegations.
Also, Prause, her apparent alias (@BrainOnPorn), and her allies continue to troll Twitter threads falsely accusing me, Gabe Deem, Alex Rhodes and others of being white supremacists or anti-Semites. We have little recourse because Prause and her allies have blocked us (I have blocked them). Below are just a few examples of Prause and @BrainOnPorn (also Prause?) relentless cyberstalking (calling us white supremacists), even while she is being sued for defamation by two parties.
This one’s about me:
About Alex Rhodes:
About Gabe Deem:
Hundreds more can be provided.
PRAUSE: a. April 22, 2019. 1filed a report with the FBI for these death threats describing Wilson’s history of appearing on white supremacist shows.
No evidence provided by NP. If Prause filed an FBI report on me why won’t she provide it? Probably because I would report her to the FBI for filing a false report.
As already explained in previous sections, Prause and David Ley have been waging a disgusting smear campaign to falsely paint Alex Rhodes and me as white supremacists or anti-Semites. One of the reasons Alex Rhodes is now suing Prause for defamation is that she falsely accused Alex as being a supporter of white supremacists and anti-Semites. On the following pages I have documented Ley and Prause’s revolting history of posting fabricated “evidence” to connect me, Alex, Gabe Deem and other targets, with white supremacy and antisemitism. These extensive sections contain over 100 instances of Prause, Ley, RealYBOP and their Twitter cronies cyberstalking Gabe, Alex and me with false accusation of being white supremacists/Nazis.
PRAUSE: b. April 22, 2019. Detective Perez determined that these were new causes of action and requested that I file a criminal threats complaint with LAPD. My report was assigned Incident No. 190423001757, and it remains under investigation with Gary Wilson as the only known person of interest.
No evidence provided by NP. What BS. “Known person of interest?” For what? Once again, as with nearly every other claim by Prause, she cannot provide the documents that should be in her possession – such as an alleged “incident report.”
If Prause did filed a police report on me, for any reason, she can expect to be reported to the LAPD for filing a false police report.
PRAUSE: c. May 9, 2019, I hired an attorney, Wayne Giampetro, JD, to send a cease and desist letter to Gary Wilson to stop his new defamatory claims.
The May 9, 2019 letter from former BackPage attorney Giampietro (Prause misspelled his name) was not a cease and desist letter. Instead, it was a response to a cease and desist letter sent by my trademark law firm, Fitch, Even, Tabin & Flannery addressing Prause’s trademark infringement (below).
On May 1, 2019 the attorneys for the common-law owner (me) of the trademarks “Your Brain On Born” and “YourBrainOnPorn.com” (this website) sent a cease and desist letter to all of those who appeared to be behind the infringing site – www.realyourbrainonporn.com (the so-called “Experts”). The letter to Nicole Prause also demanded that she abandon her trademark-squatting application for the marks “Your Brain On Porn” and “YourBrainOnPorn.com.” A PDF of the 8-page cease and desist letter to Nicole Prause (May 1, 2019). Screenshots of the first 3 pages of the 8-page cease & desist letter:
A few paragraphs of Giampietro’s 3-page (reply) letter repeated Prause’s lies that my pages documenting her ongoing defamation and harassment constitute “untrue defamatory attacks upon Dr. Prause.” (Such as these two main pages:
Giampietro’s letter listed a few of the same Prause falsehoods documented on this current page. He also demanded that I immediately remove all the pages documenting Prause’s unethical and illegal behaviors, and that I refrain from adding any “similar accusations” to YBOP.
“These statements made by your client are false, defamatory and actionable. He must remove them from his web site immediately, and refrain from posting any similar accusations in the future. “
Since May 9th I’ve added several new pages related to the trademark infringement/trademark squatting and harassment/defamation by RealYBOP Twitter (an apparent Prause alias), two related to the Hilton and Rhodes defamation lawsuits, an extensive page documenting Prause’s defamation and harassment of Alex Rhodes and some 20 new sections of the Prause page #2 documenting her escalating acts of harassment and defamation. So no, Mr. Giampietro, I will not refrain from exposing your client as a serial defamer, harasser and cyberstalker. Nor will Hilton, Rhodes, or the many Prause victims who have filed sworn affidavits about her in Federal court.
Because Prause often tweets or emails her lawyers’ letters, misrepresenting her fairy tales as factual, I am forced to expose Mr. Giampietro’s falsehoods below (the typos remain). As in her 2015 cease and desist letter, Giampietro’s May 9th letter, and all subsequent letters from Giampietro, Prause provides no evidence to support her fabricated allegations of victim-hood.
Giampietro – “Finally, despite having been warned in 2015 by counsel for Dr. Prause, Mr. Wilson has continued his barrage of untrue defamatory attacks upon Dr. Prause. Apparently he has embarked upon a vendetta against Dr. Praise and others with whom she is associated. Dr. Prause name alone appears on more than 4000 pages of Wilson’s web site, and over 108,000 times with his link online.“
Everything I have chronicled concerning Prause is true, and nothing Prause’s 2015 attorney (pre-Giampietro) alleged in his C&D was true. Prause is lying. First, as you can see from this search, Prause’s name appears on only 110 out of YBOP 13,000 pages – not 4,000 pages as Prause falsely asserted. The vast majority of these mentions are links to other pages containing my and other’s critiques of Prause’s many dubious papers and articles (I purposely do a lot of internal linking).
Prause is not the only researcher whose work I analyze. For example, YBOP contains critiques of multiple Josh Grubbs papers, which results in his name appearing 70 times in a YBOP search.
As for her claim that there are 108,000 mentions of “Prause” on YBOP, this lie was already debunked in this section.
Giampietro – “While a dispute regarding issues of public interest is one thing, making false and defamatory allegations against Dr. Prause is indefensible. Among the false allegations Wilson has made against Dr. Prause are: she has engaged in “obsessive, unrelenting cybcr-harassment” against Wilson”
In fact, she is engaged in “obsessive, unrelenting cyber-harassment” against me. Extensive documentation: page 1, page 2.
“she tells a porn addict to visit a prostitute (a violation of APA ethics and Calfornia law)”
Most definitely. Also a serial defamer and harasser.
she was fired, terminated and/or reprimanded by the University of California,
Never said that she was. However, UCLA did not renew Prause’s contract (late 2014 or early 2015). This coincided with Prause harassing and defaming UCLA colleague Rory Reid (Dr. Reid is still at UCLA). I hope a court investigates the actual events surrounding Prause’s departure from UCLA, her harassment of Rory Reid, and any legal threats made by Prause towards UCLA personnel.
she falsified or utilized “bogus” data in her studies
she has been, or is currently, funded or receiving material support from pornography organizations
she is, herself, involved in the porn industry
Never said the above. Funny how Prause has made this claim numerous times on Twitter, in cease and desist letters, and in court documents, yet she can never provide a screenshot of me saying these things.
RE: Prause’s attempt to steal my URL and trademark: Knowing she would lose a Federal lawsuit (which was about to go forward), Nicole Prause withdrew her illegal attempt to squat on my trademarks YOURBRAINONPORN and YOURBRAINONPORN.COM. On October 18, 2019 the United States Patent and Trademark Office entered a judgement against Prause (the applicant):
The legitimate YBOP, this website, stands by its brand, services and resources and is continuing to take legal steps to address the infringing and unfair activities of Nicole R. Prause and nominal URL owner Daniel Burgess.
PRAUSE: d. May 28, 2019. I called 9-1-1 because I believed the process server attempting to serve me with this lawsuit was connected to Gary Wilson. Knowing that Hilton now had my home address and could tell Gary Wilson where I lived, I gave notice to my apartment manager the same day that I would be moving.
No evidence provided by NP. More fake victim-hood by the perpetrator. As explained in the intro, I can’t recall having been in Los Angeles since I became aware of Dr. Prause (2013). Again, she began publicizing this fabrication in July, 2013 (a few days after I critiqued her EEG study). In 2019, Diana Davison became the first journalist to investigate Prause’s claims of victim-hood. During more than a week of communications with Davison, Prause was unable to provide any evidence other than Prause’s silly LAPD report that I attended a German conference, which Prause lied about wanting to attend. Davison’s expose’ : The Post Millennial expose’ on Nicole Prause.
Diana Davison also produced this 6-minute video about Prause’s fake victim-hood and the defamation lawsuits filed against Prause. Davison spent a week asking Prause for any actual evidence that she had been harassed or stalked. Prause had none:
Davison’s single sentence summarizes this entire page.
PRAUSE: e. June 13, 2019. Wayne Giampetro, JD, sends another cease and desist letter to Gary Wilson to stop his new defamatory claims.
Yet another misspelling of her lawyer’s name. Once again, Prause misrepresents her communications as something they are not. As with Giampietro’s May 9th letter, his June 13th letterwas not a cease and desist letter. It did ont contain the usual requests for me to cease doing things I have not done. Actually, Giampietro’s letter (clearly penned by Prause) was merely a snarky, factually-inaccurate reply to my lawyer’s June 11th letter, which is reproduced below (PDF of my June 11th letter to Prause).
——————–
————–
PRAUSE:f. June 21, 2019. The American Civil Liberties Union instructed Gary Wilson in a letter to stop threatening myself and a group of scientists and therapists with malicious, unfounded litigation. See ACLU Correspondence, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(P).
The letter in question from the ACLU of Southern California to my attorneys did not, if fact, accuse me of threatening anyone or of engaging in malicious, unfounded litigation. Rather, the ACLU of Southern California ignored the entire substance of the cease & desist letter sent by my attorneys to Prause demanding that she stop infringing on my trademarks and withdraw her USPTO application for them. Instead, the ACLU of Southern California inexplicably chose to cherry-pick and take issue with the following throwaway request in the 8-page, well founded C&D letter addressing trademark issues:
“[r]efrain from disparagement and defamation of YOUR BRAIN ON PORN and its principal and associates.”
The ACLU only addressed #8 in my list of 8 demands – ignoring everything else, and the primary focus of, my C&D letter, which was to:
The ACLU of Southern California claimed that this phrase was misguided, that a defamation claim would not prevail, and asked that my attorneys,
“please refrain from making unsupported and misguided demands.”
Reasonable minds may differ on whether the request to refrain from disparagement and defamation was misguided or unsupported, and you can read my response to the ACLU of Southern California below, and in this PDF: Gary Wilson letter to SoCal ACLU 6/23/19
However, the trademark-related demands in the cease & desist letter were well founded, and it is baffling that the ACLU of Southern California ignored these entirely in its carefully narrowed response. Prause has since repeatedly posted the peculiarly narrow ACLU response, in full, on social media, in some cases accompanied by an unsupported claim that the ACLU was representing her.
By creating this PR tool for Prause, which inexplicably failed to address the abundant evidence of trademark infringement, the ACLU of Southern California inexplicably threw its weight behind Prause’s effort to stifle my free speech by means of her indefensible applications for my trademarks (including a trademark for my actual URL), and her apparent management of both a website that infringes on my trademarks and a related infringing social media account. This Twitter account (@BrainOnPorn) regularly defames me and many other people with whom Prause disagrees.
June 24, 2019
Hector Villagra, Executive Director
Peter Eliasberg, Chief Counsel
ACLU of Southern California
1313 W 8th St #200
Los Angeles, CA 90017
Re: Misallocation of ACLU Resources
Dear Mr. Villagra and Mr. Eliasberg,
My name is Gary Wilson. Since November 2010, I have operated a popular website called YourBrainOnPorn.com. I am also the author of a widely-read book titled Your Brain on Porn. The website and book examine current scientific research on the effects of pornography on the human brain. Their perspective is that online pornography can foster sexual dysfunction and addiction. But, of course, the comprehensive body of research they feature speaks for itself.
Recently, a group of self-proclaimed “experts” who vigorously dispute that pornography has any harmful psychological, physiological, or neurological effects launched a website called RealYourBrainonPorn.com. The website was designed and marketed in a manner that aimed to confuse the public, particularly anyone seeking my website by name. It went so far as to issue a press release touting the launch with a dateline from my hometown of Ashland, Oregon, a particularly creepy touch given neither it nor its “experts” has any connection to Ashland.
I have no problem with people disputing and debating the research my website highlights, or the opinions I and others express there. I do, however, take issue with people using confusingly similar marks to misappropriate the value of intellectual property I’ve spent years developing. That is why my attorneys sent a cease and desist letter to those who appear to be behind RealYourBrainonPorn.com on May 1, 2019 (the “C&D”). A copy of the C&D is included with this letter (its attachments available on request).
Last week, to my great surprise, my attorneys received a letter from Mr. Eliasberg on ACLU stationary critiquing a demand made in the C&D that “RealYourBrainOnPorn” and the “experts” associated with it refrain from defaming and disparaging me and my website . Shortly thereafter, one of the most prominent persons associated with “RealBrainOnPorn” took to social media (1, 2, 3, 4) and SCRIBD touting the “involvement” of the ACLU in her “case.”
I am not a lawyer. I won’t try to respond to Mr. Eliasberg’s seemingly thorough, albeit narrowly-focused, response to the C&D. (Please be aware, though, that the same person who celebrated the ACLU’s “involvement” has made numerous defamatory statements about me personally – including that I have made “death threats” against her and have “stalked” her – none of them remotely true. That same person is also the defendant in a defamation lawsuit currently pending in Texas alleging similarly outrageous conduct.)
But, I do want to express my profound disappointment that your organization has chosen to wade into this straightforward intellectual property matter. How is my defending my trademark an affront to free speech? Would your organization throw its weight and reputation behind someone who, out of disagreement over the content of stories in The Los Angeles Times, published a (non-parody) newspaper called “The Real Los Angeles Times” which featured a confusingly similar logo and web address, issued press releases from El Segundo, and made bizarre, false allegations about Norman Pearstine?
I am a strong supporter of your public mission. Freedom of speech and expression are important to me. I operate my website largely by myself out of my own pocket. My views are not always popular. I come under intense, false, and often outrageous, personal attacks from organized interest groups (and at least several of the people publicly associated with “RealBrainOnPorn”) on a near-daily basis for what I say, advocate for, and believe.
If anything, I would have imagined the ACLU of Southern California would be an ally in protecting my right to speak out on a topic I believe to be of enormous public significance. I would never expect your organization to line up on the side of a group whose mission is to silence my voice by, among other things, attempting to confuse the public about who is speaking.
In closing, I ask that you please clarify: is the ACLU of Southern California providing legal representation to or otherwise associating itself with the so-called “RealBrainOnPorn” website and/or the “experts” who have lent their names to it? If so, which of them? If not, then what is the ACLU’s intention here? I sincerely hope it is not to spend its precious resources supporting an effort to misappropriate my intellectual property in order to stifle my right to speak.
I await your response.
Very truly yours,
Gary Wilson
cc: David Rogers, Executive Director
ACLU of Oregon
PO Box 40585
Portland, OR 97240
I have never received a reply from the ACLU clarifying its role this matter.
That said, RealYourBrainonPorn Twitter (likely managed by Prause) continues to misrepresent and weaponize the ACLU letter. Prause/RealYBOP created a press release posting it (and mischaracterizing it) on a document site:
RealYBOP has also placed the ACLU letter on its site:
In fact, being an obsessive cyberstalker, RealYBOP (apparently managed by Prause) constantly tweets the ACLU letter:
RealYBOP (Prause?) often enters threads where I have tweeted or where YBOP has been mentioned, tweeting the ACLU letter (always misrepresenting what it actually stated). RealYBOP (Prause?) often blocks Twitter accounts, then tweets under the accounts hoping the account owner won’t be expecting her malicious activity, as she did here with me and others:
RealYBOP (Prause?) often tags people I know, escalating her harassment (SASH, John Foubert, Gail Dines). In this disgusting tweet Prause commits multiple instances of defamation per se:
Here’s RYBOP (Prause?) lying in a tweet, falsely claiming that I have lost multiple lawsuits against her or RealYBOP. The truth: I have yet to file a single lawsuit, against anyone.
RealYBOP (an apparent Prause alias) often combines the ACLU letter with the WIPO decision. In these tweets I am “vicious to scientists” for attempting to defend my trademark:
Just a taste of the real cyberstalker, Prause. The legal battle for my trademark and its enforcement continues.
PRAUSE: g. July 1, 2019. 1 relocated my home again due solely to fear of Wilson’s stalking because Donald Hilton, who works with Wilson, had my home address.
No evidence provided by NP. More fake victim-hood and tall tales by serial harasser, defamer, cyberstalker, Nicole Prause.
PRAUSE: h. July 4, 2019. Wilson and Robinson receive legal service of Mr. Giampetro’s Cease and Desist letter at their home in Ashland, OR. See Service of Cease and Desist, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(Q).
Prause escalates her stalking and harassment by delivering a bogus cease and desist letter to my home at about 10:00 pm (reproduced below). As Prause did not file this letter with her misrepresentations, I provide it below.
Prause’s lawyer states that I continue to make false allegations, statements and publications, yet he fails to provide an example of a single one. Giampietro does allude to “eight new posts attacking and defaming Dr. Prause,” yet provides no links or screenshots. Standard Giampierto/Prause. Nevertheless, I assumed Prause was upset that I debunked her factually-inaccurate July 2, Daily Beast article in this series of tweets:
1/ Debunking the new Daily Beast article "Porn Didn’t Break Your Penis” (by RealYBOP "expert" Nicole Prause): https://t.co/mRYk7kRrXw It links to RealYBOP research & falsely states that 7 labs found no relationship between porn use & ED. Debunked here: https://t.co/0oSsPrE5xK
I was also told on July 4th, 2019 that “Dr. Prause has reached the end of her patience with Mr. Wilson”. These threats were not only unfounded, but also empty. Not only does the above Twitter thread remain, I have since added 30 new sections to Prause page #2, and Prause page #3, and these extensive pages chronicling Prause’s ever increasing defamation and cyberstalking:
We chose to disregard the above unsupported threat.
PRAUSE: I. July 18, 2019. Wilson filed a World Intellectual Property Organization complaint against me for a website that he knew I did not own, requiring me to hire an attorney again to prove that I did not own the website.
My attorneys named Prause alone initially because it appears that she manages the site, irrespective of the owner of record. For example, there is correspondence from some of the “experts” named on www.realyourbrainonporn.com that they looked to Prause, not Burgess, to remove information about them from the site (in response my attornsys’ cease and desist letters to the experts). From RealYBOP expert Alan Mckee:
From former Indiana University colleague and co-author, Peter Finn:
In fact, not one of the experts mentioned Daniel Burgess’s involvement in response to the cease & desist letters they received.
In the very disappointing WIPO decision the arbitrator also saw Prause as a party: “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 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 Burgess are indeed represented by Prause’s lawyer Wayne B. Giampietro of Poltrock & Giampietro. If Prause had no involvement in www.realyourbrainonporn.com, why did her attorneys (who continue to represent her in connection with her infringement on my trademarks) also represent Daniel Burgess?
PRAUSE: j. July 30, 2019. Wilson spoke for over an hour on an anti-pornography show about this lawsuit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmjgpuOmunw). Wilson stated about my colleagues and me, “I hope they are watching…because they will never stop me.” I reported his threat to the LAPD detective investigating the criminal death threats and the Los Angeles prosecutor.
No evidence provided by NP. She claims to have filed a police report, but fails to provide a copy of it. (If she did, the police prudently ignored her, as no one has ever contacted me.) If Prause reported me to the police for saying this, then I will report her to the LADP for filing a false police report. Numerous falsehoods by Prause:
The podcast with Mark Queppet was not all about the trademark infringement case and trademark squatting case. The first half of the show concerned porn addiction and the effects of porn use. Only in the second half did we get into RealYBOP, Prause and her cronies harassing and defaming me and others, and Prause trying to steal my trademark.
Prause purposely omitted the context of me stating that “they will never stop me.” Unsurprisingly that context was Prause’s relentless 7-year campaign of harassment, cyberstalking and defamation as well as her attempt to steal my trademark and URL.
Listen for yourself. The podcast is cued-up to where we begin discussing Prause & her allies’ defamation and harassment:
PRAUSE: l August 24, 2019. Wilson submitted Hilton’s response to this court to Google Scholar for indexing. See Google Scholar Documents, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(R). Google scholar is the main resource scientists use to find peer-reviewed articles. It does not index pdfs from a website unless they are submitted for indexing. This means that scientists using this resource to search for research that I have conducted will, instead, find this defamatory court filing. The link also will be emailed to thousands of people, if not millions, who subscribe to receive Google Scholar alerts.
No evidence provided by NP. Her screenshot of Hilton’s lawsuit on Google scholar proves nothing. Perhaps she posted it on Google Scholar herself, as she was the first to report its presence there. Just another instance of Prause perjuring herself, and repeating herself, as this particular lie was addressed in a previous section.
As stated previously, all court documents were available online via PACER, at this link – https://www.pacermonitor.com/case/28807982/Hilton_v_Prause_et_al
Once again, I did not submit Hilton’s response to Google Scholar for indexing. I didn’t even know one could submit links to Google Scholar (if this is in fact true). By the way, a Google Scholar search for yourbrainonporn.com returns about 100 highly diverse results (none of which were indexed by me).
That said, I do hope that researchers read the documents, follow the links, and discover the truth about Nicole Prause. She has been skewing the field with her harassment, scare tactics, defamation, and falsehoods for way too long. There needs to be a full investigation into her behind-the-scenes activities at academic journals, governing boards and media outlets. Just for starters.
I strongly suspect that Prause (who is tech-savvy), uploaded her already denied Motion to Dismiss onto Google Scholar.
PRAUSE: m. August 25, 2019. Wilson broke in to the website of my colleague Daniel Burgess and posted instructions publicly for others to do the same. We filed another report to the FBI and updated the Los Angeles police detective assigned to his case. See Exhibit 1(M).
No evidence provided by NP. Prause is lying. I never hacked into any website. Prause, as usual, provides no evidence and no copy of her claimed FBI or police report. Only a picture of a CD. It’s been 7 year of Prause alleging to have reported me to the police, yet no law enforcement agency has ever contacted me.
Prause and Burgess’s miraculous discovery of some 300 fake URLs inserted into the Wayback archive was followed by RealYBOP Twitter (apparently magaged by Prause) posting about the fake URLs 110 times in a single weekend. Usually in my Twitter threads (she blocked me) or anywhere my name was mentioned. During this 4-day rampage @BrainOnPorn posted over 110 tweets targeting me. Nearly every @BrainOnPorn tweet contained at least one defamatory statement (most contained several). Rather than posting 100+ tweets here, including tweets RealYBOP posted under other comments out of context, visit this link. There you can see all the @BrainOnPorn tweets targeting me between August 22-26: PDF of over 100 RealYBOP tweets targeting Gary Wilson from August 22-26. Most contain defamation by RealYBOP.
In addition to the baseless character-impugning campaign conducted by the “Brain On Porn” Twitter account, the Twitter account also explicitly accused me of at least 3 felonies (screenshots below):
Stalking women in person
Making death threats, and
Hacking into websites.
Publicly accusing people of sexual/professional misconduct and felonies is actionable. In fact, if a tribunal deems RealYBOP’s (Burgess’s) actions “defamation per se,” I need not show any commercial damages in order to recover. I am investigating the remedies open to me to seek redress for RealYBOP’s (Burgess’s) actions.
In addition to approximately 150 tweets in 4 days by “Brain On Porn” Twitter and its allies (@RonSwansonTime –Burgess alias, Nicole Prause, NerdyKinkyCommie, and David Ley), on August 22 this email by the realyourbrainonporn website admin was forwarded to Gary Wilson (is it Burgess who owns the URL, or Prause?):
As the organization forwarding the email knows me, and is keenly aware of RealYBOP’s trademark infringement, and Prause’s long history of defaming and harassing those in the porn-skeptic movement, its personnel knew it was all lies.
PRAUSE: n. August 27, 2019. Wilson publicly claimed that I and over 20 other professionals committed felony computer hacking by accessing his website to post pornographic links referring to “Mormon” pornography of young girls in 2016 and 2017. Wayne Giampetro, JD had to send another Cease and Desist to stop Gary Wilson’s latest false claims against us. See Exhibit 1(N). Wilson has filed no known report to law enforcement regarding this supposed felony I/we committed.
Nothing but lies by Prause. While I strongly believe that Prause was behind the fake Mormon porn URLs placed on the Internet WayBack Machine, I never stated that she or any of the RealYBOP “experts” inserted the fake “Mormon porn” URLs into Wayback Internet Archive. Nor did Giampietro’s bogus Cease and Desist letter provide evidence that I had said anything the sort.
In response to RealYBOP’s Twitter rampage (in which Prause, apparently, was aided by @RonSwansonTime (likely a Burgess alias), NerdyKinkyCommie, and David Ley) I posted the following extensive Twitter thread exposing how “they” inserted fake YBOP URLs into the WayBack Machine archive and how I was being cyberstalked by RealYBOP, its aliases, and its allies. As you can see, none of the tweets accused anyone of “committed felony computer hacking”:
1/ BE AWARE- @BrainOnPorn is emailing organizations & individuals with false claims about YBOP. In the last 24 hours @BrainOnPorn has posted 30 tweets about YBOP@BrainOnPorn also appears to have created a troll account to spread lies. It was suspended: https://t.co/VhbZ3HdU9s
In the thread I explained how easy it was to insert fake URLs into the WayBack Machine Archive (I did it for my site).
5/ It's easy to insert fake URLs into The Wayback Machine. WayBack allows you to insert ANY URL as a way to save a page, even fake URLs. I just inserted this fake URL into the WayBack (eventually the URL enters the URL list): https://t.co/zDRWWbkpanpic.twitter.com/WW01FaKiLA
I also tweeted that another individual had inserted fake URLs into realyourbrainonporn.com’s Wayback Archive, thus disproving RealYBOP’s Twitter claim that it could not be done: https://web.archive.org/web/*/www.realyourbrainonporn.com/*
16/ Hilarious: An anonymous email reported that 2 fake URLs were inserted into the WayBack Machine archives of REALyourbrainonporn. Link to RealYBOP URLs: https://t.co/gGMVljnaQP The @BrainOnPorn twitter falsely stated that fake URLs could NOT be inserted. Caught in another lie: pic.twitter.com/uRj8ImkhG8
Now on to our lawyer’s 8-page response to Mr. Giampietro’s bogus August 27, 2019 cease and desist letter (PDF):
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Again, this PDF of 120 tweets contains many more examples of RealYBOP (Prause or Burgess) defaming and harassing over a 4-day period.
PRAUSE: o. September 12, 2019. The World Intellectual Property Organization ruled against Gary Wilson’s complaint against me.
My attorneys filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as a possible route to having the trademark-infringing website www.realyourbrainonporn.com removed from the Web as swiftly and economically as possible. While the arbitrator declined to support its removal, he acknowledged that the infringing URL was indeed “confusingly similar” to my URL www.yourbrainonporn.com. He then decided that the infringing site was a “gripe” site, and as such, entitled to criticize my site.
My attorneys say it is not, in fact a “gripe site.” It does not criticize my work. In fact, it does not address the content of my site at all, and merely holds itself out as the “real” version of my site in a confusing manner. However, the arbitrator, having opined that the infringing site was a “gripe site,” declined to examine the third element of my complaint: Prause’s abundant bad faith. He stated that the evidence my attorneys provided “could well suffice to establish bad faith,” but found no need to reach a conclusion on that element in view of his “gripe site” opinion. The entire ruling is available here: https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/text/2019/d2019-1544.html. This is far from over.
It goes without saying that Prause’s attempt to steal my trademark, while mimicking the appearance of my website and Twitter account, reveals she is the aggressor, the obsessed harasser. She is not the victim, but the perpetrator.
The RealYBOP and Prause tweets often include the baseless assertion that I, or others, wanted to silence “them” because we were afraid of “their science.”
First, all Prause needed to do was revert to RealYBOP’s original URL ScienceOfArousal.com. Proof: if you copy & paste this URL into your browser – https://www.scienceofarousal.com you will be redirected to “realyourbrainonporn.” Prause and Daniel Burgess could simply revert to their erstwhile brand name ScienceOfArousal.com and continue to operate freely and legally.
Second, I was pleased that Prause created a RealYBOP “research page.” It allowed me to expose, item by item, her so-called research page as nothing more than a collection of cherry-picked, often irrelevant papers (many are not studies). It also allowed me to reveal Prause’s bias, egregious omissions, and deception. See: Porn Science Deniers Alliance (AKA: “RealYourBrainOnPorn.com” and “PornographyResearch.com”).
Here we have RealYBOP (an apparent Prause alias) tweeting under the Mark Queppet interview of me (RealYBOP has blocked me), falsely stating that I threatened scientists and their families. My attorneys’ carefully documented 8-page C&D letter to Prause and Burgess to request that they stop infringing on my trademark is hardly “threatening families”:
Not only does RealYBOP (Prause?) incessantly tweet a link to the WIPO decision (often entering my Twitter threads to do so), RYBOP incorrectly calls WIPO a “lawsuit,” and regularly tweets (falsely) that other “porn activists” were involved in my case. For example, RealYBOP tweeted that Gabe Deem tried to take down “realyourbrainonporn,” and thus was a party in the my WIPO comlaint. He wasn’t.
That’s defamation.
Next, a September 30, 2019 tweet about Alex Rhodes, falsely implying he was a party. In it RealYBOP falsely states that NoFap “tried to silence the actual science,” but they lost (linking to the WIPO decision in favor of RealYBOP):
RealYBOP continues, defaming Deem, and stating that he tried to silence scientists (linking to WIPO decision, falsely implying he was a party).
The next day, RealYBOP (Prause?) trolls Gabe (whom she has blocked):
Note – Gabe is not a coach and never has been. RealYBOP claims about studies on porn and sexual problems are debunked here: Erectile And Other Sexual Dysfunctions Section. More of the same, falsely claiming Gabe was involved in the WIPO complaint
RealYBOP (Prause?) also falsely tweeted that Staci Sprout (who filed an affidavit in Hilton’s suit) “sued RealYBOP and lost”:
Just more defamation. Next RealYBOP falsely tweets that Staci Sprout was involved in my WIPO complaint:
PRAUSE: 18. Hilton, who provides content for Wilson’s website, knew or should have known that he was promoting Wilson’s harassment of me by working with Wilson, as Wilson has made several disparaging and harassing comments about me around the Internet:
a. “Miss Prause is the head of UCLA SPAN lab” (from yourbrainrebalanced.com removing my doctorate, referring to marital status) b. “Miss Prause is the head of UCLA SPAN lab” (from jsparkblog.com removing my doctorate, referring to marital status again) c. “Nicki” (misspelling of a nickname removing my doctorate) d. Nicole Prause [deleted “Neuroscientist” from published article reproduced] e. “Ley’s sidekick Prause”
No evidence provided by NP. First Prause lie: Don Hilton does not “provide content for Wilson’s website.” While YBOP contains a few articles by Hilton (which I copied from other sites) he has never written an article for my site. Second Prause lie: I have never harassed her and she has never provided evidence that I have.
On to Prause’s entire collection of disparaging and misogynistic comments that I supposedly made about her. I already addressed her fabricated claims of misogyny and the context of me accidentally using “Miss” in the introduction (a & b). A refresher is in order. Using an alias to post on a porn recovery forum, Nicole Prause asked me: “How small IS your penis Gary?” That’s pretty sexist. Far more sexist than my typing “Miss” or misspelling “Nicki” (Prause has used Nicole, Nikky, Nikki, and who knows what else, to identify herself). As for “removing her doctorate” (again no example), YBOP rarely adds “Dr.” or “PhD” to anyone’s name, so Prause need not feel special. I don’t recall posting “Ley’s sidekick Prause,” but this doesn’t constitute misogyny anymore that typing “Prause’s sidekick Ley” constitutes misandry.
Link to my full answer. Portion of my comment where I used “Miss” Prause:
Prause is certainly being sexist when she demands details about the size of my penis. Nevertheless, she has transformed my inadvertently typing “Miss” in my reply to her questions about my manhood into part of her never ending baseless campaign to paint me and others as misogynists. In this section are just a few examples of how Prause has weaponized her bizarre interest in my penis size and my response.
Over the last few years, Dr. Prause appears to have taken great pains to position herself as a “woman being subjected to misogynistic oppression when she tells truth to power.” She frequently tweets the following infographic, which she apparently also shares at her public lectures, painting herself as being victimized “as a woman scientist,” and portraying herself as a trailblazer forging ahead to prove porn’s harmlessness despite prejudiced attacks.
It accuses me, my wife, Don Hilton MD, and nofap founder Alexander Rhodes of misogyny with utterly unconvincing “evidence.” Any suggestion that I (or my wife), Hilton, or Rhodes are motivated by misogyny is fabricated, as our objections have nothing to do with Dr. Prause as a person or as a woman, and only to do with her untrue statements and inadequately supported claims about her research.
Put simply, anyone who exposes Prause’s falsehoods or misrepresentations of the research is automatically labeled “a misogynist,” in hopes that gullible people might believe her defamatory statements. She does this to shut down actual debate on Twitter and other social media platforms to prevent her falsehoods from being exposed.
It’s ironic that her infographic contains four instances of misogyny taken from anonymous YouTube comments under her TEDx talk. In 2013, TED closed comments under Gary Wilson’s TEDx talk in response to Nicole Prause’s many hateful and defamatory comments (see this section).
PRAUSE: To date, my name is on Gary Wilson’s website www.yourbrainonporn.com 9,710 times, he has over 100 unauthorized images of me on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com, including the one used by Hilton in his public talks about my sexuality, and has placed my name with his website link over 103,000 times on the Internet. See Prause Mention Data for Wilson Website, attached hereto as Exhibit 1(5). Wilson described my physical location on his website, including:
a. “Note: Rory Reid’s UCLA office is right next door to Prause’s (and the two used to be roommates)”
b. “females willing to act as sexual guinea pigs in Prause’s Hollywood Blvd office”
Letters a & b are addressed below. I start with the excerpts from her first paragraph.
PRAUSE: he has over 100 unauthorized images of me on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com,
Prause is calling the screenshots of her numerous defamatory tweets “unauthorized images of me.” Prause is claiming that screenshots of her tweets are copyrighted material. Tweets are generally not copyrightable, and hers are not. Every day thousands of websites and countless Twitter users post screenshots of tweets. In an attempt to remove evidence of her unethical and defamatory tweets Prause filed 3 groundless DMCA takedown requests in an attempt to bury evidence of her campaign of harassment and defamation (all 3 cases were dismissed by my web host as baseless).
PRAUSE: To date, my name is on Gary Wilson’s website www.yourbrainonporn.com 9,710 times.
PRAUSE: has placed my name with his website link over 103,000 times on the Internet..
Prause did not search my website, YourBrainOnPorn.com. Instead, she performed a purposely incorrect Google search for “prause site: yourbrainonporn.com” (leaving a space after the colon). Leaving the space tells Google to search the entire internet, not just YBOP! Prause’s search trick does return about 29,000 items (not 103,000), but the vast majority are not on YBOP:
The proper syntax for such a Google search is to omit the space between “site:” and a URL Thus, “site:yourbrainonporn.com” works fine, but “site: yourbrainonporn.com” searches across the internet for either yourbrainonporn.com or “Prause”.
In December, 2019, the proper result for Prause and yourbrainonporn.com was 8,300 Google returns. However, the vast majority of these 8,300 google returns were duplicates of YBOP pages, because YBOP is translated by G-Translate into multiple other languages (and so each mention of Prause’s name is counted multiple times leading to vastly exaggerated numbers).
Let me explain: Because Google translates each YBOP page into 100 languages, a solitary mention on a single YBOP page can lead to a Google search returning 100 pages! In other words, you might need to divide Prause’s number by 100. For example, by the 10th page of a proper Google search for Prause on YBOP, 8 out of the 10 returns are duplicate pages in a foreign language:
In October, 2018,before YBOP was redesigned to employ Google Translate,the true result for “Prause” on yourbrainonporn.com was 565 mentions:
Frankly, 565 seems low for “Prause” on YBOP, as I was forced to create several pages, like the current one, to document and counter Prause’s relentless defamation and harassment of me and many others:
If Prause continues at her current pace, we may indeed reach 103,000 primary mentions of “Prause” on YBOP. Joking aside, mentions of “Prause” have increased significantly since October 2018, as Prause’s defamation and cyberstalking have risen exponentially. For example, on January 29, 2019, Prause filed a trademark application to obtain YOURBRAINONPORN and YOURBRAINONPORN.COM. In April 2019, Prause created a trademark-infringing website “RealYourBrainOnPorn,” and a Twitter account (https://twitter.com/BrainOnPorn), a YouTube channel, and a Facebook page, all employing the words “Your Brain On Porn.” Prause also 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 myself. Put simply, Prause has used her new apparent alias (“RealYourBrainOnPorn”) to wage a full scale war on all her victims. As a result, I was forced to create these new YBOP pages:
Within a few months of creating RealYBOP, two defamation lawsuits were filed against Prause. The related documents for both defamation lawsuits (Donald Hilton, MD & Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes), were placed on YBOP, resulting is these pages:
While I am weary of documenting Prause’s activity, I know that YBOP is the one site willing to document Prause’s unbelievable behavior. I have done this for the protection of her many victims, as a resource for the public to know the truth, and as a source of evidence for potential lawsuits (there are currently 3 lawsuits involving Prause). An ugly job, but unfortunately necessary.
Other sources of “Prause” on YBOP: In addition to the pages chronicling Prause’s malicious behavior, YBOP contains over 12,000 pages, and it’s a clearinghouse for nearly everything associated with Internet porn use and its effects on the user. Prause has published multiple papers about porn use and hypersexuality, and by her own admission, claims to be a professional debunker of porn addiction and porn-induced sexual problems.
In November, 2019 a Google search for “Nicole Prause” + pornography returned about 39,000 pages. Perhaps thanks to her costly public relations firm, she’s quoted in hundreds of journalistic articles about porn use and porn addiction. She has published several papers related to pornography use. She’s on TV, radio, podcasts, and YouTube channels claiming to have debunked porn addiction with a single (heavily formally criticized) study. So Prause’s name inevitably shows up a lot on YBOP.
Not only do Prause’s studies appear on YBOP, so do hundreds of other studies, many of which cite “Prause” in their reference sections. YBOP also has published very long critiques of seven Prause papers. In addition, YBOP hosts at least 18 peer-reviewed critiques of Prause’s studies. Further, YBOP contains at least a dozen lay critiques of Prause’s work. YBOP also hosts many journalistic articles that quote Nicole Prause, and YBOP often responds to Prause’s claims in these articles. YBOP also debunks many of the talking points put forth by Prause and her close ally David Ley. To put this in context, YBOP also critiques other questionable research on porn and related subjects. These critiques are not personal, but rather substantive.
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PRAUSE: a. Wilson described my physical location on his website, including: “Note: Rory Reid’s UCLA office is right next door to Prause’s (and the two used to be roommates)”
No evidence provided by NP. That was her UCLA colleague at the time, Rory Reid’s, description of Prause’s “physical location” in July of 2013.
Why didn’t Prause provide the URL where this statement appeared? Because it was Rory Reid who stated the above and he did so in his very friendly-to-Prause “critique” of Steele et al., 2013. Rory Reid’s so-called critique was placed on YBOP in July of 2013: “Critique of Prause Study” Rory C. Reid, Ph.D., LCSW (July 2013). Here’s a PDF of Rory Reid’s full “critique.” A screenshot of the section where Reid says his office is next door to Prause:
Prause is trying to spin Rory Reid’s 2013 reveal, in a paper attacking Prause’s critics and lauding her genius, as somehow compromising her safety (astonishingly, Reid’s veiled defense of Steele et al., 2013 mentions me by name 10 times – did she help him write it?). This claim is ridiculous. First, Prause has provided zero evidence of anyone stalking her (only fairy tales of victim-hood as revealed in preceding sections). More importantly, in 2013 Prause’s UCLA address, office number, email, and phone were all available on the official UCLA website and her SPAN Lab website (which she represented to be a UCLA site). Nice try. By the way, eight subsequent peer-reviewed critiques of Steele et al., 2013 are in accord with my analysis that Steele et al. actually supports the porn addiction model, and that Prause misrepresented her findings to the press.
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PRAUSE: b. Wilson described my physical location on his website, including: “females willing to act as sexual guinea pigs in Prause’s Hollywood Blvd office”
Notice that YBOP did not list the claimed Liberos address, only Hollywood Blvd. The reality: for years Prause’s Liberos website had a Hollywood Blvd. address listed as its location (likely a fake address, as a letter from my attorneys could not reach her there). Her website very recently switched the Liberos address to Sacramento, so she could give the court the false impression that I outed her “secret” hiding place. Prause failed to cover all her tracks, as her own LinkedIn page currently (as of December 8th, 2019) lists a Hollywood Blvd. address: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nprause
And Prause’s own GovTribe page, which she updated on March 2, 2019, has a different Hollywood Boulevard address: https://govtribe.com/vendors/prause-nicole-liberos-79eg4 (address was still there as of February, 2020, indicating Prause is unconcerned about being stalked):
PRAUSE: Wilson’s website www.yourbrainonporn.com falsely accuses me of a variety of criminal acts that have never been filed with law enforcement. For example, Gary Wilson falsely claims on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com that I secretly test “porn stars” in my laboratory, have no university affiliations overseeing my research, am supported through unreported conflicts of interest by the pornography industry, and am funded by the sexual servitude of women through a company called OneTaste. Wilson knows these statements are untrue, as he has been served with cease and desist letters from my attorneys. See Exhibit 1(M). I have never tested porn stars, my research is overseen by federally-regulated, public university ethics review panels with which I have an affiliation (University of Pittsburgh, University of Nebraska-Lincoln), I have no support from the pornography industry, and none of my research is, or has ever been, funded by the OneTaste company.
No evidence provided by NP, other than a picture of a CD. Notice how Prause failed to provide:
Copies on any FBI reports,
Screenshots of what she claimed I have said, or
URLs of YBOP pages containing what she claims I have said.
I’ll provide very short answers to each fabricated allegation, then focus on Prause’s lies surrounding the study funded by OneTaste. Specifically, the allegation by Vice President of the adult performer union APAG (Ruby) stating that Prause obtained porn performers through the Free Speech Coalition as experimental subjects for the OneTaste study that Prause now claims debunks porn addiction (yet to be published). Ruby also stated that Prause was friends with Eric Paul Leue, the (then) Executive Director of the Free Speech Coalition, the lobbying arm for the porn industry
PRAUSE: For example, Gary Wilson falsely claims on his website www.yourbrainonporn.com that I secretly test “porn stars” in my laboratory…
…have no university affiliations overseeing my research,
What I actually said is that Prause is no longer employed by any university (which she is not). Prause is trying to turn the IRB approval for her studies, obtained by university-based co-investigators, into university affiliations for herself. IRBs do not create employment or adjunct status.
…am supported through unreported conflicts of interest by the pornography industry,
…and am funded by the sexual servitude of women through a company called OneTaste.
I certainly never said this, and don’t know what it means. I actually said that OneTaste had recently received some unflattering, revealing publicity (and is being investigated by the FBI). Here are the news items:
Wilson knows these statements are untrue, as he has been served with cease and desist letters from my attorneys. See Exhibit 1(M).
What I know is that Prause provided no documentation (screenshots, URL’s) that I made these statements. As for Prause’s groundless cease and desist letters, most have been addressed elsewhere on the current page. Except for the first C&D in 2015 (where I asked for evidence of Prause’s false allegations), I’ve ignored the rest. Prause sends out C&Ds like other people send out holiday cards. These letters may intimidate others, but her spurious C&Ds cannot suppress my freedom to reveal the truth.
I have never tested porn stars, my research is overseen by federally-regulated, public university ethics review panels with which I have an affiliation (University of Pittsburgh, University of Nebraska-Lincoln),
Again, Prause is cleverly trying to turn an IRB into a university affiliation. IRBs do not create an employment or adjunct relationship. (Again, the IRBs were not obtained through Prause, but through her two co-researchers at Pitt and Nebraska.) I stand by my statement: Prause has not been employed by any university since UCLA decided to not renew her contract (late in 2014).
I have no support from the pornography industry, and none of my research is, or has ever been, funded by the OneTaste company.
I never stated that Prause was financially supported by the porn industry (no one but Prause knows). On the other hand, the Vice President of the adult performers union says Prause obtained subjects through the FSC). As for Prause’s assertion that her research has never been funded by OneTaste, this is contradicted by multiple publicly available pieces of evidence. Let’s turn to the OneTaste (Orgasmic Meditation) study.
Part #1: Addressing Prause’s claim that “none of my research is, or has ever been, funded by the OneTaste company.” How will Prause dig herself out of this hole? I’ll provide only a few bits from the mountain of online evidence countering Prause’s assertion that she has never been funded by the OneTaste company:
The official description from page 3 of Nicole Prause’s 20-page CV (notice that Prause lists herself as “principal investigator”):
“Neurological effects and health benefits of orgasmic meditation” Principal Investigator, Direct costs: $350,000, Duration: 2 years, OneTaste Foundation, co-Investigators: Greg Siegle, Ph.D.
Prause using her Facebook page to recruit subjects for her OM study:
Prause and co-investigator Greg Siegle presenting about Orgasmic Meditation at a conference in 2019:
Below, Prause is charging $280.00 to tell the world about Orgasmic Meditation. Very important to note that “Orgasmic Meditation” is the trademark property of OneTaste. To advertise her workshop on “Orgasmic Meditation” Prause would have need permission from OneTaste.
Here is a page devoted to Prause’s OneTaste study on yet another official OM site: https://instituteofom.com/science. Oh, and here’s a video featuring Prause on the OneTaste YouTube channel:
In addition, numerous articles describe Prause as the principal investigator for the OneTaste (Orgamsic Meditation) study:
In the Bloomberg.com article CEO Joanna Van Vleck pretty much said that OneTaste’s success 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.
And here we have Prause proudly co-presenting with founder and CEO of OneTaste, Nicole Daedone (and making good money):
From OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone’s Wikpedia page:
She founded OneTaste in 2004, a sexuality-focused wellness education company based in the San Francisco Bay Area. OneTaste trademarked the “orgasmic meditation” (OM) procedure delivered through the company’s classes. OneTaste also organizes two-week, $36,000-a-person retreats called the “Nicole Daedone Intensive”. Former members of the organization testifying about their experience at OneTaste said it “resembled a kind of prostitution ring,” where managers frequently ordered staffers to engage in sexual relations with customers. In 2015, a former employee received a 6-figure settlement for sexual assault and harassment. The company made $12 million in revenue in 2017.[6]
As pointed out here, Prause’s usernames often contain 2-3 capitalized words. The username OMer1970 likely stands for “Orgasmic Meditation”, as this user’s edits were about Prause’s Orgasmic Mediation study (commonly called “OM”). OMer1970 was banned as a “confirmed sockpuppet of NeuroSex.”
Bottom line: All available evidence points to Prause being hired to bolster the commercial interests of the heavily tainted and very controversial company (labeled by some as a “kind of prostitution ring”). It appears once again that Prause lied under oath when she stated that she has never done research for the OneTaste company (Orgamic Meditation).
The study (or studies) in question are said to be funded by OneTaste (OM), a for profit company charging $4,300.00 for a 3-day workshop to learn clitoral manipulation. As described in this Bloomberg.com expose, OneTaste offers 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.
To perform 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 observed their responses. It’s not hard to imagine that it’s challenging to locate females willing to act as sexual guinea pigs in Prause’s Hollywood Boulevard office. Whatever the reasons, Ruby insisted that Prause obtained subjects for her OM study via the FSC (and its connections with porn actors), 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. 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. (Adler has recently filed an affidavit in Hilton’s lawsuit).
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?):
Originally, the OneTaste study was funded to explore only the benefits of “Orgasmic Meditation” – but it then transformed into a study debunking porn addiction (which would certainly serve the FSC’s interests)!
In 2017 Prause began crowing that her yet to be published Orgasmic Meditation study “falsified” porn and sex addiction, even though the study 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 (which has still not been published as of December, 2019).
Background: Recently 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 also put online, and made available for interested parties to comment on. (A simple sign-up is needed to view and participate.)
Astonishingly, Prause has posted more comments in the beta-draft comment section than every other commenter combined. In the comments section under this new proposal, Prause posted three times about her OM study (partnered sex, N=250). Here are her comments asserting that her OM study found no evidence of sexual compulsivity (she never does, even when neuroscientists say she has):
In July, 2018, Prause let WHO, the APA, and AASECT know that, in her opinion, her lone Orgasmic Meditation study had “falsified” the porn/sex addiction model:
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 are several more examples of Prause telling the world that her upcoming “partnered sex” study will debunk porn and sex addiction…for all time.
Contrary to what Prause is doing here, pre-registration is supposed to mean 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 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.
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, and waging war on individuals and organizations she labeled 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 cozy 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?
COMMENTS: When confronted with hundreds of studies linking porn use to negative outcomes, a common tactic by pro-porn PhDs 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.
To “prove” that porn use is causing erectile dysfunction, relationship problems, emotional problems or addiction-related brain changes you would have to have two large groups of identical twins separated at birth. Make sure one group never watches porn. Make sure that every individual in the other group watches the exact same type of porn, for the exact same hours, at the exact same age. And continue the experiment for 30 years or so, followed by assessment of the differences.
Alternatively research attempting to “prove” causation could be done using the following 3 methods:
Eliminate the variable whose effects you wish to measure. Specifically, have porn users stop, and assess any changes weeks, months (years?) later. This is exactly what is occurring as thousands of young men stop porn as a way to alleviate chronic non-organic erectile dysfunction and other symptoms (caused by porn use).
Expose willing participants to pornography and measure various outcomes. For example, assess subjects’ ability to delay gratification both before and after exposure to porn in a lab setting.
Perform longitudinal studies, which means following subjects over a period of time to see how changes in porn use (or levels of porn use) relate to various outcomes. For example, correlate levels of porn use with rates of divorce over years (asking other questions to “control for” other possible variables).
The majority of human studies on various addictions, including internet and porn addiction, are correlational. Below is 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 pornography studies are divided into 3 sections based on methodologies: (1) eliminating porn use, (2) longitudinal, (3) experimental exposure to porn (visual sexual stimuli).
Pornography Studies Suggesting or Demonstrating Causation:
Section #1: Studies where participants eliminated porn use:
The debate about whether porn-induced sexual dysfunctions exist is over. The first 7 studies listed here demonstrate porn use causing sexual problems as participants eliminated porn use and healed chronic sexual dysfunctions.
An extensive review of the literature related to porn-induced sexual problems. Co-authored by 7 US Navy doctors (urologists, psychiatrists, and a MD with PhD in neuroscience), the review provides the latest data revealing a tremendous rise in youthful sexual problems. It also reviews the neurological studies related to porn addiction and sexual conditioning via Internet porn. The authors provide 3 clinical reports of men who developed porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. Two of the three men healed their sexual dysfunctions by eliminating porn use. The third man experienced little improvement as he was unable to abstain from porn use. Excerpt:
Traditional factors that once explained men’s sexual difficulties appear insufficient to account for the sharp rise in erectile dysfunction, delayed ejaculation, decreased sexual satisfaction, and diminished libido during partnered sex in men under 40. This review (1) considers data from multiple domains, e.g., clinical, biological (addiction/urology), psychological (sexual conditioning), sociological; and (2) presents a series of clinical reports, all with the aim of proposing a possible direction for future research of this phenomenon. Alterations to the brain’s motivational system are explored as a possible etiology underlying pornography-related sexual dysfunctions. This review also considers evidence that Internet pornography’s unique properties (limitless novelty, potential for easy escalation to more extreme material, video format, etc.) may be potent enough to condition sexual arousal to aspects of Internet pornography use that do not readily transition to real-life partners, such that sex with desired partners may not register as meeting expectations and arousal declines. Clinical reports suggest that terminating Internet pornography use is sometimes sufficient to reverse negative effects, underscoring the need for extensive investigation using methodologies that have subjects remove the variable of Internet pornography use.
Authored by a French psychiatrist and president of the European Federation of Sexology. The paper revolves around his clinical experience with 35 men who developed erectile dysfunction and/or anorgasmia, and his therapeutic approaches for helping them. The author states that most of his patients used porn, with several being addicted to porn. The abstract points to internet porn as the primary cause of the problems. 19 of the 35 men saw significant improvements in sexual functioning. The other men either dropped out of treatment or are still trying to recover. Excerpts:
Intro: Harmless and even helpful in [its] usual form widely practiced, masturbation in its excessive and pre-eminent form, generally associated today to pornographic addiction, is too often overlooked in the clinical assessment of sexual dysfunction it can induce.
Results: Initial results for these patients, after treatment to “unlearn” their masturbatory habits and their often associated addiction to pornography, are encouraging and promising. A reduction in symptoms was obtained in 19 patients out of 35. The dysfunctions regressed and these patients were able to enjoy satisfactory sexual activity.
Conclusion: Addictive masturbation, often accompanied by a dependency on cyber-pornography, has been seen to play a role in the etiology of certain types of erectile dysfunction or coital anejaculation. It is important to systematically identify the presence of these habits rather than conduct a diagnosis by elimination, in order to include habit-breaking deconditioning techniques in managing these dysfunctions.
One of the 4 case studies in this paper reports on a man with porn-induced sexual problems (low libido, fetishes, anorgasmia). The sexual intervention called for a 6-week abstinence from porn and masturbation. After 8 months the man reported increased sexual desire, successful sex and orgasm, and enjoying “good sexual practices. This is the first peer-reviewed chronicling of a recovery from porn-induced sexual dysfunctions. Excerpts from the paper:
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.
This is a report on two “composite cases” illustrating the etiology and treatments for delayed ejaculation (anorgasmia). “Patient B” represented multiple young men treated by the therapist. Patient B’s “porn use had escalated into harder material”, “as is often the case.” The paper says that porn-related delayed ejaculation is not uncommon, and on the rise. The author calls for more research on porn’s effects on sexual functioning. Patient B’s delayed ejaculation was healed after 10 weeks of no porn. Excerpts:
The cases are composite cases taken from my work within the National Health Service in Croydon University Hospital, London. With the latter case (Patient B), it is important to note that the presentation reflects a number of young males who have been referred by their GPs with a similar diagnosis. Patient B is a 19-year-old who presented because he was unable to ejaculate via penetration. When he was 13, he was regularly accessing pornography sites either on his own through internet searches or via links that his friends sent him. He began masturbating every night while searching his phone for image…If he did not masturbate he was unable to sleep. The pornography he was using had escalated, as is often the case (see Hudson-Allez, 2010), into harder material (nothing illegal)…
Patient B was exposed to sexual imagery via pornography from the age of 12 and the pornography he was using had escalated to bondage and dominance by the age of 15.
We agreed that he would no longer use pornography to masturbate. This meant leaving his phone in a different room at night. We agreed that he would masturbate in a different way….
Patient B was able to achieve orgasm via penetration by the fifth session; the sessions are offered fortnightly in Croydon University Hospital so session five equates to approximately 10 weeks from consultation. He was happy and greatly relieved. In a three-month follow-up with Patient B, things were still going well.
Patient B is not an isolated case within the National Health Service (NHS) and in fact young men in general accessing psychosexual therapy, without their partners, speaks in itself to the stirrings of change.
This article therefore supports previous research that has linked masturbation style to sexual dysfunction and pornography to masturbation style. The article concludes by suggesting that the successes of psychosexual therapists in working with DE are rarely recorded in the academic literature, which has allowed the view of DE as a difficult disorder to treat remain largely unchallenged. The article calls for research into pornography usage and its effect on masturbation and genital desensitization.
The details reveal a case of porn-induced anejaculation. The husband’s only sexual experience prior to marriage was frequent masturbation to pornography – where he was able to ejaculate. He also reported sexual intercourse as less arousing than masturbation to porn. The key piece of information is that “re-training” and psychotherapy failed to heal his anejaculation. When those interventions failed, therapists suggested a complete ban on masturbation to porn. Eventually this ban resulted in successful sexual intercourse and ejaculation with a partner for the first time in his life. A few excerpts:
A is a 33-year-old married male with heterosexual orientation, a professional from a middle socio-economic urban background. He has had no premarital sexual contacts. He watched pornography and masturbated frequently. His knowledge about sex and sexuality was adequate. Following his marriage, Mr. A described his libido as initially normal, but later reduced secondary to his ejaculatory difficulties. Despite thrusting movements for 30-45 minutes, he had never been able to ejaculate or achieve orgasm during penetrative sex with his wife.
What didn’t work:
Mr. A’s medications were rationalized; clomipramine and bupropion were discontinued, and sertraline was maintained at a dose of 150 mg per day. Therapy sessions with the couple were held weekly for the initial few months, following which they were spaced to fortnightly and later monthly. Specific suggestions including focusing on sexual sensations and concentrating on the sexual experience rather than ejaculation were used to help reduce performance anxiety and spectatoring. Since problems persisted despite these interventions, intensive sex therapy was considered.
Eventually they instituted a complete ban on masturbation (which means he continued to masturbate to porn during the above failed interventions):
A ban on any form of sexual activity was suggested. Progressive sensate focus exercises (initially non-genital and later genital) were initiated. Mr. A described an inability to experience the same degree of stimulation during penetrative sex as compared to that which he experienced during masturbation. Once the ban on masturbation was enforced, he reported an increased desire for sexual activity with his partner.
After an unspecified amount of time, the ban on masturbation to porn lead to success:
Meanwhile, Mr. A and his wife decided to go ahead with Assisted Reproductive Techniques (ART) and underwent two cycles of intrauterine insemination. During a practice session, Mr. A ejaculated for the first time, following which he has been able to ejaculate satisfactorily during a majority of the couple’s sexual interactions.
This paper explores the phenomenon of pornography induced erectile dysfunction (PIED), meaning sexual potency problems in men due to Internet pornography consumption. Empirical data from men who suffer from this condition have been collected. A combination of topical life history method (with qualitative asynchronous online narrative interviews) and personal online diaries has been employed. The data have been analyzed using theoretical interpretative analysis (according to McLuhan’s media theory), based on analytic induction. The empirical investigation indicates that there is a correlation between pornography consumption and erectile dysfunction that suggests causation. The findings are based on 11 interviews along with two video diaries and three text diaries. The men are between the ages of 16 and 52; they report that an early introduction to pornography (usually during adolescence) is followed by daily consumption until a point is reached where extreme content (involving, for example, elements of violence) is needed to maintain arousal. A critical stage is reached when sexual arousal is exclusively associated with extreme and fast-paced pornography, rendering physical intercourse bland and uninteresting. This results in an inability to maintain an erection with a real-life partner, at which point the men embark on a “re-boot” process, giving up pornography. This has helped some of the men to regain their ability to achieve and sustain an erection.
Introduction to the results section:
Having processed the data, I have noticed certain patterns and recurring themes, following a chronological narrative in all of the interviews. These are: Introduction. One is first introduced to pornography, usually before puberty. Building a habit. One begins to consume pornography regularly. Escalation. One turns to more “extreme” forms of pornography, content-wise, in order to achieve the same effects previously achieved through less “extreme” forms of pornography.Realization.One notices sexual potency problems believed to be caused by pornography use. “Re-boot” process. One tries to regulate pornography use or eliminate it completely in order to regain one’s sexual potency. The data from the interviews are presented based on the above outline.
Interviews of 15 male porn users. Several of the men reported porn addiction, escalation of use and porn-induced sexual problems. Excerpts relevant to porn-induced sexual dysfunctions, including Michael, who significantly improved his erectile function during sexual encounters by severely limiting his porn use:
Some men talked about seeking professional help to address their problematic pornography use. Such attempts at help-seeking had not been productive for the men, and at times even exacerbated feelings of shame. Michael, a university student who used pornography primarily as a coping mechanism for study-related stress, was having issues with erectile dysfunction during sexual encounters with women and sought help from his General Practitioner Doctor (GP):
Michael: When I went to the doctor at 19 [. . .], he prescribed Viagra and said [my issue] was just performance anxiety. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t. It was personal research and reading that showed me the issue was porn [. . .] If I go to the doctor as a young kid and he prescribes me the blue pill, then I feel like no one is really talking about it. He should be asking about my porn use, not giving me Viagra. (23, Middle-Eastern, Student)
As a result of his experience, Michael never went back to that GP and started doing his own research online. He eventually found an article discussing a man approximately his age describing a similar type of sexual dysfunction, which caused him to consider pornography as a potential contributor. After making a concerted effort to lower his pornography use, his erectile dysfunction issues began to improve. He reported that even though his total frequency of masturbation did not reduce, he only watched pornography for about half of those instances. By halving the amount of times he combined masturbation with pornography, Michael said he was able to significantly improve his erectile function during sexual encounters with women.
Phillip, like Michael, sought help for another sexual issue related to his pornography use. In his case, the problem was a noticeably reduced sex drive. When he approached his GP about his issue and its links to his pornography use, the GP reportedly had nothing to offer and instead referred him to a male fertility specialist:
Phillip: I went to a GP and he referred me to specialist who I didn’t believe was particularly helpful. They didn’t really offer me a solution and weren’t really taking me seriously. I ended up paying him for six weeks of testosterone shots, and it was $100 a shot, and it really didn’t do anything. That was their way to treat my sexual dysfunction. I just do not feel the dialogue or situation was adequate. (29, Asian, Student)
Interviewer: [To clarify a previous point you mentioned, is this the experience] that prevented you from seeking help thereafter?
Phillip: Yup.
The GPs and specialists sought by the participants seemed to offer only biomedical solutions, an approach that has been criticized within literature (Tiefer, 1996). Hence, the service and treatment these men were able to receive from their GPs was not only deemed inadequate, but also alienated them from further accessing professional help. Although biomedical responses seem to be the most popular answer for doctors (Potts, Grace, Gavey, & Vares, 2004), a more holistic and client-centered approach is needed, as the issues highlighted by men are likely psychological and possibly created by pornography use.
The length of the longest streak participants performed before taking part in the survey correlates with time preferences. The second survey will answer the question if longer periods of abstinence render participants more able to delay rewards, or if more patient participants are more likely to perform longer streaks.
Longer periods of abstinence most likely cause less risk aversion (which is good). The second survey will provide the final proof.
Personality correlates with length of streaks. The second wave will reveal if abstinence influences personality or if personality can explain variation in the length of streaks.
Results of the Second Wave – Main Findings
Abstaining from pornography and masturbation increases the ability to delay rewards
Participating in a period of abstinence renders people more willing to take risks
Abstinence renders people more altruistic
Abstinence renders people more extroverted, more conscientious, and less neurotic
Subjects abstained from porn use (only 3 weeks). Comparing the two groups, those who continued using pornography reported lower levels of commitment than control participants. What might have occurred if they abstained for 3 months instead of 3 weeks? Excerpts:
We examined whether the consumption of pornography affects romantic relationships, with the expectation that higher levels of pornography consumption would correspond to weakened commitment in young adult romantic relationships.
Study 1 (n = 367) found that higher pornography consumption was related to lower commitment, and
Study 2 (n = 34) replicated this finding using observational data.
Study 3 (n = 20) participants were randomly assigned to either refrain from viewing pornography or to a self-control task. Those who continued using pornography reported lower levels of commitment than control participants.
The intervention proved effective at reducing or eliminating pornography consumption for the duration of the three-week study, yet did not deter control participants from continuing their consumption. Our hypothesis was supported as participants in the pornography consumption condition reported a substantial reduction in commitment compared to participants in the abstain from pornography condition.
Internet pornography is a multi-billion-dollar industry that has grown increasingly accessible. Delay discounting involves devaluing larger, later rewards in favor of smaller, more immediate rewards. The constant novelty and primacy of sexual stimuli as particularly strong natural rewards make Internet pornography a unique activator of the brain’s reward system, thereby having implications for decision-making processes. Based on theoretical studies of evolutionary psychology and neuroeconomics, two studies tested the hypothesis that consuming Internet pornography would relate to higher rates of delay discounting.
Study 1 used a longitudinal design. Participants completed a pornography use questionnaire and a delay discounting task at Time 1 and then again four weeks later. Participants reporting higher initial pornography use demonstrated a higher delay discounting rate at Time 2, controlling for initial delay discounting.
Study 2 tested for causality with an experimental design. Participants were randomly assigned to abstain from either their favorite food or pornography for three weeks. Participants who abstained from pornography use demonstrated lower delay discounting than participants who abstained from their favorite food. The finding suggests that Internet pornography is a sexual reward that contributes to delay discounting differently than other natural rewards. Theoretical and clinical implications of these studies are highlighted.
This paper contains two longitudinal studies examining the effects of Internet porn on “delay discounting.” Delay discounting happens when people choose ten dollars right now rather than 20 dollars in a week. It’s the inability to delay immediate gratification for a more valuable reward in the future.
Think of the famous Stanford marshmallow experiment, where 4 and 5 year olds were told if they delayed eating their one marshmallow while the researcher stepped out, they would be rewarded with a second marshmallow when the researcher returned. Watch this funny video of kids struggling with this choice.
The first study (median subject age 20) correlated subjects’ pornography use with their scores on a delayed gratification task. The results:
The more pornography that participants consumed, the more they saw the future rewards as worth less than the immediate rewards, even though the future rewards were objectively worth more.
Put simply, more porn use correlated with less ability to delay gratification for larger future rewards. In the second part of this study researchers assessed the subjects delayed discounting 4 weeks later and correlated with their porn use.
These results indicate that continued exposure to the immediate gratification of pornography is related to higher delay discounting over time.
Continued porn use resulted in greater delayed discounting 4 weeks later. This strongly suggests that porn use causes weakened ability to delay gratification, rather than the inability to delay gratification leading to porn use. The second study drove this home.
A second study (median age 19) was performed to assess if porn use causes delayed discounting, or the inability to delay gratification. Researchers divided current porn users into two groups:
One group abstained from porn use for 3 weeks,
A second group abstained from their favorite food for 3 weeks.
All participants were told the study was about self-control, and they were randomly chosen to abstain from their assigned activity.
The clever part was that the researchers had the second group of porn users abstain from eating their favorite food. This ensured that 1) all subjects engaged in a self-control task, and 2) the second group’s porn use was unaffected.
At the end of the 3 weeks, participants were involved in a task to assess delay discounting. Incidentally, while the “porn abstinence group” viewed significantly less porn than the “favorite food abstainers,” most did not completely abstain from porn viewing. The results:
As predicted, participants who exerted self-control over their desire to consume pornography chose a higher percentage of larger, later rewards compared to participants who exerted self-control over their food consumption but continued consuming pornography.
The group that cut back on their porn viewing for 3 weeks displayed less delay discounting than the group that abstained from their favorite food. Put simply, abstaining from internet porn increased porn users’ ability to delay gratification. From the study:
Thus, building on the longitudinal findings of Study 1, we demonstrated that continued pornography consumption was causally related to a higher rate of delay discounting. Exercising self-control in the sexual domain had a stronger effect on delay discounting than exercising self-control over another rewarding physical appetite (e.g., eating one’s favorite food).
The take-aways:
It wasn’t exercising self-control that increased the ability to delay gratification. Reducing porn use was the key factor.
Internet porn is a unique stimulus.
Internet porn use, even in non-addicts, has long-term effects.
What’s so important about delay discounting (the ability to delay gratification)? Well, delay discounting has been linked to substance abuse, excessive gambling, risky sexual behavior and internet addiction.
Back to the 1972 “marshmallow experiment”: Researchers reported that the children who were willing to delay gratification and waited to receive the second marshmallow ended up having higher SAT (aptitude) scores, lower levels of substance abuse, lower likelihood of obesity, better responses to stress, better social skills as reported by their parents, and generally better scores in a range of other life measures (the follow-up studies here, here, and here). The ability to delay gratification was critical for success in life.
This porn study turns everything on its head. While the marshmallow studies point to the ability to delay gratification as an unchangeable characteristic, this study demonstrates it’s fluid, to some degree. The surprising finding is that exercising willpower was not the key factor. Internet porn use affected subjects’ ability to delay gratification. From the study:
“Our results also bolster findings that differences in delay discounting are largely due to behavior rather than genetic predispositions.”
Thus,
“While developmental and biological predisposition may play a major role in one’s discounting and impulsivity tendencies, both behavior and the nature of stimuli and rewards also contribute to the development of such tendencies.”
Two important points: 1) the subjects were not asked to abstain from masturbation or sex – only porn, and 2) the subjects were not compulsive porn users or addicts. The findings clearly demonstrate that Internet porn is a unique and powerful supernormal stimulus, capable of altering what researchers though was an innate characteristic. From the study:
“Internet pornography is a sexual reward that contributes to delay discounting differently than other natural rewards do, even when use is not compulsive or addictive. This research makes an important contribution, demonstrating that the effect goes beyond temporary arousal.”
As thousands of rebooters [porn users who experiment with quitting porn] have revealed, Internet porn use can affect much more than one’s sexuality. From the study’s conclusion:
“Pornography consumption may provide immediate sexual gratification but can have implications that transcend and affect other domains of a person’s life, especially relationships. It is therefore important to treat pornography as a unique stimulus in reward, impulsivity, and addiction studies and to apply this accordingly in individual as well as relational treatment.”
The study also contains a useful discussion of the role of dopamine and cue-driven behavior. In addition, it provides a lot of research on why sexual cues and internet cues (constant novelty) require special consideration. Evolutionarily, the survival advantage of delay discounting for sexual stimuli would be to urge mammals to ‘‘get it while the getting is good,” thus successfully passing on their genes.
As the researchers said,
“Pornography use in itself may be a harmless activity but, given what we know about the reward system and the primacy of sex as a natural reward and visceral stimulus, it also has the potential to become compulsive or addictive.”
The researchers predicted porn consumption would increase impulsivity for 3 reasons:
Sexual urges can be extremely powerful, and have been related to impulsivity in past research
Pornography consumption is a simple replacement for real encounters, can become habitual, and can the condition user to instant gratification
Constant novelty of the internet can lead to repeated stimulation and habituation (decreased responsiveness, driving a need for more stimulation)
Finally, as most of the subjects were still in adolescence, there is a brief discussion of how adolescents may be uniquely vulnerable to internet porn’s effects.
“With regard to the current sample of college students (median ages of 19 and 20), it is important to be aware that, biologically, adolescence extends to approximately age 25. Adolescents show more reward sensitivity and less aversion to overconsumption, making them more susceptible to addiction.”
An increase in porn use was followed by a decrease in academic performance. An excerpt:
This two-wave panel study aimed to test an integrative model in early adolescent boys (Mean age = 14.10; N = 325) that (a) explains their exposure to Internet pornography by looking at relationships with pubertal timing and sensation seeking, and (b) explores the potential consequence of their exposure to Internet pornography for their academic performance. An integrative path model indicated that pubertal timing and sensation seeking predicted the use of Internet pornography. Boys with an advanced pubertal stage and boys high in sensation seeking more frequently used Internet pornography. Moreover, an increased use of Internet pornography decreased boys’ academic performance six months later. The discussion focuses on the consequences of this integrative model for future research on Internet pornography.
Between May 2006 and May 2007, we conducted a three-wave panel survey among 1,052 Dutch adolescents aged 13–20. Structural equation modeling revealed that exposure to SEIM consistently reduced adolescents’ sexual satisfaction. Lower sexual satisfaction (in Wave 2) also increased the use of SEIM (in Wave 3). The effect of exposure to SEIM on sexual satisfaction did not differ among male and female adolescents.
The first longitudinal study on a representative cross-section of married couples. It found significant negative effects of porn use on sexual satisfaction and marriage quality over time. Excerpt:
This study is the first to draw on nationally representative, longitudinal data (2006-2012 Portraits of American Life Study) to test whether more frequent pornography use influences marital quality later on and whether this effect is moderated by gender. In general, married persons who more frequently viewed pornography in 2006 reported significantly lower levels of marital quality in 2012, net of controls for earlier marital quality and relevant correlates. Pornography’s effect was not simply a proxy for dissatisfaction with sex life or marital decision-making in 2006. In terms of substantive influence, frequency of pornography use in 2006 was the second strongest predictor of marital quality in 2012
The study used nationally representative General Social Survey panel data collected from thousands of American adults. Respondents were interviewed three times about their pornography use and marital status — every two years from 2006-2010, 2008-2012, or 2010-2014. Excerpts:
Beginning pornography use between survey waves nearly doubled one’s likelihood of being divorced by the next survey period, from 6 percent to 11 percent, and nearly tripled it for women, from 6 percent to 16 percent. Our results suggest that viewing pornography, under certain social conditions, may have negative effects on marital stability.
Additionally, the researchers found that respondents’ initially reported level of marital happiness played an important role in determining the magnitude of pornography’s association with the probability of divorce. Among people who reported they were “very happy” in their marriage in the first survey wave, beginning pornography viewership before the next survey was associated with a noteworthy increase — from 3 percent to 12 percent — in the likelihood of getting divorced by the time of that next survey.
The data from a considerable sample of newlyweds showed that SEIM use has more negative than positive consequences for husbands and wives. Importantly, husbands’ adjustment decreased SEIM use over time and SEIM use decreased adjustment. Furthermore, more sexual satisfaction in husbands predicted a decrease in their wives’ SEIM use one year later, while wives’ SEIM use did not change their husbands’ sexual satisfaction.
Drawing on data from the 2006 and 2012 waves of the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study, this article examined whether married Americans who viewed pornography in 2006, either at all or in greater frequencies, were more likely to experience a marital separation by 2012. Binary logistic regression analyses showed that married Americans who viewed pornography at all in 2006 were more than twice as likely as those who did not view pornography to experience a separation by 2012, even after controlling for 2006 marital happiness and sexual satisfaction as well as relevant sociodemographic correlates. The relationship between pornography use frequency and marital separation, however, was technically curvilinear. The likelihood of marital separation by 2012 increased with 2006 pornography use to a point and then declined at the highest frequencies of pornography use.
This study examined whether Americans who use pornography, either at all or more frequently, are more prone to report experiencing a romantic breakup over time. Longitudinal data were taken from the 2006 and 2012 waves of the nationally representative Portraits of American Life Study. Binary logistic regression analyses demonstrated that Americans who viewed pornography at all in 2006 were nearly twice as likely as those who never viewed pornography to report experiencing a romantic breakup by 2012, even after controlling for relevant factors such as 2006 relationship status and other sociodemographic correlates. This association was considerably stronger for men than for women and for unmarried Americans than for married Americans. Analyses also showed a linear relationship between how frequently Americans viewed pornography in 2006 and their odds of experiencing a breakup by 2012.
This longitudinal study found that porn use was related to depression, lower life satisfaction and permissive sexual attitudes. Excerpts:
As hypothesized, adolescents’ exposure to online pornography was associated with depressive symptoms, and was in line with previous studies (e.g., Ma et al. 2018; Wolak et al. 2007). Adolescents, who were intentionally exposed to online pornography, reported a higher level of depressive symptom. These results are in line with past studies on the negative impact of internet usage on psychological well-being, such as depressive symptoms (Nesi and Prinstein 2015; Primack et al. 2017; Zhao et al. 2017), self-esteem (Apaolaza et al. 2013; Valkenburg et al. 2017), and loneliness (Bonetti et al. 2010; Ma 2017). Additionally, this study provides empirical support for the long-term effects of intentional exposure to online pornography on depression over time. This suggests that early intentional exposure to online pornography might lead to later depressive symptoms during adolescence…..
The negative relationship between life satisfaction and exposure to online pornography was in line with earlier studies (Peter and Valkenburg 2006; Ma et al. 2018; Wolak et al. 2007). The present study shows that adolescents who are less satisfied in their lives at Wave 2 may lead them to be exposed to both types of pornographic exposure at Wave 3.
The present study shows the concurrent and longitudinal effects of permissive sexual attitudes on both types of exposure to online pornography. As expected from previous research (Lo and Wei 2006; Brown and L’Engle 2009; Peter and Valkenburg 2006), sexually permissive adolescents reported higher levels of exposure to both types of online pornography
Male undergraduates were exposed to (a) nature scenes or (b) beautiful versus (c) unattractive females in sexually enticing situations. Thereafter, they assessed their girl friends’ sexual appeal and evaluated their satisfaction with their mates. On pictorial measures of bodily appeal profiles of flat through hypervoluptuous breast and buttock, preexposure to beautiful females tended to suppress mates’ appeal, while preexposure to unattractive females tended to enhance it. After exposure to beautiful females, mates’ aesthetic value fell significantly below assessments made after exposure to unattractive females; this value assumed an intermediate position after control exposure. Changes in mates’ aesthetic appeal did not correspond with changes in satisfaction with mates, however.
Male and female students and nonstudents were exposed to videotapes featuring common, nonviolent pornography or innocuous content. Exposure was in hourly sessions in six consecutive weeks. In the seventh week, subjects participated in an ostensibly unrelated study on societal institutions and personal gratifications. Marriage, cohabitational relationships, and related issues were judged on an especially created Value-of-Marriage questionnaire. The findings showed a consistent impact of pornography consumption. Exposure prompted, among other things, greater acceptance of pre- and extramarital sex and greater tolerance of nonexclusive sexual access to intimate partners. It enhanced the belief that male and female promiscuity are natural and that the repression of sexual inclinations poses a health risk. Exposure lowered the evaluation of marriage, making this institution appear less significant and less viable in the future. Exposure also reduced the desire to have children and promoted the acceptance of male dominance and female servitude. With few exceptions, these effects were uniform for male and female respondents as well as for students and nonstudents.
Male and female students and nonstudents were exposed to videotapes featuring common, nonviolent pornography or innocuous content. Exposure was in hourly sessions in six consecutive weeks. In the seventh week, subjects participated in an ostensibly unrelated study on societal institutions and personal gratifications. [Porn use] strongly impacted self-assessment of sexual experience. After consumption of pornography, subjects reported less satisfaction with their intimate partners—specifically, with these partners’ affection, physical appearance, sexual curiosity, and sexual performance proper. In addition, subjects assigned increased importance to sex without emotional involvement. These effects were uniform across gender and populations.
In Experiment 2, male and female subjects were exposed to opposite sex erotica. In the second study, there was an interaction of subject sex with stimulus condition upon sexual attraction ratings. Decremental effects of centerfold exposure were found only for male subjects exposed to female nudes. Males who found the Playboy-type centerfolds more pleasant rated themselves as less in love with their wives.
German scientists have discovered that Internet erotica can diminish working memory. In this porn-imagery experiment, 28 healthy individuals performed working-memory tasks using 4 different sets of pictures, one of which was pornographic. Participants also rated the pornographic pictures with respect to sexual arousal and masturbation urges prior to, and after, pornographic picture presentation. Results showed that working memory was worst during the porn viewing and that greater arousal augmented the drop.
Working memory is the ability to keep information in mind while using it to complete a task or deal with a challenge. For example, it’s the capacity to juggle various bits of information as you do a math problem or keep the characters straight as you read a story. It helps you hold your goal in mind, resist distractions and inhibit impulsive choices, so it’s critical to learning and planning. A consistent research finding is that addiction-related cues hinder working memory. Interestingly, alcoholics who underwent one month of training to improve working memory saw a decrease in alcohol intake and better scores on working memory. In other words, improving working memory seems to strengthen impulse control. An excerpt:
Some individuals report problems during and after Internet sex engagement, such as missing sleep and forgetting appointments, which are associated with negative life consequences. One mechanism potentially leading to these kinds of problems is that sexual arousal during Internet sex might interfere with working memory (WM) capacity, resulting in a neglect of relevant environmental information and therefore disadvantageous decision making. Results revealed worse WM performance in the pornographic picture condition of the 4-back task compared with the three remaining picture conditions. Findings are discussed with respect to Internet addiction because WM interference by addiction-related cues is well known from substance dependencies.
Study found that viewing pornographic imagery interfered with decision making during a standardized cognitive test. This suggests porn might affect executive functioning, which is a set of mental skills that help you get things done. These skills are controlled by an area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. An excerpt:
Decision-making performance was worse when sexual pictures were associated with disadvantageous card decks compared to performance when the sexual pictures were linked to the advantageous decks. Subjective sexual arousal moderated the relationship between task condition and decision-making performance. This study emphasized that sexual arousal interfered with decision-making, which may explain why some individuals experience negative consequences in the context of cybersex use.
Subjects with a higher tendency towards porn addiction performed more poorly of executive functioning tasks (which are under the auspices of the prefrontal cortex). A few excerpts:
We investigated whether a tendency towards cybersex addiction is associated with problems in exerting cognitive control over a multitasking situation that involves pornographic pictures. We used a multitasking paradigm in which the participants had the explicit goal to work to equal amounts on neutral and pornographic material. We found that participants who reported tendencies towards cybersex addiction deviated stronger from this goal.
Exposure to porn affected executive functioning in men with “compulsive sexual behaviors,” but not healthy controls. Poorer executive functioning when exposed to addiction-related cues is a hallmark of substance disorders (indicating both altered prefrontal circuits and sensitization). Excerpts:
This finding indicates better cognitive flexibility after sexual stimulation by controls compared with sexually compulsive participants. These data support the idea that sexually compulsive men do not to take advantage of the possible learning effect from experience, which could result in better behavior modification. This also could be understood as a lack of a learning effect by the sexually compulsive group when they were sexually stimulated, similar to what happens in the cycle of sexual addiction, which starts with an increasing amount of sexual cognition, followed by the activation of sexual scripts and then orgasm, very often involving exposure to risky situations.
In two studies exposure to visual sexual stimuli resulted in: 1) greater delayed discounting (inability to delay gratification), 2) greater inclination to engage in cyber-delinquency, 3) greater inclination to purchase counterfeit goods and hack someone’s Facebook account. Taken together this indicates that porn use increases impulsivity and may reduce certain executive functions (self-control, judgment, foreseeing consequences, impulse control). Excerpt:
People frequently encounter sexual stimuli during Internet use. Research has shown that stimuli inducing sexual motivation can lead to greater impulsivity in men, as manifested in greater temporal discounting (i.e., a tendency to prefer smaller, immediate gains to larger, future ones).
In conclusion, the current results demonstrate an association between sexual stimuli (e.g., exposure to pictures of sexy women or sexually arousing clothing) and men’s involvement in cyber delinquency. Our findings suggest that men’s impulsivity and self-control, as manifested by temporal discounting, are susceptible to failure in the face of ubiquitous sexual stimuli. Men may benefit from monitoring whether exposure to sexual stimuli is associated with their subsequent delinquent choices and behavior. Our findings suggest that encountering sexual stimuli can tempt men down the road of cyber delinquency
The current results suggest that the high availability of sexual stimuli in cyberspace may be more closely associated with men’s cyber-delinquent behavior than previously thought.
Internet & Video Gaming Studies Suggesting or Demonstrating Causation:
The present study investigated the relationships between adolescents’ online communication and compulsive Internet use, depression, and loneliness. The study had a 2-wave longitudinal design with an interval of 6 months. The sample consisted of 663 students, 318 male and 345 female, ages 12 to 15 years. Questionnaires were administered in a classroom setting. The results showed that instant messenger use and chatting in chat rooms were positively related to compulsive Internet use 6 months later. Moreover, in agreement with the well-known HomeNet study (R. Kraut et al., 1998), instant messenger use was positively associated with depression 6 months later. Finally, loneliness was negatively related to instant messenger use 6 months later.
One of the earliest studies to assess Internet users over time. Study suggested that Internet use causes depression in adolescents. Excerpts:
To examine the effect of pathological use of the Internet on the mental health, including anxiety and depression, of adolescents in China. It is hypothesized that pathological use of the Internet is detrimental to adolescents’ mental health.
DESIGN: A prospective study with a randomly generated cohort from the population.
PARTICIPANTS: Adolescents aged between 13 and 18 years.
RESULTS: After adjusting for potential confounding factors, the relative risk of depression for those who used the Internet pathologically was about 21⁄2 timesthat of those who did not exhibit the targeted pathological internet use behaviors. No significant relationship between pathological use of the Internet and anxiety at follow-up was observed.
Results suggested that young people who are initially free of mental health problems but use the Internet pathologically could develop depression as a consequence. These results have direct implications for the prevention of mental illness in young people, particularly in developing countries.
A unique study. It follows first year university students to ascertain what percentage develop Internet addiction, and what risk factors may be in play. The unique aspect is that the research subjects had not used the Internet prior to enrolling in college. Hard to believe. After only one year of school, a small percentage were classified as Internet addicts. Those who developed Internet addiction were INITIALLY higher on the obsessive scale, yet lower on scores for anxiety depression, and hostility. Excerpts:
This study aimed to evaluate the roles of pathological disorders in Internet addiction disorder and identify the pathological problems in IAD, as well as explore the mental status of Internet addicts prior to addiction, including the pathological traits that may trigger Internet addiction disorder.
Methods and Findings
59 students were measured by Symptom Check List-90 before and after they became addicted to the Internet. A comparison of collected data from Symptom Checklist-90 before Internet addiction and the data collected after Internet addiction illustrated the roles of pathological disorders among people with Internet addiction disorder. The obsessive-compulsive dimension was found abnormal before they became addicted to the Internet. After their addiction, significantly higher scores were observed for dimensions on depression, anxiety, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, and psychoticism, suggesting that these were outcomes of Internet addiction disorder. Dimensions on somatisation, paranoid ideation, and phobic anxiety did not change during the study period, signifying that these dimensions are not related to Internet addiction disorder.
Conclusions
We cannot find a solid pathological predictor for Internet addiction disorder. Internet addiction disorder may bring some pathological problems to the addicts in some ways.
The key point is Internet addiction appears to have caused behavioral and emotional changes. From the study:
After developing Internet addiction,significantly higher scores were observed for dimensions of depression, anxiety, hostility, interpersonal sensitivity, and psychoticism, suggesting that these were outcomes of Internet addiction disorder.
We cannot find a solid pathological predictor for Internet addiction disorder. Internet addiction disorder may bring some pathological problems to the addicts in some ways.
Boys who received the video game system experience a drop in their reading and writing scores. Excerpts:
After baseline assessment of boys’ academic achievement and parent- and teacher-reported behavior, boys were randomly assigned to receive the video-game system immediately or to receive the video-game system after follow-up assessment, 4 months later. Boys who received the system immediately spent more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than comparison children.
Boys who received the system immediately also had lower reading and writing scores and greater teacher-reported academic problems at follow-up than comparison children. Amount of video-game play mediated the relationship between video-game ownership and academic outcomes. Results provide experimental evidence that video games may displace after-school activities that have educational value and may interfere with the development of reading and writing skills in some children.
Unlike most studies, this one included both controls and Internet addicts in remission. Researchers found that subjects with Internet addiction presented with a different activation pattern than controls and former Internet addicts. The brains of Internet Addicts differed from controls and recovery led to reversal of the addiction-related brain changes. Excerpts:
This study aimed to evaluate brain correlates of cue-induced craving to play online games in subjects with Internet gaming addiction (IGA), subjects in remission from IGA and controls. The craving response was assessed by event-related design of functional magnetic resonance images (fMRIs).
Fifteen subjects with IGA, 15 in remission from IGA and 15 controls were recruited in this study. The subjects were arranged to view the gaming screenshots and neutral images under investigation of fMRIs. The results showed that bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), precuneus, left parahippocampus, posterior cingulate and right anterior cingulate were activated in response to gaming cues in the IGA group and their activation was stronger in the IGA group than those in the control group.
Their region-of-interest was also positively correlated with subjective gaming urge under cue exposure.These activated brain areas represent the brain circuit corresponding to the mechanism of substance use disorder. Thus, it would suggest that the mechanism of IGA is similar to substance use disorder. Furthermore, the IGA group had stronger activation over right DLPFC and left parahippocampus than did the remission group. The two areas would be candidate markers for current addiction to online gaming and should be investigated in future studies.
After 3 months of treatment EEG readings in internet addicts had significantly changed. Excerpts:
The results of the current investigation of ERPs in individuals suffering from IAD were in accordance with the findings of previous studies of other addictions [17-20]. Specifically, we found reduced P300 amplitude and longer P300 latency in individuals exhibiting addictive behaviors compared with healthy controls. These results support the hypothesis that similar pathological mechanisms are involved in different addiction behaviors.
Another major finding of the present study was that the initially prolonged P300 latency in people with IAD decreased significantly after CBT. Considering the scarcity of studies on IAD including treatment and follow-up measures, the association between P300 latency and IAD treatment in our sample should be interpreted with caution. Further research should be conducted to replicate this finding, using larger sample sizes and other treatment types. P300 latency is considered to provide a measure of attentional resource allocation, and prolongation of this ERP component has been discussed as an index of neurodegenerative processes affecting callosal size and the efficiency of interhemispheric transmission[22-23].
Study compared 3 treatment protocols for subjects with Internet addiction. Interesting findings:
After 40 days of treatment all significantly improved in cognitive function.
Internet addiction scores were significantly lowered in all groups, no matter the treatment.
This strongly suggests that poorer cognitive function was not a pre-existing condition and improved with abstinence. Excerpts:
OBJECTIVE: To observe the effects of comprehensive therapy (CT) with electroacupuncture (EA) in combination with psycho-intervention (PI) on the cognitive function and event-related potentials (ERP), P300 and mismatch negativity (MMN), in patients with internet addiction (IA) for a preliminary exploration of the possible mechanism of the therapy.
METHODS: One hundred and twenty patients with IA were randomly divided into three groups, and a total of 112 subjects reached the final analysis of the trial, the EA group (39 patients), the PI group (36 patients) and the CT group (37 patients). The treatment course for all patients was 40 days. Changes before and after treatment in terms of scoring by the IA self-rating scale, short-term memory capacity, short-term memory span, and the latency and amplitude of P300 and MMN in patients were observed.
RESULTS: After treatment, in all groups, the IA score was lowered significantly and scores of short-term memory capacity and short-term memory span increased significantly, while the decreased IA score in the CT group was more significant than that in the other two groups.
Internet addiction was associated with depressive states, but not with depressive traits. This means that depression was the result of internet use – it was not a pre-existing condition. Excerpts:
The present study investigated three issues: (i) whether Internet abusers display a depressive state without a depressive trait; (ii) which symptoms are shared between Internet abuse and depression; and (iii) which personality characteristics were shown in Internet abusers.
Ninety-nine male and 58 female participants aged 18-24 years were screened with the Chen Internet Addiction Scale.
The present results showed that high-risk Internet abusers exhibited a stronger depressive state than low-risk Internet abusers in the Beck Depression Inventory-II. However, high-risk Internet abusers did not show a depressive trait in the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 compared to low-risk Internet abusers. Therefore, high-risk Internet abuse participants exhibited a depressive state without a depressive trait.
CONCLUSIONS: In a comparison of the symptoms of depression and Internet abuse, it was found that high-risk Internet abuse participants shared some common behavioral mechanisms with depression, including the psychiatric symptoms of loss of interest, aggressive behavior, depressive mood, and guilty feelings. High-risk Internet abuse participants may be more susceptible to a temporal depressive state but not a permanent depressive trait.
This study followed students for one year assessing levels of internet addiction and evaluating levels of depression, hostility, and social anxiety. Researchers found that internet addiction exacerbates depression, hostility, and social anxiety, while remission from Internet addiction decreases depression, hostility, and social anxiety. Cause and effect, not just correlation. Excerpts:
In adolescent populations worldwide, Internet addiction is prevalent and is often comorbid with depression, hostility, and social anxiety of adolescents. This study aimed at evaluating the exacerbation of depression, hostility, and social anxiety in the course of getting addiction to Internet or remitting from Internet addiction among adolescents.
This study recruited 2293 adolescents in grade 7 to assess their depression, hostility, social anxiety and Internet addiction. The same assessments were repeated one year later. The incidence group was defined as subjects classified as non-addicted in the first assessment and as addicted in the second assessment. The remission group was defined as subjects classified as addicted in the first assessment and as non-addicted in the second assessment.
Depression and hostility worsen in the addiction process for the Internet among adolescents. Intervention of Internet addiction should be provided to prevent its negative effect on mental health. Depression, hostility, and social anxiety decreased in the process of remission. It suggested that the negative consequences could be reversed if Internet addiction could be remitted within a short duration.
Improvements in the cortico-striatal connectivity occurred over time. Excerpts:
Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) have demonstrated dysfunction in the cortico-limbic circuit in individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD). We hypothesized that virtual reality therapy (VRT) for IGD would improve the functional connectivity of the cortico-limbic circuit.
In the Chung-Ang University Hospital, 24 adults with IGD and 12 casual game users were recruited. IGD group was randomly assigned into the cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) group (N = 12) and VRT group (N = 12). The severity of IGD was evaluated with the Young’s Internet Addiction Scale (YIAS) before and after the treatment period. Using resting-state fMRI, functional connectivity from posterior cingulate (PCC) seed to other brain areas was investigated.
During the treatment period, both CBT and VRT groups showed significant reductions on the YIAS scores. At baseline, IGD group showed a reduced connectivity in cortico-striatal-limbic circuit. In the CBT group, the connectivity from PCC seed to bilateral lenticular nucleus and cerebellum increased during 8-session CBT. In the VRT group, the connectivity from PCC seed to left thalamus-frontal lobe-cerebellum increased during 8-session VRT.
Treatment of IGD using VRT seemed to improve the severity of IGD, which showed similar effectiveness to CBT, and enhance the balance of the cortico-striatal-limbic circuit.
Longitudinal study found that excessive internet use can cause “burnout” which leads to depression. Excerpts:
Recent research shows an increased concern with well-being at school and potential problems associated with students’ use of socio-digital technologies, i.e., the mobile devices, computers, social media, and the Internet. Simultaneously with supporting creative social activities, socio-digital participation may also lead to compulsive and addictive behavioral patterns affecting both general and school-related mental health problems.
Using two longitudinal data waves gathered among 1702 (53 % female) early (age 12-14) and 1636 (64 % female) late (age 16-18) Finnish adolescents, we examined cross-lagged paths between excessive internet use, school engagement and burnout, and depressive symptoms.
Structural equation modeling revealed reciprocal cross-lagged paths between excessive internet use and school burnout among both adolescent groups: school burnout predicted later excessive internet use and excessive internet use predicted later school burnout. Reciprocal paths between school burnout and depressive symptoms were also found. Girls typically suffered more than boys from depressive symptoms and, in late adolescence, school burnout. Boys, in turn, more typically suffered from excessive internet use. These results show that, among adolescents, excessive internet use can be a cause of school burnout that can later spill over to depressive symptoms.
Treating internet gaming addiction resulted in reduced severity of addiction along with corresponding reversal of addiction-related brain changes. Excerpts:
IGD subjects showed altered cue-induced neural activation in reward-related areas.
IGD subjects alleviated IGD symptoms after CBI.
IGD subjects showed higher insular activation after CBI.
IGD subjects showed lower insula-lingual gyrus/precuneus connectivity after CBI.
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is characterized by high levels of craving for online gaming and related cues. Since addiction-related cues can evoke increased activation in brain areas involved in motivational and reward processing and may engender gaming behaviors or trigger relapse, ameliorating cue-induced craving may be a promising target for interventions for IGD. This study compared neural activation between 40 IGD and 19 healthy control (HC) subjects during an Internet-gaming cue-reactivity task and found that IGD subjects showed stronger activation in multiple brain areas, including the dorsal striatum, brainstem, substantia nigra, and anterior cingulate cortex, but lower activation in the posterior insula.
Furthermore, twenty-three IGD subjects (CBI + group) participated in a craving behavioral intervention (CBI) group therapy, whereas the remaining 17 IGD subjects (CBI − group) did not receive any intervention, and all IGD subjects were scanned during similar time intervals. The CBI + group showed decreased IGD severity and cue-induced craving, enhanced activation in the anterior insula and decreased insular connectivity with the lingual gyrus and precuneus after receiving CBI.These findings suggest that CBI is effective in reducing craving and severity in IGD, and it may exert its effects by altering insula activation and its connectivity with regions involved in visual processing and attention bias.
After 6 months of treatment internet gaming addicts showed significant improvements in quality of life, executive functioning, working memory, and impulsiveness. Excerpts:
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) contributes to poor quality of life (QOL) and cognitive dysfunction and is increasingly recognized as a social problem in various countries. However, no evidence exists to determine whether QOL and cognitive dysfunction stabilize after appropriate management. The present study addressed improvement in QOL and cognitive functioning associated with changes in addiction symptoms following outpatient management for IGD. A total of 84 young males (IGD group: N = 44, mean age: 19.159 ± 5.216 years; healthy control group: N = 40, mean age: 21.375 ± 6.307 years) participated in this study. We administered self-report questionnaires at baseline to assess clinical and psychological characteristics, and conducted traditional and computerized neuropsychological tests.
Nineteen patients with IGD completed follow-up tests in the same manner after 6 months of outpatient treatment, which included pharmacotherapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. A baseline comparison of patients with IGD against the healthy control group showed that the IGD patients had more symptoms of depression and anxiety, higher degrees of impulsiveness and anger/aggression, higher levels of distress, poorer QOL, and impaired response inhibition.
After 6 months of treatment, patients with IGD showed significant improvements in the severity of IGD, as well as in QOL, response inhibition, and executive functioning. Additionally, a stepwise multiple regression analysis revealed a favorable prognosis for IGD patients with low working memory functioning and high executive functioning at baseline. These results provide evidence regarding longitudinal changes in QOL and cognitive function following psychiatric intervention for IGD. Furthermore, it appears that response inhibition may be an objective state marker underlying the pathophysiology of IGD.
A brief period of abstinence lead to reduction in addictive patterns and symptoms. Excerpts:
OBJECTIVE: This pilot study tested the efficacy of a voluntary 84-hour abstinence protocol for modifying problematic Internet gaming cognitions and behaviors
METHOD: Twenty-four adults from online gaming communities, including 9 individuals who screened positively for Internet gaming disorder (IGD), abstained from Internet games for 84 hours. Surveys were collected at baseline, at daily intervals during abstinence, and at 7-day and 28-day follow-up
RESULTS: Brief voluntary abstinence was successful in reducing hours of gaming, maladaptive gaming cognitions, and IGD symptoms. Abstinence was highly acceptable to participants with total compliance and no study attrition. Clinically significant improvement in IGD symptoms occurred in 75% of the IGD group at 28-day follow-up.Reliable improvement in maladaptive gaming cognitions occurred in 63% of the IGD group, whose cognition score reduced by 50% and was comparable to the non-IGD group at 28-day follow-up
CONCLUSIONS: Despite limitations of sample size, this study provides promising support for brief abstinence as a simple, practical, and cost-effective treatment technique for modifying unhelpful gaming cognitions and reducing Internet gaming problems.
Treatment led to reduction of psychological symptoms, which corresponded with EEG changes. Excerpts:
OBJECTIVE: To observe the therapeutic effects of electro-acupuncture (EA) combined with psychological intervention on the symptom of somzatization or obsession and mental symptom of depression or anxiety and P50 of Auditory Evoked Potential (AEP) on internet addiction disorder (IAD).
METHODS: One hundred and twenty cases of IAD were randomly divided into an EA group, a psycho-intervention (PI) group and a comprehensive therapy (EA plus PI) group. Patients in the EA group were treated with EA. Patients in the PI group were treated with cognition and behavior therapy. Patients in the EA plus PI group were treated with electro-acupuncture plus psychological intervention. Scores of IAD, scores of the symptom checklist 90 (SCL-90), latency and amplitude of P50 of AEP were measured before and after treatment.
RESULTS: The scores of IAD after treatment significantly decreased in all groups (P < 0.05), and the scores of IAD in the EA plus PI group were significantly lower than those in the other two groups (P < 0.05). The scores of SCL-90 assembled and each factor after treatment in the EA plus PI group significantly decreased (P < 0.05). After treatment in the EA plus PI group, the amplitude distance of S1P50 and S2P50 (S1-S2) significantly increased (P < 0.05).
CONCLUSION: EA combined with PI could relieve the mental symptoms of IAD patients, and the mechanism is possibly related to the increase of cerebrum sense perception gating function.
Craving, as a central feature of addiction and a precursor of relapse, is targeted recently in addiction intervention. While Internet gaming disorder (IGD), conceptualized as a behavioral addiction, is lack of effective treatment practice and exploration of its mechanism. This research aims to test the effectiveness and detect the active ingredients of craving behavior intervention (CBI) in mitigation of IGD among young adults. A total of 63 male college students with IGD were assigned into the intervention group (six-session CBI intervention) or the waiting-list control group. Structured questionnaires were administered at pre-intervention (T1), post-intervention (T2), 3-month follow-up (T3), and 6-month follow-up (T4). Compared to the control group, a significant decrease in the severity of IGD in intervention group was found at post-intervention and lasting to 6 months after intervention. The value changes of craving could partially mediate the relationship between intervention and changes of IGD among all effects tests (immediate, T2-T1; short-term, T3-T1; and long-term effects, T4-T1). Further, explorations of the active ingredients of intervention found depression relief and shift of psychological needs from Internet to real life significantly predict craving amelioration at both post-intervention and 6-month follow-up. Although preliminary, the current study provides evidence for the value of craving-aimed intervention practice in IGD treatment and identifies two potential active ingredients for mitigation of craving, and the long-term therapeutic benefits are further conferred.
Taking a break from Facebook improved “life satisfaction” and mood. Excerpts:
The article builds on research from my master thesis. The preliminary results of this study were presented in a publication facilitated by The Happiness Research Institute: www.happinessresearchinstitute.com/publications/4579836749.
Most people use Facebook on a daily basis; few are aware of the consequences. Based on a 1-week experiment with 1,095 participants in late 2015 in Denmark, this study provides causal evidence that Facebook use affects our well-being negatively. By comparing the treatment group (participants who took a break from Facebook) with the control group (participants who kept using Facebook), it was demonstrated that taking a break from Facebook has positive effects on the two dimensions of well-being: our life satisfaction increases and our emotions become more positive. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that these effects were significantly greater for heavy Facebook users, passive Facebook users, and users who tend to envy others on Facebook.
An article about the study. Upon cessation of internet use those with problematic internet use experienced withdrawal symptoms and an increased stress response. Excerpt:
PLoS One. 2017 May 25;12(5):e0178480. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178480. eCollection 2017.
Problematic internet use (PIU) has been suggested as in need of further research with a view to being included as a disorder in future Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association, but lack of knowledge about the impact of internet cessation on physiological function remains a major gap in knowledge and a barrier to PIU classification. One hundred and forty-four participants were assessed for physiological (blood pressure and heart rate) and psychological (mood and state anxiety) function before and after an internet session. Individuals also completed a psychometric examination relating to their usage of the internet, as well as their levels of depression and trait anxiety. Individuals who identified themselves as having PIU displayed increases in heart rate and systolic blood pressure, as well as reduced mood and increased state of anxiety, following cessation of internet session. There were no such changes in individuals with no self-reported PIU. These changes were independent of levels of depression and trait anxiety. These changes after cessation of internet use are similar to those seen in individuals who have ceased using sedative or opiate drugs, and suggest PIU deserves further investigation and serious consideration as a disorder.
This study explored the reciprocal relationship between Internet addiction (IA) and network-related maladaptive cognition (NMC) in Chinese college freshmen. A short-term longitudinal survey with a sample of 213 college freshmen was conducted in Shandong province, China. The results revealed that IA can significantly predict the generation and development of NMCs, and that when such maladaptive cognitions have been established, they can further adversely affect the extent of the students’ IA.
A vicious cycle was observed between these two variables, with IA having predictive priority in its relationship with NMC. This study also determined that the relationship between these two variables was the same for both males and females; therefore, the final model we established can be extensively applied to Chinese college freshmen, regardless of gender. Understanding the reciprocal relationship between these two variables can assist in interventions in IA at the outset of students’ college life.
Demonstrated withdrawal symptoms and tolerance. Excerpts
The study aims to assess prevalence of smartphone addiction symptoms, and to ascertain whether depression or anxiety, independently, contributes to smartphone addiction level among a sample of Lebanese university students, while adjusting simultaneously for important sociodemographic, academic, lifestyle, personality trait, and smartphone-related variables.
A random sample of 688 undergraduate university students (mean age = 20.64 ±1.88 years; 53% men) completed a survey composed of a) questions about socio-demographics, academics, lifestyle behaviors, personality type, and smartphone use-related variables; b) 26-item Smartphone Addiction Inventory (SPAI) Scale; and c) brief screeners of depression and anxiety (PHQ-2 and GAD-2), which constitute the two core DSM-IV items for major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, respectively.
Prevalence rates of smartphone-related compulsive behavior, functional impairment, tolerance and withdrawal symptoms were substantial. 35.9% felt tired during daytime due to late-night smartphone use, 38.1% acknowledged decreased sleep quality, and 35.8% slept less than four hours due to smartphone use more than once. Whereas gender, residence, work hours per week, faculty, academic performance (GPA), lifestyle habits (smoking and alcohol drinking), and religious practice did not associate with smartphone addiction score; personality type A, class (year 2 vs. year 3), younger age at first smartphone use, excessive use during a weekday, using it for entertainment and not using it to call family members, and having depression or anxiety, showed statistically significant associations with smartphone addiction. Depression and anxiety scores emerged as independent positive predictors of smartphone addiction, after adjustment for confounders.
Internet addiction symptoms and scores were significantly related to current ADHD symptoms, but not to childhood ADHD symptoms. This indicates that internet addiction might be causing adult ADHD symptoms. Excerpts:
The main finding of this study, which is also consistent with our hypothesis, was that the severity of IA was significantly associated with the level of most dimensions of adult ADHD symptoms even after controlling the childhood ADHD symptom and other psychiatric comorbid conditions. Only SC dimension, which presenting low self-regard and deficit in self-confidence, did not show the significant association with IA severity. This result can be explained by several studies by Chang (2008) and Kim, Lee, Cho, Lee, and Kim (2005), which indicated SC symptom dimension in CAARS-KS as an additional scale evaluating secondary problems caused by core symptoms of ADHD like hyperactivity, inattention, and impulsivity. In this study, only severity of depression symptom significantly predicted the level of SC symptom dimension. Considering these findings, it might be concluded that the severity of IA significantly predicted all core symptom dimensions of adult ADHD.
Another interesting finding was that, unlike the common belief, the severity of childhood ADHD symptom did not show significant associations with most dimensions of adult ADHD symptoms. Only IE dimension demonstrated significant association with childhood ADHD symptom in regression analysis model 2 (see Table 3). However, this significant association of childhood ADHD symptom with IE disappeared after IA severity was included into regression model, indicating that IA severity had more significant association with IE than did childhood ADHD.
Current findings in this study may shed light on the relationship between severity and ADHD. Either two possibilities explaining high comorbidity between IA and ADHD, our results supported the hypothesis indicating the existence of distinct adulthood onset ADHD-like symptoms. Contrary to the conventional concept of adult ADHD regarding as continuation of childhood ADHD condition (Halperin, Trampush, Miller, Marks, & Newcorn, 2008; Lara et al., 2009), recent findings indicated that two distinct childhood onset and adulthood onset ADHD might exist and adult ADHD is not a simple continuation of childhood ADHD (Castellanos, 2015; Moffitt et al., 2015). In line with these findings, this study indicated that the current ADHD symptoms showed more significant associations with IA than the childhood ADHD symptom on WURS. Moreover, childhood ADHD symptom severity itself did not demonstrate significant correlations with core adult ADHD symptom except IE dimension in this study.
Previous studies indicated that the adult ADHD status is linked with the developmental trajectories of cortical components, and white matter alterations of several networks (Cortese et al., 2013; Karama & Evans, 2013; Shaw et al., 2013). Similarly, recent studies have demonstrated that IA might cause functional, structural changes, and abnormalities in brain (Hong et al., 2013a, 2013b; Kuss & Griffiths, 2012; Lin et al., 2012; Weng et al., 2013; Yuan et al., 2011; Zhou et al., 2011). Based on these findings, we might speculate that functional and structural brain abnormalities related to IA might also be related to adult ADHD-like cognitive symptoms, which should be differentiated from an independent ADHD disorder. The high comorbidity between IA and ADHD (Ho et al., 2014) might be accounted by cognitive and behavior symptoms related to IA rather than symptoms of an independent ADHD disorder.
Playing games like this one, Call of Duty: Ghosts, could increase the risk of depression and other neuropsychiatric disorders because of reduced grey matter in the hippocampus, a Montreal study has found. (Activision)
Playing first-person shooter video games causes some users to lose grey matter in a part of their brain associated with the memory of past events and experiences, a new study by two Montreal researchers concludes.
“A few studies have been published that show video games could have a positive impact on the brain, namely positive associations between action video games, first-person shooter games, and visual attention and motor control skills,” West told CBC News.
“To date, no one has shown that human-computer interactions could have negative impacts on the brain — in this case the hippocampal memory system.”
The four-year study by West and Véronique Bohbot, an associate professor of psychiatry at McGill University, looked at the impact of action video games on the hippocampus, the part of the brain that plays a critical role in spatial memory and the ability to recollect past events and experiences.
Researchers Gregory West and Véronique Bohbot say their study is the first to provide conclusive evidence that video games can have a negative impact on the brain.
The neuroimaging study’s participants were all healthy 18- to 30-year-olds with no history of playing video games.
Brain scans conducted on the participants before and after the experiment looked for differences in the hippocampus between players who favour spatial memory strategies and so-called response learners — that is, players whose way of navigating a game favours a part of the brain called the caudate nucleus, which helps us to form habits.
Brain scans show grey matter loss
The study says 85 per cent of gamers who play six or more hours a week have been shown to rely more heavily on this brain structure to find their way in a game.
After 90 hours of playing first-person shooter games such as Call of Duty, Killzone, Medal of Honour and Borderlands 2, the brain scans of response learners showed what West said is “statistically significant” grey matter loss in the hippocampus.
“All people who we call response learners experienced a reduction in grey matter within the hippocampus,” West said.
In a news release, the researchers expanded on their finding: “The problem is, the more they use the caudate nucleus, the less they use the hippocampus, and as a result the hippocampus loses cells and atrophies,” adding that this could have “major implications” later in life.
This brain scan of a habitual video-game player shows the hippocampus to be smaller in a ‘statistically significant manner,’ according to West and Bohbot. (submitted by Gregory West)
The hippocampus is a well-understood biomarker for certain neuropsychiatric diseases, West explained.
“People with reduced grey matter in the hippocampus are more at risk for developing post-traumatic stress disorder and depression when they’re younger and even Alzheimer’s disease when they’re older,” he said.
Impulsiveness significantly improved in internet addicts. The improvements were reflected in neurochemical changes in the brain. Excerpts:
Thirty-two IA adolescents were allocated to either EA (16 cases) or PI (16 cases) group by a randomized digital table. Subjects in the EA group received EA treatment and subjects in the PI group received cognition and behavior therapy. All adolescents underwent 45-d intervention. Sixteen healthy volunteers were recruited into a control group. Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) scores, Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT) as well as the ratio of brain N-acetyl aspartate (NAA) to creatine (NAA/Cr) and choline (Cho) to creatine (Cho/Cr) were recorded by magnetic resonance spectroscopy before and after intervention respectively.
The IAT scores and BIS-11 total scores in both EA and PI group were remarkably decreased after treatment (P<0.05), while EA group showed more significant decrease in certain BIS-11 sub-factors (P<0.05). Both NAA/Cr and Cho/Cr were significantly improved in EA group after treatment (P<0.05); however, there were no significant changes of NAA/Cr or Cho/Cr in PI group after treatment (P>0.05).
Both EA and PI had significantly positive effect on IA adolescents, especially in the aspects of psychological experiences and behavioral expressions,EA might have an advantage over PI in terms of impulsivity control and brain neuron protection. The mechanism underlying this advantage might be related to the increased NAA and Cho levels in prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortices.
Facebook, the largest social media network, currently has approximately 2 billion monthly users [1], corresponding to more than 25% of the world’s population. While the existence of an online social network may seem harmless or even beneficial, a series of recent studies have suggested that use of Facebook and other social media platforms may have a negative influence on mental health [2-5].
In a recent longitudinal study based on three ‘waves’ of data (2013, 2014, and 2015) from more than 5000 participants in the nationally representative Gallup Panel Social Network Study, Shakya and Christakis found that the use of Facebook (which was measured objectively) was negatively associated with self-reported mental well-being [3]. Both clicking ‘like’ on the content of others’ Facebook pages and posting ‘status updates’ on one’s own Facebook page were negatively associated with mental well-being. Importantly, these results were robust to two-wave prospective analyses suggesting that the direction of the effect goes from Facebook use to lower mental well-being and not the other way around [3]. However, due to the observational nature of the analyzed data, these results do not represent causal evidence of a harmful effect of Facebook, but probably—due to the longitudinal nature of the study—represent the best available estimate of the effect of Facebook on mental well-being to date [3]. Another recent study supporting that Facebook use could have a negative effect on well-being is that of Tromholt [5] in which the 1095 participants were randomly assigned (or rather randomly urged) to follow one of two instructions: (i) ‘Keep using Facebook as usual in the following week’, or (ii) ‘Do not use Facebook in the following week’ [5]. After this week, those assigned to the Facebook abstinence group reported significantly higher life satisfaction and more positive emotions than those assigned to the ‘Facebook as usual’ group [5]. However, due to the unblinded design of this study, its results do not represent causal evidence of the effect of Facebook either—an effect, which will be difficult to establish.
If we nevertheless assume that Facebook use indeed has a harmful effect on mental well-being, what is then the mechanism underlying it? This aspect remains unclear, but an intuitively logical explanation—with some empirical support—is that people predominantly display the most positive aspects of their lives on social media [6] and that other people—who tend to take these positively biased projections at face value—therefore get the impression that their own life compares negatively to that of other Facebook users [7]. As indicated by the recent findings by Hanna et al., such upward social comparison is very likely to mediate the negative effect of Facebook use on mental well-being [4].
Is it plausible that a negative effect of Facebook use on mental well-being contributes to development of outright mental disorder? The answer to this question is most likely ‘yes’, as it is well established that low levels of self-reported mental well-being are a rather sensitive marker of mental disorder—especially depression [8]. Furthermore, individuals prone to depression may be extra sensitive to the potentially harmful effects of social media due to so-called negative cognitive bias, which is a prevalent feature in this population [9-11]. In the context of Facebook, the negative cognitive bias could likely entail that individuals vulnerable to depression would feel that their own life compares particularly negative to that of other people on Facebook. In addition to depression, it would seem that Facebook and other picture-driven social media platforms could also have a harmful effect in relation to mental disorders where a negative/distorted self-image is part of the psychopathology, such as eating disorders [4, 12].
If the use of social media such as Facebook does compromise mental health, we may be facing a global epidemic of mental disorders, which probably has its largest impact on the younger generations that use these applications the most [3]. Therefore, the psychiatric field must take this possibility very seriously and conduct further studies on the effect of social media on mental health, and ways to mitigate this effect if it is indeed a harmful one. One way to do this could be to stress again and again—for children and adolescents in particular—that social media is based on highly selected and positively biased projections of reality that should not be taken at face value.
In a unique study subjects non-video gamers played video games for 6 weeks. These naive players experienced a loss of gray matter in the prefrontal cortex. Lower gray matter in this region was correlated with higher level of gaming addiction. Excerpts:
Internet gaming disorder represents a growing health issue. Core symptoms include unsuccessful attempts to control the addictive patterns of behavior and continued use despite negative consequences indicating a loss of regulatory control. Previous studies revealed brain structural deficits in prefrontal regions subserving regulatory control in individuals with excessive Internet use. However, because of the cross-sectional nature of these studies, it remains unknown whether the observed brain structural deficits preceded the onset of excessive Internet use.
Against this background, the present study combined a cross-sectional and longitudinal design to determine the consequences of excessive online video gaming. Forty-one subjects with a history of excessive Internet gaming and 78 gaming-naive subjects were enrolled in the present study. To determine effects of Internet gaming on brain structure, gaming-naive subjects were randomly assigned to 6 weeks of daily Internet gaming (training group) or a non-gaming condition (training control group).
At study inclusion, excessive Internet gamers demonstrated lower right orbitofrontal gray matter volume compared with Internet gaming-naive subjects. Within the Internet gamers, a lower gray matter volume in this region was associated with higher online video gaming addiction severity. Longitudinal analysis revealed initial evidence that left orbitofrontal gray matter volume decreased during the training period in the training group as well as in the group of excessive gamers. Together, the present findings suggest an important role of the orbitofrontal cortex in the development of Internet addiction with a direct association between excessive engagement in online gaming and structural deficits in this brain region.
Social anxiety decreased while desire to socialize increased. Perhaps social anxiety isn’t a pre-existing condition for internet addicts. Excerpts
The exacerbation of problematic adolescent behaviors has been found to associate significantly with PIU and is expected to worsen with age. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT)-integrated therapy has been shown to significantly reduce in the presence of psychological symptoms such as depression and social anxiety. The Psychological Intervention Program-Internet Use for Youth (PIP-IU-Y) is a CBT-based program designed for adolescents and comprises of a series of interpersonal skills to improve their face-to-face interaction. It focuses on taking preventative measures against Internet addiction before it develops by addressing the participant’s PIU as a negative coping style and incorporating positive psychological techniques.
A total of 157 participants between the ages of 13 and 18 completed the program which consisted of eight weekly, 90 min sessions in a group format. Treatment outcomes were measured using mean change at the end of the program and 1 month post-treatment. The majority of the participants showed improvement after the eight weekly sessions of PIP-IU-Y and continued symptom maintenance at the 1 month follow-up. An overwhelming majority of participants were able to manage PIU symptoms after the intervention program, reinforcing the efficacy of the PIP-IU-Y. Not only did it addresses the PIU behaviour but also helped in reducing social anxiety and increasing social interaction.
Further research could investigate treatment differences among the various subtypes of PIU (e.g., online gaming and pornography) in order to see if treatment differences exist.
Internet Gaming Disorder Treatment: A Case Study Evaluation of Four Different Types of Adolescent Problematic Gamers (2017)
Drastically reducing time spent gaming resulted in improved scores on instruments assessing all sorts of emotional and psychological issues. An excerpt:
Phase changes were marked using the following criteria: (i) A-B occurred when all measurements for phase A had been obtained; (ii) B-A’ occurred when the intervention was complete; and (iii) phase A’ occurred with data collection three months after treatment ended
The pre-post comparison of the scores on the battery of scales showed a reduction tendency (see Table 2). Clinical scores on the IGD-20 Test and the CERV normalized from t1 to t6, and they remained stable three months after treatment ended (Table 2, t6 to t7). General symptoms as assessed by the YSR-Total and SCL-R-PSDI scales notably improved. Scores related to school (CBCL), social problems (YSR), and family conflict (FES) also improved following treatment (Table 2). To evaluate the effects of treatment on specific comorbid diagnoses, the scales of the MACI test were compared. Scores on these scales also decreased: C1: Depressive Affect (FF)pre = 108, FFpost = 55, Introversion (1)pre = 107, 1post = 70; C2: Peer Insecurity (E)pre = 111, Epost = 53, Anxious Feelings (EE)pre = 76, EEpost = 92; C3: Borderline Tendency (9)pre = 77, 9post = 46, Unruly (6A)pre = 71, 6Apost = 71; C4: FFpre = 66, FFpost = 29, 1pre= 104, 1post = 45. The only exceptions were the EE scale [Anxious Feelings] (for C2) and Scale 9 [Borderline tendency] (for C3), where no decreases occurred. To evaluate the therapeutic alliance and the patients’ degree of satisfaction, theWATOCI instrument was used (Corbella and Botella 2004) (Table 2). Positive scores highlight the four participants’ satisfaction with the treatment.
Compared with a control group, internet addicts had elevated levels of gamma aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that has been linked with other addictions and psychiatric disorders. After 9 weeks of reduced internet use, and cognitive behavioral therapy, GABA levels “normalized”.
From the article:
New research has linked Internet addictions with a chemical imbalance in the brain. In the small study, presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, 19 participants with addictions to phones, tablets, and computers exhibited disproportionately high levels of a neurotransmitter that inhibits brain activity.
The good news: After nine weeks of therapy, the participants’ brain chemicals normalized, and their screen time decreased, says Hyung Suk Seo, a professor of neuroradiology at Korea University in Seoul, who presented the study.
Seo and his colleagues discovered the brain chemical imbalance using magnetic resonance spectroscopy—an imaging technique that detects changes in certain metabolites in the brain. The tool showed that participants with Internet addictions, compared with a control group, had elevated levels of gamma aminobutyric acid, or GABA, a neurotransmitter that has been linked with other addictions and psychiatric disorders.
The participants—19 young people in Korea with an average age of 15—had all been diagnosed with Internet and smartphone addictions. A diagnosis of Internet addiction typically means that the person uses the Internet to the point that it interferes with daily life. Participants also had significantly higher scores in depression, anxiety, insomnia, and impulsivity, compared with non-addicted teenagers.
Twelve of the addicts were then given nine weeks of a type of addiction treatment called cognitive behavioral therapy. After the treatment, Seo again measured their GABA levels, and found that they had normalized.
More importantly, the number of hours the kids spent in front of a screen also decreased. “Being able to observe normalization—that’s a very intriguing finding,” says Max Wintermark, a neuroradiologist at Stanford University who was not involved in the study. Finding a way to monitor the effect of an addiction treatment—especially some kind of early indicator—can be difficult, he says. “So to have some kind of biomarker that you extract from an imaging technique that allows you to monitor the effect of your treatment and tell you early on whether it’s succeeding—that’s extremely valuable,” he says.
Unique study had treatment seeking gamers try to quit for a week. Many of the gamers reported withdrawal symptoms – which made it harder to abstain. Withdrawal symptoms mean that gaming caused brain changes. An excerpt:
The study aimed to identify variables predictive of short-term commitment to gaming abstinence following initial voluntary contact with an online help service. A total of 186 adult gamers with gaming-related problems were recruited online. Participants completed the DSM-5 Internet gaming disorder (IGD) checklist, Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21, Internet Gaming Cognition Scale, Gaming Craving Scale, and Gaming Quality of Life Scale. A one-week follow up survey assessed adherence with intended gaming abstinence. Abstainers were less likely to have withdrawal symptoms and less likely to play action shooting games. Participants with mood symptoms (40% of the total) reported significantly more IGD symptoms, stronger maladaptive gaming cognitions (e.g., overvaluing game rewards), more previous occurrences of gaming problems, and poorer quality of life. However, mood symptoms did not predict abstinence from or continuation of gaming. Adults with gaming disorder seeking help to reduce their gaming may benefit initially from strategies that manage withdrawal and psychoeducation about riskier gaming activities.
Another unique study examining subjects with recently developed ADHD-like symptoms. The authors strongly believe that internet use is causing ADHD like symptoms. An excerpt from the discussion.
ADHD comorbidity and ADHD-like symptoms in Internet addicts
Regarding ADHD diagnoses in this study, the current and lifetime prevalence in the group of Internet addicts (13.8% and 11.5%) was significantly higher compared with problematic Internet users and healthy controls. A meta-analysis estimated the general prevalence of ADHD at about 2.5% (Simon, Czobor, Bálint, Mészáros, & Bitter, 2009). Most of the studies on ADHD and Internet addiction were conducted on adolescents and not on young adults (Seyrek et al., 2017; Tateno et al., 2016). There is only one study reporting an ADHD prevalence of 5.5% in adult “problematic” Internet users (Kim et al., 2016). However, the sample also included addicted users and therefore the findings might be not comparable with those of this study.
To our knowledge, this was the first study to attempt at including the assessment of the impact of recently developed ADHD symptoms in addition to the ADHD diagnosis in Internet addicts. Participants with ADHD as well as those with only recently developed ADHD-like symptoms showed significantly higher lifetime and current Internet use severity compared with those who did not fulfill these conditions. Furthermore, addicted participants with recently developed ADHD symptoms (30% of the addicted group) exhibited increased lifetime Internet use severity compared with those addicted participants without ADHD symptoms. Our results indicate that recently developed ADHD symptoms (without fulfilling the diagnostic criteria for ADHD) are associated with Internet addiction. This may lead to a first indication that the excessive Internet use has an impact on the development of cognitive deficits similar to those found in ADHD. A recent study of Nie, Zhang, Chen, and Li (2016) reported that adolescent Internet addicts with and without ADHD as well as participants with ADHD alone showed comparable deficits in inhibitory control and working memory functions.
This assumption seems to also be supported by certain studies reporting reduced gray matter density in the anterior cingulate cortex in addictive Internet users as well as in ADHD patients (Frodl & Skokauskas, 2012; Moreno-Alcazar et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2015; Yuan et al., 2011). Nevertheless, to confirm our assumptions, further studies assessing the relationship between the onset of excessive Internet use and ADHD in Internet addicts are needed. In addition, longitudinal studies should be applied to clarify causality. If our findings are confirmed by further studies, this will have clinical relevance for the diagnostic process of ADHD. It is conceivable that the clinicians would be required to carry out a detailed assessment of possible addictive Internet usage in patients with suspected ADHD.
The case study demonstrates that internet use caused ADHD-related behavior which was inaccurately diagnosed as ADHD. Abstract:
A growing body of literature is associating excessive and addictive use of digital media with physical, psychological, social and neurological adverse consequences. Research is focusing more on mobile devices use, and studies suggest that duration, content, after-dark-use, media type and the number of devices are key components determining screen time effects. Physical health effects: excessive screen time is associated with poor sleep and risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as high blood pressure, obesity, low HDL cholesterol, poor stress regulation (high sympathetic arousal and cortisol dysregulation), and Insulin Resistance. Other physical health consequences include impaired vision and reduced bone density. Psychological effects: internalizing and externalizing behavior is related to poor sleep. Depressive symptoms and suicidal are associated to screen time induced poor sleep, digital device night use, and mobile phone dependency. ADHD-related behavior was linked to sleep problems, overall screen time, and violent and fast-paced content which activates dopamine and the reward pathways. Early and prolonged exposure to violent content is also linked to risk for antisocial behavior and decreased prosocial behavior. Psychoneurological effects: addictive screen time use decreases social coping and involves craving behavior which resembles substance dependence behavior. Brain structural changes related to cognitive control and emotional regulation are associated with digital media addictive behavior. A case study of a treatment of an ADHD diagnosed 9-year-old boy suggests screen time induced ADHD-related behavior could be inaccurately diagnosed as ADHD. Screen time reduction is effective in decreasing ADHD-related behavior.
Components crucial for psychophysiological resilience are none-wandering mind (typical of ADHD-related behavior), good social coping and attachment, and good physical health. Excessive digital media use by children and adolescents appears as a major factor which may hamper the formation of sound psychophysiological resilience.
To examine the association between adolescent leisure-time Internet use and social integration in the school context and how this association affects later depressive symptoms among adolescents in Taiwan, using a large nationwide cohort study and the latent growth model (LGM) method.
Data of 3795 students followed from the year 2001 to 2006 in the Taiwan Education Panel Survey were analyzed. Leisure-time Internet use was defined by the hours per week spent on (1) online chatting and (2) online games. School social integration and depressive symptoms were self-reported. We first used an unconditional LGM to estimate the baseline (intercept) and growth (slope) of Internet use. Next, another LGM conditioned with school social integration and depression was conducted.
The trend of Internet use was positively related to depressive symptoms (coefficient = 0.31, p < 0.05) at Wave 4.
School social integration was initially associated with decreased leisure-time Internet use among adolescents. The growth of Internet use with time was not explainable by school social integration but had adverse impacts on depression. Reinforcing adolescents’ bonding to school may prevent initial leisure-time Internet use. When advising on adolescent Internet use, health care providers should consider their patients’ social networks and mental well-being.
In this longitudinal study, the ALFF and FC method were employed to investigate functional brain alternations between IGD group and HC group and the therapeutic mechanism of CBT in IGD subjects. We found that IGD subjects demonstrated abnormal function of some prefrontal-striatal regions relative to the HC subjects and that CBT could attenuate the functional abnormalities in the OFC and the putamen and increase the interactions between them, in addition to improving the symptoms of IGD.
In this study, the resting-state FC between the left medial OFC and the putamen was significantly lower in IGD group. The BIS-11 correlates of the FC alternations demonstrated that the impairment in the prefrontal-striatal circuits may have an impact on impulsive behavior of IGD subjects. Previous neuroimaging studies reported that functional impairment in the PFC regions was associated with the high impulsivity in IGD (37). The prefrontal-striatal circuits include a cognitive loop, which mainly connects the caudate and the putamen with prefrontal regions. Consistent with the findings of recent functional neuroimaging studies, functional alternations were observed in several prefrontal regions (including the right medial OFC, the bilateral SMA and the left ACC) and basal ganglia regions (the bilateral putamen) in addictive disorders, including IGD (12, 38, 39). Volkow et al. suggested neuronal networks in drug-addicted subjects, including the OFC-, ACC-, inferior frontal gyrus (IFG)-, and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC)-striatal circuits, that may reflect observable behaviors, such as impaired self-control and behavior inflexibility (40) and problems in making good decisions, that characterize the addiction; when individuals with IGD continue to play games even though they are confronted with negative consequences, this might be related to the impaired function of prefrontal-striatal circuits (41).
In the present study, weekly gaming time was significantly shorter, and the scores of the CIAS and the BIS-II were significantly reduced after the CBT. It suggested that the negative consequences could be reversed if Internet addiction could be remitted within a short duration. We observed decreased ALFF values in the left superior OFC and the left putamen and the increased OFC-putamen connectivity after the CBT, which are findings that are consistent with previous observations that suggested that the OFC-striatal circuit may be a potential therapeutic target across addictive disorders (43). The OFC is involved in impulse regulation in addition to decision making, so the connectivity between the OFC and the putamen imply a better control over impulsive behavior of IGD subjects (44). It is consistent with the result of reduced BIS-11 scores after treatment.
In summary, our findings showed that IGD was associated with altered function of some prefrontal-striatal circuits and that CBT could both attenuate the functional abnormalities of the OFC and the putamen and increase the interactions between them. These findings may provide a basis for revealing the therapeutic mechanism of CBT in IGD subjects and serve as potential biomarkers that may predict symptom improvement following CBT in IGD subjects.
Excessive smartphone use has been associated with a number of negative consequences for the individual and the environment. Some similarities can be observed between excessive smartphone usage and several behavioural addictions, and continual usage constitutes one of several characteristics included in addiction. In the extreme high end of the distribution of smartphone usage, smartphone restriction might be expected to elicit negative effects for individuals. These negative effects may be regarded as withdrawal symptoms traditionally associated with substance-related addictions. To address this timely issue, the present study examined scores on the Smartphone Withdrawal Scale (SWS), the Fear of Missing Out Scale (FoMOS) and the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) during 72 h of smartphone restriction. A sample of 127 participants (72.4% women), aged 18-48 years (M = 25.0, SD = 4.5), were randomly assigned into one of two conditions: a restricted condition (experimental group, n = 67) or a control condition (control group, n = 60).
During the restriction period participants completed the aforementioned scales three times a day. The results revealed significantly higher scores on the SWS and FoMOS for participants allocated to the restricted condition than those assigned to the control condition. Overall the results suggest that smartphone restriction could cause withdrawal symptoms.
Gaming and pornography viewing are prevalent behaviors, yet little is known regarding their overlap. On April 11, 2018, the servers of the video game Fortnite: Battle Royale crashed for 24 hr, providing potential insight into “forced abstinence” behaviors. Pornhub, an online platform for pornography, subsequently released statistics about online gamers’ pornography consumption during this period (Pornhub, 2018).
Pornhub reported that when servers were down, the percentage of gamers (identified using affinity data provided by Google analytics) accessing Pornhub increased by 10% and the term “Fortnite” was used by 60% of people more frequently in pornographic searches. These patterns of pornography consumption were limited to the “forced abstinence” period and returned to baseline when Fortnite’s servers were fixed.
Caution is necessary when interpreting these statistics. Nonetheless, they provide potentially valuable ecological data about how gamers may deal with periods of “forced abstinence.” These observations may be relevant to ongoing debates regarding the validity of “withdrawal” or “craving” constructs when applied to problematic involvement in video gaming (Starcevic, 2016). Specifically, Fortnite gamers’ pornography consumption patterns resonate with recent research (Kaptsis, King, Delfabbro, & Gradisar, 2016; King, Kaptsis, Delfabbro, & Gradisar, 2016), suggesting that some gamers deal with distressing symptoms (such as those provoked by a “forced abstinence” period) by employing a “compensation” strategy, i.e., seeking other activities related to their favorite game. Activities such as researching information about video games in forums or watching gaming videos on YouTube have been described as compensation behaviors. In the current context, the statistics published by Pornhub suggest other compensatory behaviors: consumption of Fortnite-related pornographic materials. Indeed, when searching Pornhub with the term Fortnite, one may find parodies where actors perform sexual scenes dressed as Fortnite characters, couples engaging in sexual intercourse while playing Fortnite, or Fortnite-related hentai (anime) videos. Given the recent inclusion of both gaming disorder and compulsive sexual behavior disorder in the World Health Organization’s (2018) ICD-11, further research is required to understand interactions between gaming and pornography consumption at problematic and non-problematic levels. Furthermore, the extent to which “forced abstinence” may promote switching of potentially problematic behaviors, and the mechanisms by which this may occur, warrant further investigation.
This study revealed a bidirectional association between OSNA and depression among adolescents, meaning that depression significantly contributes to the development of OSNA, and in turn, depressed individuals experience more deleterious effects from addictive online social networking use. More longitudinal studies with multiple observational time points and short-time interval are warranted for further confirmation of the findings from this study.
The present study explored the possibility of a directional relationship between measures of problem gaming and problem gambling, while also controlling for the influence of sex and age. In contrast to most previous investigations which are based on cross-sectional designs and non-representative samples, the present study utilized a longitudinal design conducted over 2 years (2013, 2015) and comprising 4601 participants (males 47.2%, age range 16-74) drawn from a random sample from the general population. Video gaming and gambling were assessed using the Gaming Addiction Scale for Adolescents and the Canadian Problem Gambling Index, respectively. Using an autoregressive cross-lagged structural equation model, we found a positive relationship between scores on problematic gaming and later scores on problematic gambling, whereas we found no evidence of the reverse relationship. Hence, video gaming problems appear to be a gateway behavior to problematic gambling behavior. In future research, one should continue to monitor the possible reciprocal behavioral influences between gambling and video gaming.
The aim of the study is to investigate (a) whether probable depression status assessed at baseline prospectively predicted new incidence of Internet addiction (IA) at the 12-month follow-up and (b) whether IA status assessed at baseline prospectively predicted new incidence of probable depression at follow-up.
We conducted a 12-month cohort study (n = 8,286) among Hong Kong secondary students, and derived two subsamples. The first subsample (n = 6,954) included students who were non-IA at baseline, using the Chen Internet Addiction Scale (≤63), and another included non-depressed cases at baseline (n = 3,589), using the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (<16).
Our findings demonstrate that IA potentially predicted probable depression and vice versa for those who were free from the predicted outcome at the baseline. Although we find significant bidirectional predictions, the research design cannot establish causalities. Besides the effect of baseline depressive symptoms on IA at follow-up, depressive symptoms at follow-up, or symptoms developed during the two time points, may also affect IA at follow-up; IA level at follow-up may similarly affect depression at follow-up. Our data support the hypothesis that IA and depression symptoms are potential causes and consequences of each other.The contention about causalities requires further longitudinal studies. However, practical skills for promoting controlled Internet use should be incorporated in programs targeting adolescents who show depressive symptoms and signs of IA. IA prevention programs should also reduce negative moods of those with depressive symptoms. Related health workers thus need to develop new awareness and skill sets. Pilot intervention research and programs that simultaneously tackle both IA and depression problems are warranted.
The high incidence of probable depression is a concern that warrants interventions, as depression has lasting harmful effects in adolescents. Baseline probable depression predicted IA at follow-up and vice versa, among those who were free from IA/probable depression at baseline. Healthcare workers, teachers, and parents need to be made aware of this bidirectional finding. Interventions, both IA and depression prevention, should thus take both problems into consideration.
This article designed and tested a cognitive behavioral-based preventive intervention program for youths with problematic Internet use (PIU) behavior. The program is the Psychological Intervention Program-Internet Use for Youth (PIP-IU-Y). A cognitive-based therapy approach was adopted. A total of 45 secondary students from four schools completed the intervention program that was conducted in a group format by registered school counselors.
Three sets of self-reported data on Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ), Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) were collected at three time points: 1 week before the intervention, immediately after the last intervention session, and 1 month after the intervention. Paired t-test results showed that the program was effective in preventing negative progression into more serious Internet addiction stages, and reducing anxiety and stress and interaction phobia of the participants. The effect was evident immediately at the end of the intervention session and was maintained 1 month after the intervention.
This study is among the first to develop and test a preventive intervention program for youths with PIU. The effectiveness of our program in preventing negative progression of PIU and its symptoms in problematic users has led us to postulate that the program will also prevent normal users from developing serious symptoms.
The findings support the thesis that poor personal well-being in adolescents is the consequence rather than the cause of Internet addictive behaviors. To improve quality of life and prevent suicidality in adolescents, strategies that help reduce addictive behaviors related to the Internet should be considered.
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Most of the previous studies on the relationship between Internet addiction and personal well-being in young people have been based on cross-sectional design. As such, longitudinal data from a representative sample are necessary for researchers to understand whether poor well-being is a risk factor for youth Internet addiction or its consequence. The present study serves this purpose by examining the longitudinal relationships between Internet addiction and two personal well-being indicators, life satisfaction and hopelessness, in a large sample of Hong Kong adolescents.
Based on a three-wave cross-lagged panel design, the results supported a reversed causal model such that Internet addiction caused decreased personal well-being after the baseline status and the effects of gender, age, and family economic status were controlled for. The reciprocal model that hypothesized mutual influences was not supported. These findings provide new insights into the direction of relationships between Internet addictive behaviors and youth personal well-being. In contrast to cross-sectional studies, the use of panel design and structural equation modeling is a more rigorous approach to examine the issues of causality and reciprocity.
Many studies have reported many adverse effects of children’s use of media. These effects include reduced cognitive development and hyperactivity and attention disorders. Although it has been recommended that child be kept away from the media during the early developmental period, many modern parents use the media as a way to calm their children. Consequently, these children lack the opportunity to form selective attachments by reduced social engagement. These children’s symptoms occasionally mimic autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, few studies have examined the symptoms children develop with early media exposure.
Here, we present a boy exposed to the media during his early development who was diagnosed with attachment disorder. He was unable to make eye contact and was hyperactive and had delayed language development, like children with ASD. His symptoms improved dramatically after he was prevented from using all media and encouraged to play in other ways. After this treatment, he would make eye contact, and talked about playing with their parents. Simply avoiding the media and playing with others can change the behavior of a child with ASD-like symptoms. It is important to understand the symptoms caused by attachment disorder and early media exposure.
Much research has been conducted on how and why we use social media, but little is known about the impact of social media abstinence. Therefore, we designed an ecological momentary intervention study using smartphones. Participants were instructed not to use social media for 7 days (4 days baseline, 7 days intervention, and 4 days postintervention; N = 152). We assessed affect (positive and negative), boredom, and craving thrice a day (time-contingent sampling), as well as social media usage frequency, usage duration, and social pressure to be on social media at the end of each day (7,000+ single assessments).
We found withdrawal symptoms, such as significantly heightened craving (β = 0.10) and boredom (β = 0.12), as well as reduced positive and negative affect (only descriptively). Social pressure to be on social media was significantly heightened during social media abstinence (β = 0.19) and a substantial number of participants (59 percent) relapsed at least once during the intervention phase. We could not find any substantial rebound effect after the end of the intervention. Taken together, communicating through online social media is evidently such an integral part of everyday life that being without it leads to withdrawal symptoms (craving, boredom), relapses, and social pressure to get back on social media.
Introduction: Given the breadth of correlational research linking social media use to worse well-being, we undertook an experimental study to investigate the potential causal role that social media plays in this relationship.
Method: After a week of baseline monitoring, 143 undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania were randomly assigned to either limit Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat use to 10 minutes, per platform, per day, or to use social media as usual for three weeks.
Results: The limited use group showed significant reductions in loneliness and depression over three weeks compared to the control group. Both groups showed significant decreases in anxiety and fear of missing out over baseline, suggesting a benefit of increased self-monitoring.
Discussion: Our findings strongly suggest that limiting social media use to approximately 30 minutes per day may lead to significant improvement in well-being
Four weeks of treatment resulted in decreased video-gaming, increased self-control, decline in addiction severity, and changes in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (the prefrontal cortex, which provides self control, is negatively affected in all addictions);
Excessive use of online games can have negative influences on mental health and daily functioning. Although the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) have been investigated for the treatment of addiction, it has not been evaluated for excessive online game use. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility and tolerability of tDCS over the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in online gamers.
A total of 15 online gamers received 12 active tDCS sessions over the DLPFC (anodal left/cathodal right, 2 mA for 30 min, 3 times per week for 4 weeks). Before and after tDCS sessions, all participants underwent 18F-fluoro-2-deoxyglucose positron emission tomography scans and completed the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Brief Self Control Scale (BSCS), and Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II).
After tDCS sessions, weekly hours spent on games and scores of IAT and BDI-II were decreased, whereas BSCS score was increased. Increases in self-control were associated with decreases in both addiction severity and time spent on games. Moreover, abnormal right-greater-than-left asymmetry of regional cerebral glucose metabolism in the DLPFC was partially alleviated.
Results: Findings in study 1 showed that depression and loneliness were reciprocally associated with pathological gaming. Physical aggression was identified as an antecedent, and anxiety was a consequence of pathological gaming. Investigation of the three typologies of gamers (study 2) identified loneliness and physical aggression as antecedents, and depression as a consequence of all typologies. Depression was found to be an antecedent of problem and engaged gamers. Loneliness was found as a consequence of problem gamers, and anxiety was a consequence of addicted gamers. High alcohol consumption was found antecedent to addicted gamers, and low alcohol consumption was found antecedent to problem gamers. The estimated stability of video game addiction was 35%.
Conclusion: A reciprocal relationship between pathological gaming and measures of mental health problems seems to exist. The stability of video game addiction indicates a condition that for a substantial number of people does not resolve spontaneously over the course of 2 years.
Abstinence and stress are clinically significant in cases of excessive technology use.
We study the effects of several days of social media abstinence on perceived stress.
We employed a pre(t1)–post(t2), case (abstinence)—control (no abstinence) design.
Abstinence of about one week produced stress reduction.
Stress reduction was significantly more pronounced in excessive users.
Online social networking sites (SNSs), such as Facebook, provide frequent and copious social reinforcers (e.g., “likes”) delivered at variable time intervals. As a result, some SNS users display excessive, maladaptive behaviors on these platforms. Excessive SNS users, and typical users alike, are often aware of their intense use and psychological dependence on these sites, which may lead to elevated stress. In fact, research has demonstrated that use of SNSs alone induces elevated stress. Other research has begun to investigate the effects of short periods of SNS abstinence, revealing beneficial effects on subjective wellbeing. We aligned these two lines of research and hypothesized that a short period of SNS abstinence would induce a reduction in perceived stress, especially in excessive users. The results confirmed our hypothesis and revealed that both typical and excessive SNS users experienced reduction in perceived stress following SNS abstinence of several days. The effects were particularly pronounced in excessive SNS users. The reduction in stress was not associated with academic performance increases. These results indicate a benefit-at least temporarily-of abstinence from SNSs and provide important information for therapists treating patients who struggle with excessive SNS use.
Background: Gaming disorder (GD) has been shown to co-occur with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), yet few studies to date have investigated their longitudinal associations.
Method: The sample included 5,067 young Swiss men (mean age was 20 years at wave 1 and 25 years at wave 3). Measures were the Game Addiction Scale and the Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (6-item screener). Longitudinal associations were tested using autoregressive cross-lagged models for binary measures of GD and ADHD, as well as continuous measures for GD score and ADHD subscales of inattention and hyperactivity.
Discussion: GD had bidirectional longitudinal associations with ADHD, in that ADHD increased the risk for GD and GD increased the risk for ADHD, and they may reinforce each other. These associations may be linked more to the inattention ADHD component than to the hyperactivity ADHD component. Individuals with ADHD or GD should be screened for the other disorder, and preventive measures for GD should be evaluated in individuals with ADHD.
Comments: Longitudinal study were 23 regular gamer met the criteria for gaming addiction one year later. These 23 were compared to 23 gaming addicts – and they matched the addicts in cue-related brain activity.
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is associated with negative health measures. However, little is known regarding the brain mechanisms or cognitive factors that may predict transitions from regular game use (RGU) to IGD. Such knowledge may help identify individuals who are particularly vulnerable to IGD and aid in prevention efforts. One hundred forty-nine individuals with RGU were scanned when they were performing a cue-elicited-craving task before gaming and after gaming was suddenly ceased. One year later, 23 were found to have developed IGD (RGU_IGD).We compared the original data from these 23 RGU_IGD subjects and 23 one-to-one matched subjects still meeting criteria for RGU (RGU_RGU). RGU_IGD and RGU_RGU subjects showed similarities in the cue-elicited-craving task before gaming. Significant group-by-time interaction identified the bilateral lentiform nucleus. Post hoc analysis showed the interaction was related to increased activation in the RGU_IGD subjects following gaming. Significant correlations were observed between self-reported cravings and lentiform activation in the RGU_IGD subjects. Among individuals with RGU, gaming-cue-induced lentiform activation following a session of gaming may predict subsequent development of IGD. The findings suggest a biological mechanism for emergence of IGD that may help inform prevention interventions.
Although internet gaming disorder (IGD) is associated with negative health measures, individuals may recover without professional intervention. Exploring neural features associated with natural recovery may provide insights into how best to promote health among people with IGD. Seventy-nine IGD subjects were scanned when they were performing cue-craving tasks before and after gaming was interrupted with a forced break. After one year, 20 individuals no longer met IGD criteria and were considered recovered. We compared brain responses in cue-craving tasks between these 20 recovered IGD subjects and 20 matched IGD subjects still meeting criteria at one year (persistent IGD). Recovered IGD subjects showed lower dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) activation than persistent IGD subjects to gaming cues at both pre- and post-gaming times. Significant group-by-time interactions were found in the bilateral DLPFC and insula, and these involved relatively decreased DLPFC and increased insula activation in the persistent IGD group during the forced break. Relatively decreased DLPFC activity and increased insula activity in response to gaming cues following recent gaming may underlie persistence of gaming. These findings suggest that executive control and interoceptive processing warrant additional study in understanding recovery from IGD.
This is the first study to investigate the effect of social media addiction on women’s sexual function, taking into account the mediating role of social and civic support in the marital relationship using a prospective longitudinal study within a 6-month time interval.
A prospective study was conducted where all participants (N = 938; mean age = 36.5 years) completed the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale to assess social media addiction, the Female Sexual Distress Scale – Revised to assess sexual distress, the Unidimensional Relationship Closeness Scale to assess intimacy, and the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support to assess perceived social support.
After a 6-month period, the mean scores of anxiety and depression increased slightly and the mean score of sexual function and sexual distress decreased slightly.
The results showed that social media addiction had direct and indirect (via intimacy and perceived social support) effects on sexual function and sexual distress.
Study demonstrates withdrawal symptoms after quitting.
Social Networking Sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Instagram have relocated a large portion of people’s social lives online, but can be intrusive and create social disturbances. Many people therefore consider taking an “SNS vacation.” We investigated the effects of a one-week vacation from both Facebook and Instagram on subjective well-being, and whether this would vary for passive or active SNS users. Usage amount was measured objectively, using RescueTime software, to circumvent issues of self-report. Usage style was identified at pre-test, and SNS users with a more active or more passive usage style were assigned in equal numbers to the conditions of one-week SNS vacation (n = 40) or no SNS vacation (n = 38). Subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) was measured before and after the vacation period. At pre-test, more active SNS use was found to correlate positively with life satisfaction and positive affect, whereas more passive SNS use correlated positively with life satisfaction, but not positive affect. Surprisingly, at post-test the SNS vacation resulted in lower positive affect for active users and had no significant effects for passive users. This result is contrary to popular expectation, and indicates that SNS usage can be beneficial for active users. We suggest that SNS users should be educated in the benefits of an active usage style and that future research should consider the possibility of SNS addiction among more active users.
This prospective study evaluated the predictive ability of psychiatric symptoms at initial consultation for the occurrence and remission of Internet addiction during a 1-year follow-up period among college students. Furthermore, it evaluated the predictive ability of changes in psychiatric symptoms for Internet addiction at the initial consultation during the 1-year follow-up period among college students.
Five hundred college students (262 women and 238 men) were recruited. The baseline and follow-up consultations measured the levels of Internet addiction and psychiatric symptoms using the Chen Internet Addiction Scale and Symptom Checklist-90 Revised, respectively.
The results indicated that severe interpersonal sensitivity and paranoia symptoms might predict the incidence of Internet addiction at 1-year follow-up. The college students with internet addiction did not have significant improvement in the severities of psychopathology, whereas those without internet addiction had significant improvement in obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, paranoid and psychoticism during the same period.
Objective: We aimed to understand whether Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Internet gamingdisorder (IGD) share similar brain functional connectivity (FC) between the frontal and subcortices.
Method: We compared changes in clinical symptoms and brain activity using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in 26 patients with ADHD but without IGD, 29 patients with ADHD and IGD, and 20 patients with IGD but without ADHD.
Results: The functional connectivity (FC) from the cortex to subcortex in both groups was decreased relative to that in age-matched healthy participants. One-year treatment for ADHD and IGD symptoms increased the FC between the cortex and subcortex in all ADHD participants and all IGD participants with good prognoses compared with those in all ADHD participants and all IGD participants with poor prognoses.
Conclusion:Patients with ADHD and IGD shared similar brain FC at baseline and FC changes in response to treatment.
Remission of addiction-related brain changes. Excerpts:
Although studies have suggested that individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) may have impairments in cognitive functioning, the nature of the relationship is unclear given that the information is typically derived from cross-sectional studies.
Individuals with active IGD (n = 154) and those individuals no longer meeting criteria (n = 29) after 1 year were examined longitudinally using functional magnetic resonance imaging during performance of cue-craving tasks. Subjective responses and neural correlates were contrasted at study onset and at 1 year.
Subjects’ craving responses to gaming cues decreased significantly at 1 year relative to study onset. Decreased brain responses in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and lentiform nucleus were observed at 1 year relative to onset. Significant positive correlations were observed between changes in brain activities in the lentiform nucleus and changes in self-reported cravings. Dynamic causal modeling analysis showed increased ACC-lentiform connectivity at 1 year relative to study onset.
After recovery from IGD, individuals appear less sensitive to gaming cues. This recovery may involve increased ACC-related control over lentiform-related motivations in the control over cravings. The extent to which cortical control over subcortical motivations may be targeted in treatments for IGD should be examined further.
Internet gaming disorder (IGD) is a behavioral addiction involving excessive online game use despite negative psychosocial consequences. Unrestricted online gaming may lead to changes in striatal activity and the relationship between the striatum and other cortical regions. This study investigated structural and functional abnormalities involving the striatum through longitudinal follow-up magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessments. Eighteen young males with IGD (mean age: 23.8 ± 2.0 years) and 18 controls (mean age: 23.9 ± 2.7 years) were evaluated. Subjects were reassessed ≥1 year after the first visit (mean follow-up duration: 22.8 ± 6.7 months), using voxel-based morphometry and seed-based resting-state functional connectivity (FC) analyses in seed regions of the dorsal and ventral striatum. Subjects with IGD had smaller gray matter volume (GMV) in the anterior/middle cingulate cortex compared with controls during initial and follow-up assessments. They exhibited decreased FC between the left dorsal putamen and left medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) compared with controls. They exhibited increased FC strength between the right dorsal putamen and right middle occipital gyrus (MOG) during follow-up. Subjects with IGD showed a significant correlation between changes in the dorsal putamen-MOG FC and gaming time per day. Young males with IGD showed an altered FC pattern in the dorsal striatum during follow-up. FC of the dorsal striatum in IGD increased in the mPFC and decreased in the MOG. These findings showed that IGD was accompanied by weakening of prefrontal control and strengthening of the sensorimotor network, suggesting that uncontrolled gaming may be related with functional neural changes in the dorsal striatum.
Previous studies have reported an association between Internet gaming disorder (IGD) and depression, but the directionality of the relationship remains unclear. Therefore, we examined the reciprocal relationship between level of depressive symptoms and IGD among children in a longitudinal study.
Research panels for this study consisted of 366 elementary-school students in the iCURE study. All participants were current Internet users, so they could be considered an at-risk population for IGD. Self-reported severity of IGD features and level of depression were assessed by the Internet Game Use-Elicited Symptom Screen and Children’s Depression Inventory, respectively. Follow-up assessment was completed after 12 months. We fitted cross-lagged structural equation models to investigate the association between the two variables at two time points contemporaneously
The cross-lagged analysis revealed that level of depression at baseline significantly predicted severity of IGD features at the 12-month follow-up (β = 0.15, p = .003). Severity of IGD features at baseline also significantly predicted level of depression at the 12-month follow-up (β = 0.11, p = .018), controlling for possible confounding factors.
The cross-lagged path analysis indicates a reciprocal relationship between severity of IGD features and level of depressive symptoms. Understanding the reciprocal relationship between depressive symptoms and severity of IGD features can assist in interventions to prevent both conditions. These findings provide theoretical support for prevention and remediation plans for IGD and depressive symptoms among children.
We examined the gaming patterns and withdrawal symptomology of 144 American collegiate internet gamers. Our findings indicated that Internet Gaming Disorder Scale (IGDS) scores positively correlated with withdrawal symptomology. The 10 most endorsed withdrawal symptoms were craving to game, impatience, increased sleeping, increased eating, lack of pleasure, irritable/angry, anxious/tense, restless, difficulty concentrating, and increased dreaming. Only 27.1% of gamers did not endorse any withdrawal symptoms. A MANOVA revealed significant differences in IGDS and withdrawal symptom scores among gamers who preferred to game alone, with others in person, with others online, or with others in person and online (8.1% variance explained). Specifically, IGDS scores were higher among gamers who preferred to game with others online compared with other modalities. Withdrawal symptoms did not significantly discriminate between groups. Finally, many gamers indicated that if internet gaming were not available, they would be more likely to engage in other potentially addictive behaviors.
This page contains the growing list of peer-reviewed studies reporting withdrawal symptoms in porn users. Important to note: only a few studies have bothered to ask about withdrawal symptoms – perhaps due to the widespread denial that they exist. Yet the few research teams that have asked about withdrawal symptoms confirm their existence in porn users.
While recovering porn users are often startled by the severity of their withdrawal symptoms after they stop using porn, the fact is, withdrawal symptoms need not be present for someone to be diagnosed with addiction. First, you will find the language “neither tolerance nor withdrawal is necessary or sufficient for a diagnosis…” in both the DSM-IV-TR and DSM-5. Second, the oft-repeated sexology claim that “real” addictions cause severe, life-threatening withdrawal symptoms mistakenly conflates physiological dependence with addiction-related brain changes. An excerpt from this 2015 review of literature provides a technical explanation (Neuroscience of Internet Pornography Addiction: A Review and Update):
A key point of this stage is that withdrawal is not about the physiological effects from a specific substance. Rather, this model measures withdrawal via a negative affect resulting from the above process. Aversive emotions such as anxiety, depression, dysphoria, and irritability are indicators of withdrawal in this model of addiction [43,45]. Researchers opposed to the idea of behaviors being addictive often overlook or misunderstand this critical distinction, confusing withdrawal with detoxification [46,47].
That said, 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. Empirical support arises from over 35 studies linking porn use/porn addiction to sexual problems and lower arousal (the first 7 studies in the list demonstrate causation, as participants eliminated porn use and healed chronic sexual dysfunctions).
Similarly, tolerance can also develop to pornography. After prolonged consumption of pornography, excitatory responses to pornography diminish; the repulsion evoked by common pornography fades and may be lost with prolonged consumption (Zillman, 1989). Thus, what initially led to an excitatory response does not necessarily lead to the same level of enjoyment of the frequently consumed material. There-fore, what aroused an individual initially may not arouse them in the later stages of their addiction. Because they do not achieve satisfaction or have the repulsion they once did, individuals addicted to pornography generally seek increasingly novel forms of pornography to achieve the same excitatory result.
For example, pornography addiction may begin with non-pornographic but provocative images and can then progress to more sexually explicit mages. As arousal diminishes with each use, an addicted individual may move on to more graphic forms of sexual images and erotica. As arousal again diminishes, the pattern continues to incorporate increasingly graphic, titillating, and detailed depictions of sexual activity through the various forms of media. Zillman (1989) states that prolonged pornography use can foster a preference for pornography featuring less common forms of sexuality (e.g., violence), and may alter perceptions of sexuality. Although this pattern typifies what one would expect to see with pornography addiction, not all pornography users experience this cascade into an addiction.
Withdrawal symptoms from pornography use may include depression, irritability, anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and an intense longing for pornography. Due to these often intense withdrawal symptoms, cessation from this reinforcement can be extremely difficult for both the individual and the couple’s relationship.
STUDY #2 – Consequences of Pornography Use (2017) – This study asked if internet users experienced anxiety when they couldn’t access porn on the internet (a withdrawal symptom): 24% experienced anxiety. One third of the participants had suffered negative consequences related to their porn use. Excerpts:
The objective of this study is to obtain a scientific and empirical approximation to the type of consumption of the Spanish population, the time they use in such consumption, the negative impact it has on the person and how anxiety is affected when it is not possible to access to it. The study has a sample of Spanish internet users (N = 2.408). An 8-item survey was developed through an online platform that provides information and psychological counselling on the harmful consequences of pornography consumption. To reach diffusion among the Spanish population, the survey was promoted through social networks and media.
The results show that one third of the participants had suffered negative consequences in family, social, academic or work environment. In addition, 33% spent more than 5 hours connected for sexual purposes, using pornography as a reward and 24% had anxiety symptoms if they could not connect.
Anna Ševčíková1, Lukas Blinka1 and Veronika Soukalová1
1Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Background and aims:
There is an ongoing debate whether excessive sexual behaviour should be understood as a form of behavioural addiction (Karila, Wéry, Weistein et al., 2014). The present qualitative study aimed at analysing the extent to which out-of-control use of the internet for sexual purposes (OUISP) may be framed by the concept of behavioural addiction among those individuals who were in treatment due to their OUISP.
Methods:
We conducted in-depth interviews with 21 participants aged 22–54 years (Mage = 34.24 years). Using a thematic analysis, the clinical symptoms of OUISP were analysed with the criteria of behavioural addiction, with the special focus on tolerance and withdrawal symptoms (Griffiths, 2001).
Results:
The dominant problematic behaviour was out-of-control online pornography use (OOPU). Building up tolerance to OOPU manifested itself as an increasing amount of time spent on pornographic websites as well as searching for new and more sexually explicit stimuli within the non-deviant spectrum. Withdrawal symptoms manifested themselves on a psychosomatic level and took the form of searching for alternative sexual objects. Fifteen participants fulfilled all of the addiction criteria.
Conclusions:
The study indicates a usefulness for the behavioural addiction framework
STUDY #4: The Development of the Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale (PPCS) (2017) – This paper developed and tested a problematic porn use questionnaire that was modeled after substance addiction questionnaires. Unlike previous porn addiction tests, this 18-item questionnaire assessed tolerance and withdrawal using the following 6 questions:
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Each question was scored from one to seven on a Likert scale: 1- Never, 2- Rarely, 3- Occasionally, 4- Sometimes, 5- Often, 6- Very Often, 7- All the Time. The graph below grouped porn users into 3 categories based on their total scores: “Nonprobelmatic,” “Low risk,” and “At risk.” The yellow line indicates no problems, which means that the “Low risk” and “At risk” porn users reported both tolerance and withdrawal. Put simply, this study actually asked about escalation (tolerance) and withdrawal – and both are reported by some porn users. End of debate.
Most previous studies have relied on small clinical samples. The present study presents a new method for assessing sex addiction—the Bergen–Yale Sex Addiction Scale (BYSAS)—based on established addiction components (i.e., salience/craving, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict/problems, and relapse/loss of control).
The authors expand on the six established addiction components assessed, including tolerance and withdrawal.
The BYSAS was developed utilizing the six addiction criteria emphasized by Brown (1993), Griffiths (2005), and American Psychiatric Association (2013) encompassing salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflicts and relapse/loss of control…. In relation to sex addiction, these symptoms would be: salience/craving—over-preoccupation with sex or wanting sex, mood modification—excessive sex causing changes in mood, tolerance—increasing amounts of sex over time, withdrawal—unpleasant emotional/physical symptoms when not having sex, conflict—inter-/intrapersonal problems as a direct result of excessive sex, relapse—returning to previous patterns after periods with abstinence/control, and problems—impaired health and well-being arising from addictive sexual behavior.
The most prevalent “sex addiction” components seen in the subjects were salience/craving and tolerance, but the other components, including withdrawal, also showed up to a lesser degree:
Salience/craving and tolerance were more frequently endorsed in the higher rating category than other items, and these items had the highest factor loadings. This seems reasonable as these reflect less severe symptoms (e.g., question about depression: people score higher on feeling depressed, then they plan committing suicide). This may also reflect a distinction between engagement and addiction (often seen in the game addiction field)—where items tapping information about salience, craving, tolerance, and mood modification are argued to reflect engagement, whereas items tapping withdrawal, relapse and conflict more measure addiction. Another explanation could be that salience, craving, and tolerance may be more relevant and prominent in behavioral addictions than withdrawal and relapse.
This study, along with the preceding 2017 study that developed and validated the “Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale,” refutes the often-repeated claim that porn and sex addicts do not experience either tolerance or withdrawal symptoms.
To test the spectrum hypothesis and to have comparable symptoms for each technology-mediated behavior, the first and the last author linked each scale item with the following “classical” addiction symptoms: continued use, mood modification, loss of control, preoccupation, withdrawal, and consequences technology-mediated addictive behaviors were investigated using symptoms derived from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.) and the component model of addiction: Internet, smartphone, gaming, and cybersex.
Between-conditions edges often connected the same symptoms through Internet addiction symptoms. For example, Internet addiction withdrawal symptoms were connected with withdrawal symptoms of all other conditions (gaming addiction, smartphone addiction, and cybersex addiction) and adverse consequences of Internet addiction were also connected with adverse consequences of all other conditions.
The most common self-perceived adverse effects of pornography use included: the need for longer stimulation (12.0%) and more sexual stimuli (17.6%) to reach orgasm, and a decrease in sexual satisfaction (24.5%)…
The present study also suggests that earlier exposure may be associated with potential desensitization to sexual stimuli as indicated by a need for longer stimulation and more sexual stimuli required to reach orgasm when consuming explicit material, and overall decrease in sexual satisfaction…..
Various changes of pattern of pornography use occurring in the course of the exposure period were reported: switching to a novel genre of explicit material (46.0%), use of materials that do not match sexual orientation (60.9%) and need to use more extreme (violent) material (32.0%). The latter was more frequently reported by females considering themselves as curious compared tothose regarding themselves as uninquisitive
the present study found that a need to use more extreme pornography material was more frequently reported by males describing themselves as aggressive.
Additional signs of tolerance/escalation: needing multiple tabs open and using porn outside of home:
The majority of students admitted to use of private mode (76.5%, n = 3256) and multiple windows (51.5%, n = 2190) when browsing online pornography. Use of porn outside residence was declared by 33.0% (n = 1404).
Earlier age of first use related to greater problems and addiction (this indirectly indicates tolerance-habituation-escalation):
Age of first exposure to explicit material was associated with increased likelihood of negative effects of pornography in young adults—the highest odds were found for females and males exposed at 12 years or below. Although a cross-sectional study does not allow an assessment of causation, this finding may indeed indicate that childhood association with pornographic content may have long-term outcomes….
The study reported withdrawal symptoms, even in non-addicts (a definitive sign of addiction-related brain changes):
Among those surveyed who declared themselves to be current pornography consumers (n = 4260), 51.0% admitted to making at least one attempt to give up using it with no dif ference in the frequency of these attempts between males and females. 72.2% of those attempting to quit pornography use indicated the experience of at least one associated e ffect, and the most frequently observed included erotic dreams (53.5%), irritability (26.4%), attention disturbance (26.0%), and sense of loneliness (22.2%) (Table 2).
Debunking the claim that pre-existing conditions are the real issue, not porn use, the study found that personality traits were not related to outcomes:
With some exceptions, none of personality traits, which were self-reported in this study, differentiated the studied parameters of pornography. These findings support the notion that access and exposure to pornography are presently issues too broad to specify any particular psychosocial characteristics of its users. However, an interesting observation was made regarding consumers who reported a need to view increasingly extreme pornographic content. As shown, frequent use of explicit material may potentially be associated with desensitization leading to a need to view more extreme content to reach similar sexual arousal.
An excerpt from the case reporting withdrawal symptoms:
Perry (22, P_akeh_a):
Perry felt he had no control over his pornography use and that viewing pornography was the only way he could manage and regulate emotions, specifically anger. He reported outbursts at friends and family if he abstained from pornography for too long, which he described as a period of roughly 1 or 2 weeks.
Excerpts from the 3 cases reporting escalation or habituation:
Preston (34, M_aori)
Preston self-identified with SPPPU because he was concerned with the amount of time he spent watching and ruminating on pornography. To him, pornography had escalated beyond a passionate hobby and reached a level where pornography was the center of his life. He reported watching pornography for multiple hours a day, creating and implementing specific viewing rituals for his viewing sessions (e.g., setting up his room, lighting, and chair in a specific and orderly way before viewing, clearing his browser history after viewing, and cleaning up after his viewing in a similar way), and investing significant amounts of time in maintaining his online persona in a prominent online pornography community on PornHub, the world’s largest Internet pornography website…
Patrick (40, P_akeh_a)
Patrick volunteered for the present research because he was concerned with the duration of his pornography viewing sessions, as well as the context in which he viewed. Patrick regularly watched pornography for several hours at a time while leaving his toddler son unattended in the living room to play and/or watch television…
Peter (29, P_akeh_a)
Peter was concerned with the type of pornographic content he was consuming. He was attracted to pornography made to resemble acts of rape. The more real and realistically depicted the scene, the more stimulation he reported experiencing when viewing it. Peter felt his specific tastes in pornography were a violation of the moral and ethical standards he held for himself…
STUDY #9:Signs and symptoms of cybersex addiction in older adults (2019) – In Spanish, except for the abstract. Average age was 65. Contains findings that thoroughly support the addiction model, including 24% reported symptoms of withdrawal when unable to access porn (anxiety, irritability, depression, etc.).From the abstract:
Thus, the aim of this work was double: 1) to analyze the prevalence of older adults at risk of developing or showing a pathological profile of cybersex use and 2) to develop a profile of signs and symptoms that characterize it in this population. 538 participants (77% men) over 60 years of age (M = 65.3) completed a series of online sexual behavior scales. 73.2% said they used the Internet with sexual aim. Among them, 80.4% did it recreationally whereas a 20% showed a risk consumption. Among the main symptoms, the most prevalent were the perception of interference (50% of participants), spending >5 hours a week on the Internet for sexual purposes (50%), recognize that they may be doing it excessively (51%) or presence of symptoms of withdrawal (anxiety, irritability, depression, etc.) (24%). This work highlights the relevance of visualizing online risky sexual activity in a silent group and usually outside any intervention for the promotion of online sexual health.
27 of 33 interviewees mentioned withdrawal symptoms.
15 of 33 interviewees mentioned escalation to more extreme content.
Graph of interviewees’ ratings the six dimensions of the porn questionnaire that assessed tolerance and withdrawal (the PPCS):
The most accurate of the 3 questionnaire was the “PPCS” which is modeled after substance addiction questionnaires. Unlike the other 2 questionnaires, and previous porn addiction tests, the PPCS assesses tolerance & withdrawal. An excerpt describing importance of assessing tolerance and withdrawal:
The more robust psychometric properties and higher recognition accuracy of the PPCS may be attributable to the fact that it has been developed in accordance with Griffiths’s six-component structural theory of addiction (i.e., in contrast to the PPUS and s-IAT-sex). The PPCS has a very strong theoretical framework, and it assesses more components of addiction [11]. In particular, tolerance and withdrawal are the important dimensions of problematic IPU that are not assessed by the PPUS and s-IAT-sex;
The interviewees see withdrawal as a common and important feature of problematic porn use:
It also can be inferred from Figure 1 that both volunteers and therapists emphasized the centrality of conflict, relapse and withdrawal in IPU (basing the frequency of mentions); at the same time, they weighted the mood modification, relapse and withdrawal as more important features in the problematic use (basing the important rating).
The list of adolescent & porn use studies can be found below this introduction containing reviews of the literature (an (L) in front of the link indicates a lay article, usually about a study).
Reviews of the literature & meta-analyses (by date of publication):
Examining the systemic impact of Internet pornography, however, is relatively uncharted territory and the body of systemically-focused research is limited. A review of the research that does exist was undertaken and many negative trends were revealed. While much remains unknown about the impact of Internet pornography on marriages and families, the available data provide an informed starting point for policy makers, educators, clinicians, and researchers.
Direct Impact on Children and Adolescents The following effect are considered to have the most impact on children and adolescents who use or encounter pornography themselves:
1. In spite of the illegalities, youth have easy access to pornographic material and this can have traumatic, distorting, abusive, and/or addictive effects.
2. Youth are commonly being solicited, tricked, misled, or “mouse trapped” into viewing sexually explicit content online.
3. Research shows that exposure to pornography can make a lasting impression in young people and that this impression is most often described using emotions such as disgust, shock, embarrassment, anger, fear, and sadness.
4. The consumption of Internet pornography and/or involvement in sexualized chat can harm the social and sexual development of youth and undermine their success in future relationships.
5. Pornography consumption in youth has been associated with earlier onset of sexual intercourse, as well as increased likelihood of engaging in anal sex and sexual relations with people they are not romantically engaged with.
Studies of the impact of the mainstream mass media on young people’s sexual behavior have been slow to accumulate despite longstanding evidence of substantial sexual content in the mass media. The sexual media effects landscape has changed substantially in recent years, however, as researchers from numerous disciplines have answered the call to address this important area of sexual socialization scholarship. The purpose of this chapter is to review the subset of accumulated studies on sexual behavior effects to determine whether this body of work justifies a causal conclusion. The standards for causal inference articulated by Cook and Campbell (1979) are employed to accomplish this objective. It is concluded that the research to date passes the threshold of substantiation for each criterion and that the mass media almost certainly exert a causal influence on United States’ youth sexual behavior.
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.
A New Generation of Sexual Addiction (2013) – While not technically a review, it was one of the first papers to distinguish young compulsive porn users from “classic” CSB subjects. The conclusion:
It is proposed that sexual addiction may be distinguished by two unique etiologies. The “contemporary” addict is suggested to be distinctive in that early and chronic exposure to graphic cybersexual content within a highly sexualized culture drives sexual compulsivity, whereas the “classic” addict is driven by trauma, abuse, disordered attachment, impulse control impairment, shame-based cognitions, and mood disorders. While both may share similar presentations (compulsive behavior, mood disorders, relational impairment), etiology and some facets of treatment will likely be distinct.
“Classic” sexual addiction, while very much debated, has received a great deal of attention in the research, in the professional community, and in the popular culture. Treatment options, while not widespread, are varied and available, even to the extent that certified sexual addiction therapist training is conducted across the United States, allowing mental health professionals to receive extensive credentialing in work with “classic” sexual addiction.
“Contemporary” sexual addiction, however, is an underexplored phenomenon, particularly with children and adolescents. Research and literature are scarce and, interestingly, often published from countries outside the United States (He, Li, Guo, & Jiang, 2010; Yen et al., 2007). Research on young women and sexual addiction is virtually nonexistent. Specialized treatment with child and adolescent therapists trained in sexual addiction is extremely uncommon. Yet significant numbers of children, adolescents, and young adults are in need of just such specialized treatment, and the professional community is delayed in responding. Research, dialogue, and education are urgently needed in order to appropriately meet the needs of those youngest among our population who are struggling with sexually compulsive behavior.
Results: Fourteen studies, all cross-sectional in design, met the inclusion criteria. Six studies (10 352 participants) examined young people’s exposure to SEWs and eight (10 429 participants) examined sexting. There was substantial variation across studies in exposure and outcome definitions. Meta-analyses found that SEW exposure was correlated with condomless sexual intercourse; sexting was correlated with ever having had sexual intercourse, recent sexual activity, alcohol and other drug use before sexual intercourse, and multiple recent sexual partners . Most studies had limited adjustment for important potential confounders.
Conclusions: Cross-sectional studies show a strong association between self-reported exposure to sexual content in new media and sexual behaviours in young people. Longitudinal studies would provide a greater opportunity to adjust for confounding, and better insight into the causal pathways underlying the observed associations.
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.
The goal of this review was to systematize empirical research that was published in peer-reviewed English-language journals between 1995 and 2015 on the prevalence, predictors, and implications of adolescents’ use of pornography. This research showed that adolescents use pornography, but prevalence rates varied greatly. Adolescents who used pornography more frequently were male, at a more advanced pubertal stage, sensation seekers, and had weak or troubled family relations. Pornography use was associated with more permissive sexual attitudes and tended to be linked with stronger gender-stereotypical sexual beliefs. It also seemed to be related to the occurrence of sexual intercourse, greater experience with casual sex behavior, and more sexual aggression, both in terms of perpetration and victimization.
This review analyzed longitudinal studies examining the effects of sexually explicit material on adolescents’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors.
The aim of this study was to provide a narrative review of the longitudinal studies focusing on the effects of sexually explicit material use on adolescents. A number of direct associations between sexually explicit material and adolescents’ attitudes, beliefs and behaviors were reported in the studies. Sexually explicit material seemed to affect several sexuality related attitudes, gender-related stereotypical beliefs, likelihood of having sexual intercourse and sexually aggressive behavior.
The reviewed studies found that the use of sexually explicit material may affect a range of adolescents’ attitudes and beliefs, such as sexual preoccupancy (Peter & Valkenburg, 2008b), sexual uncertainty (Peter & Valkenburg, 2010a; van Oosten, 2015), the sexual objectification of women (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009a), sexual satisfaction (Peter & Valkenburg, 2009b), recreational and permissive sex attitudes (Baams et al., 2014; Brown & L’Engle, 2009; Peter & Valkenburg, 2010b), egalitarian gender role attitudes (Brown & L’Engle, 2009) and body surveillance (Doornwaard et al., 2014).
Dating violence (DV) and sexual violence (SV) are widespread problems among adolescents and emerging adults. A growing body of literature demonstrates that exposure to sexually explicit media (SEM) and sexually violent media (SVM) may be risk factors for DV and SV. The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic and comprehensive literature review on the impact of exposure to SEM and SVM on DV and SV attitudes and behaviors. A total of 43 studies utilizing adolescent and emerging adult samples were reviewed, and collectively the findings suggest that (1) exposure to SEM and SVM is positively related to DV and SV myths and more accepting attitudes toward DV and SV; (2) exposure to SEM and SVM is positively related to actual and anticipated DV and SV victimization, perpetration, and bystander nonintervention; (3) SEM and SVM more strongly impact men’s DV and SV attitudes and behaviors than women’s DV and SV attitudes and behaviors; and (4) preexisting attitudes related to DV and SV and media preferences moderate the relationship between SEM and SVM exposure and DV and SV attitudes and behaviors. Future studies should strive to employ longitudinal and experimental designs, more closely examine the mediators and moderators of SEM and SVM exposure on DV and SV outcomes, focus on the impacts of SEM and SVM that extend beyond men’s use of violence against women, and examine the extent to which media literacy programs could be used independently or in conjunction with existing DV and SV prevention programs to enhance effectiveness of these programming efforts.
The aim of this systematic literature review is to map the research interest in the field and to examine whether statistically significant results have emerged from the areas of research focus.
Attitudes Towards Sex – Overall, 21 studies examined adolescents’ sexual attitudes and behaviors towards sex in relation to PU. Not surprisingly, intentions to consume pornographic material have been primarily linked to a perceived normalizing attitude considering PU and a significant impact to adolescents’ sexual attitudes and sexual behaviors.
Development – Counterintuitively, viewing pornography has been found to affect the development of values, and more specifically those towards religion during adolescence. Not surprisingly, viewing pornography has been shown to have a secularizing effect, reducing adolescents’ religiosity over time, independent of gender.
Victimization – Exposure to violent/degrading pornography appears to have been common among adolescents, associated with at-risk behaviors, and, for females in particular, it correlates with a history of victimization. Nevertheless, other studies concluded that pornography exposure did not have an association with risky sexual behaviors and that the willingness of exposure to pornography did not seem to have an impact on risky sexual behaviors among adolescents in general. Despite these, other findings indicated that overall, intentional exposure to PU was associated with higher conduct problems among adolescents, higher online sexual solicitation victimization and online sexual solicitation perpetration with boys’ perpetration of sexual coercion and abuse being significantly associated with regular viewing of pornography.
Mental Health Characteristics – Conclusively, and despite some studies not confirming an association between poorer psychosocial health and PU, the vast majority of findings converges on that higher PU during adolescence tends to relate to higher emotional (e.g. depression) and behavioral problems. In that line, Luder et al. suggested gender-related variations in the association between PU and depressive manifestations with males presenting with higher risk. This finding was in consensus with longitudinal studies revealing that poorer psychological wellbeing factors were involved in the development of compulsive use of sexually explicit Internet material among adolescent boys.
Social Bonds – Overall, there seems to be a consensus that adolescent frequent users of the Internet for pornography tend to differ in many social characteristics from adolescents who use the Internet for information, social communication and entertainment.
Online Usage Characteristics – Online usage characteristics were researched in 15 out of the 57 studies included in the present review. These suggest that common characteristics of adolescents exposed to online pornography and sexual solicitation victimization include higher levels of online game use, internet risk behaviors, depression and cyberbullying manifestations, and voluntary self-sexual exposure online.
Adolescents’ Sexual Behaviors – Adolescents’ sexual behavior in regards to PU was researched in 11 studies, with all studies reporting significant results. The study conducted by Doornward, et al. found that adolescent boys’ with compulsive sexual behaviors, including the use of explicit internet material, reported low levels of self-esteem, higher levels of depression and higher levels of excessive sexual interest. In that context, other studies have shown that boys who were found to engage in the use of sexually explicit material and social networking sites received more peer approval and indicated greater experience considering their sexual involvement. Furthermore, boys who demonstrated the frequent use of pornography tended to have sexual debuts at a younger age and to engage in a broader range of sexual encounters.
A literature search was performed on PubMed and ScienceDirect in March 2018 with the query “(pornography OR sexually explicit internet material) AND (adolescent OR child OR young) AND (impact OR behaviour OR health)”. Results published between 2013 and 2018 were analysed and compared with previous evidence.
According to selected studies (n = 19), an association between consumption of online pornography and several behavioral, psychophysical and social outcomes – earlier sexual debut, engaging with multiple and/or occasional partners, emulating risky sexual behaviors, assimilating distorted gender roles, dysfunctional body perception, aggressiveness, anxious or depressive symptoms, compulsive pornography use – is confirmed.
The impact of online pornography on minors’ health appears to be relevant. The issue can no longer be neglected and must be targeted by global and multidisciplinary interventions. Empowering parents, teachers and healthcare professionals by means of educational programs targeting this issue will allow them to assist minors in developing critical thinking skills about pornography, decreasing its use and obtaining an affective and sex education that is more suitable for their developmental needs.
The negative effects indicated included, but were not limited to: (1) regressive attitudes towards women (Brown & L’Engle, 2009; Peter & Valkenburg, 2007; Peter & Valkenburg, 2009; Häggstrom-Nordin, et al., 2006); (2) sexual aggression in some sub-populations (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2005; Malamuth & Huppin, 2005; Alexy, et al., 2009); (3) social maladjustment (Mesch, 2009; Tsitsika, 2009); (4) sexual preoccupation (Peter & Valkenburg, 2008a); and (5) compulsivity (Delmonico and Griffin, 2008; Lam, Peng, Mai, and Jing, 2009; Rimington and Gast, 2007; van den Eijnden, Spijkerman, Vermulst, van Rooij, and Engels, 2010; Mesch, 2009). Additional research indicates that pornography is being used to groom and lure children into sexually abusive relationships (Carr, 2003; “Online grooming,” n.d., 2015; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2015). Interviews of frontline service providers who work with child sex abuse victims conducted in May 2018 document that providers are witnessing what appears to be an increase in incidents of peer sex abuse among children and that the perpetrator commonly had been exposed to pornography in many of these incidents (Binford, Dimitropoulos, Wilson, Zug, Cullen, & Rieff, unpublished).
In addition to the literature that focuses specifically on the potential effects of children’s exposure to pornography, there is a much larger body of literature that considers the impact of pornography exposure on adults, including young adults. Like the research that focuses on children’s exposure to pornography, these studies also suggest a relationship between pornography exposure and social maladjustment, including social isolation, misconduct, depression, suicidal ideation, and academic disengagement (Tsitsika, 2009; Bloom et al., 2015; Campbell, 2018).
Studies of girls’ exposure to pornography as children suggest that it has an impact on their constructs of self (Brown & L’Engle, 2009).
Boys who are exposed to pornography as children show similar effects. They convey anxiety around performance and body dissatisfaction (“Child Safety Online,” 2016; Jones, 2018).
There appears to be a correlation between exposure to pornography and sexist views towards women (Hald, Kuyper, Adam, & de Wit, 2013; Hald, Malamuth, & Yuen, 2010).
Children of both sexes who are exposed to pornography are more likely to believe that the acts they see, such as anal sex and group sex, are typical among their peers (Livingstone & Mason, 2015). Adolescents of both sexes who are exposed to pornography are more likely to become sexually active earlier (Brown & L’Engle, 2009; Owens, et al. 2012), have multiple partners (Wright & Randall, 2012; Flood, 2009, p. 389), and engage in paid sex (Svedin Akerman, & Priebe, 2011; Wright & Randall, 2012).
The unique paradigms of the adolescent brain include the following: 1) An immature prefrontal cortex and over-responsive limbic and striatal circuits (Dumontheil, 2016; Somerville & Jones, 2010; Somerville, Hare, & Casey, 2011; Van Leijenhorst et al., 2010; Vigil et al., 2011); 2) A heightened period for neuroplasticity (McCormick & Mathews, 2007; Schulz & Sisk, 2006; Sisk & Zehr, 2005; Vigil et al., 2011); 3) Overactive dopamine system (Andersen, Rutstein, Benzo, Hostetter, & Teicher, 1997; Ernst et al., 2005; Luciana, Wahlstrom, & White, 2010; Somerville & Jones, 2010; Wahlstrom, White, & Luciana, 2010); 4) A pronounced HPA axis (Dahl & Gunnar, 2009; McCormick & Mathews, 2007; Romeo, Lee, Chhua, McPherson, & McEwan, 2004; Walker, Sabuwalla, & Huot, 2004); 5) Augmented levels of testosterone (Dorn et al., 2003; Vogel, 2008; Mayo Clinic/Mayo Medical Laboratories, 2017); and 6) The unique impact of steroid hormones (cortisol and testosterone) on brain development during the organizational window of adolescence (Brown & Spencer, 2013; Peper, Hulshoff Pol, Crone, Van Honk, 2011; Sisk & Zehr, 2005; Vigil et al., 2011).
Blakemore and colleagues have led the field in adolescent brain development and has opined that the teenage years should be considered a sensitive period due to the dramatic brain reorganization that is taking place (Blakemore, 2012). The areas of the brain that undergo the most change during adolescence include internal control, multi-tasking and planning (Blakemore, 2012).
Blakemore and Robbins (2012) linked adolescence to risky decision making and attributed this characteristic to the dissociation between the relatively slow, linear development of impulse control and response inhibition during adolescence versus the nonlinear development of the reward system, which is often hyper-responsive to rewards in adolescence..…
Both infrequent and frequent use of pornographic internet sites were significantly associated with social maladjustment among Greek adolescents (Tsitsika et al., 2009). Pornography use contributed to delay discounting, or an individual’s tendency to discount future outcomes in favor of immediate rewards (Negash, Sheppard, Lambert, & Fincham, 2016). Negash and colleagues used a sample that had an average age of 19 and 20, which the author highlighted were still biologically considered adolescents.…..
We propose a working model summary, considering the unique paradigms of the adolescent brain and the characteristics of sexually explicit material. The overlap of key areas associated with the unique adolescent brain and sexually explicit material is noteworthy.
Upon exposure to sexually explicit material, the stimulation of the amygdala and the HPA axis would be enhanced in the adolescent, compared with the adult. This would lead to a more pronounced curtailment of the prefrontal cortex and enhanced activation of the basal ganglia in the adolescent. This condition, therefore, would compromise executive function, which includes inhibition and self-control, and enhances impulsivity. Because the adolescent’s brain is still developing, it is more conducive to neuroplasticity. The prefrontal cortex going “off-line,” so to speak, drives the subtle rewiring that favors subcortical development. If the neuroplasticity imbalance continues over time, this may result in a relatively weakened cortical circuit in favor of a more dominant subcortical circuit, which could predispose the adolescent to continued self-gratification and impulsivity. The adolescent’s nucleus accumbens, or pleasure center of the brain, would have an exaggerated stimulation compared to the adult. The increased levels of dopamine would translate into augmented emotions associated with dopamine, such as pleasure and craving (Berridge, 2006; Volkow, 2006)….
Because of the organizational window of development during adolescence, cortisol and testosterone would have a unique affect upon brain organization or the inherent viability of various neural circuits. This effect would not be found in the adult because this specific window of organization has closed. Chronic exposure to cortisol has the potential, during the adolescent organizational period, to drive neuroplasticity that results in compromised cognitive function and stress resilience even through adulthood (McEwen, 2004; Tsoory & Richter-Levin, 2006; Tsoory, 2008; McCormick & Mathews, 2007; 2010). The robustness of the amygdala post puberty, at least in part, depends on the magnitude of testosterone exposure during the critical adolescent developmental window (De Lorme, Schulz, Salas-Ramirez, & Sisk, 2012; De Lorme & Sisk, 2013; Neufang et al., 2009; Sarkey, Azcoitia, Garcia- Segura, Garcia-Ovejero, & DonCarlos, 2008). A robust amygdala is linked to heightened levels of emotionality and compromised self-regulation (Amaral, 2003; Lorberbaum et al., 2004; De Lorme & Sisk, 2013)…..
Decades of research have examined the impact of exposure to nonexplicit portrayals of sexual content in media. There is only one meta-analysis on this topic, which suggests that exposure to “sexy media” has little to no effect on sexual behavior. There are a number of limitations to the existing meta-analysis, and the purpose of this updated meta-analysis was to examine associations between exposure to sexual media and users’ attitudes and sexual behavior.
A thorough literature search was conducted to find relevant articles. Each study was coded for associations between exposure to sexual media and one of six outcomes including sexual attitudes (permissive attitudes, peer norms, and rape myths) and sexual behaviors (general sexual behavior, age of sexual initiation, and risky sexual behavior).
Overall, this meta-analysis demonstrates consistent and robust relations between media exposure and sexual attitudes and behavior spanning multiple outcome measures and multiple media. Media portray sexual behavior as highly prevalent, recreational, and relatively risk-free [3], and our analyses suggest that a viewer’s own sexual decision-making may be shaped, in part, by viewing these types of portrayals. Our findings are in direct contrast with the previous meta-analysis, which suggested that media’s impact on sexual behavior was trivial or nonexistent [4]. The previous meta-analysis used 38 effect sizes and found that “sexy” media were weakly and trivially related with sexual behavior (r = .08), whereas the current metaanalysis used more than 10 times the amount of effect sizes (n = 394) and found an effect nearly double the size (r = .14).
First, we found positive associations between exposure to sexual media and teens’ and young adults’ permissive sexual attitudes and perceptions of their peers’ sexual experiences.
Second, exposure to sexual media content was associated with greater acceptance of common rape myths.
Finally, sexual media exposure was found to predict sexual behaviors including age of sexual initiation, overall sexual experience, and risky sexual behavior. These results converged across multiple methodologies and provide support for the assertion that media contribute to the sexual experiences of young viewers.
Although the meta-analysis demonstrated significant effects of sexual media exposure on sexual attitudes and behaviors across all variables of interest, these effects were moderated by a few variables. Most notably, significant effects for all ages were apparent; however, the effect was more than twice as large for adolescents as for emerging adults, perhaps reflecting the fact that older participants likely have more comparative, real-world experience to draw on than younger participants [36, 37]. In addition, the effect was stronger for males compared with females, perhaps because sexual experimentation fits the male sexual script [18] and because male characters are punished less often than female characters for sexual initiation [38].
These findings have significant implications for adolescent and emerging adult physical and mental health. Perceiving high levels of peer sexual activity and sexual permissiveness may increase feelings of internal pressure to experiment sexually [39]. In one study, exposure to sexual media content in early adolescence was seen to advance sexual initiation by 9e17 months [40]; in turn, early experimentation may increase mental and physical health risks [37].
The effect sizes found here are similar to those of other studied areas of media psychology such as media’s impact on violence [41], prosocial behavior [42], and body image [43]. In each of these cases, although media use accounts for only a portion of the total variance in the outcomes of interest, media do play an important role. These comparisons suggest that sexual media content is a small, but consequential factor in the development of sexual attitudes and behaviors in adolescents and emerging adults.
But haven’t rape rates declined since the advent of Internet porn?
Have you heard the often repeated claim (by porn sites and pro-porn activists) that “porn use has dramatically lowered rape rates?”According to new statistics released by the FBI (excerpt below), the number of rapes (per 100,000 of the population) has steadily increased from 2014-2016 (the last year for which stats are available). In the UK, there were 138,045 sex offenses, up23%, in the 12 months preceding September, 2017.
But didn’t rape rates decline since the advent of internet porn? In some countries yes, and in others no. The claim that widespread porn availability is correlated with a decline in rape rates is based only on the nationwide data from a few selected developed nations. As expanded on in the following 5 sections, these claims comprise a house of cards, which ignore conflicting data and important variables, such as:
Freed from any oversight and now self-employed, Prause added 
In the list below an (L) indicates a lay article about a study.
