Gary Wilson Wins Second Legal Victory Against Pro-Porn Sexologist Nicole Prause (January, 2021)

PRESS RELEASE:

Gary Wilson (Your Brain on Porn) Wins Second Legal Victory Against Sexologist Nicole Prause
Activist porn researcher owes penalty plus court costs after her defamation suit fails
ASHLAND, OREGON: January 28, 2021: Best-selling author and public health advocate Gary Wilson has won another legal victory against sexologist and vocal porn-industry proponent Nicole Prause.
Last year, Prause sought a frivolous restraining order against Wilson in California. The Court dismissed it and granted Wilson’s anti-SLAPP motion, leaving Prause obligated to pay his attorney fees.
Prause filed a second frivolous proceeding against Wilson in December, 2020 for alleged defamation. At a hearing on January 22, 2021 an Oregon court ruled in Wilson’s favor and charged Prause with costs and an additional penalty.
In the past 18 months Prause has publicly threatened (or filed) a dozen lawsuits intended to bully others into silence. She targets those who publicly reveal her close ties to the porn industry and her malicious conduct, or who have made sworn statements in the 3 defamation suits currently active against her.*
Wilson’s latest legal victory comes on the heels of Prause’s failed multi-pronged attempt to censor Wilson’s website with the help of fellow mental health professionals. Her hostile campaign began almost 2 years ago when Prause applied for his site’s well established trademarks, including the exclusive legal right to control Wilson’s actual URL (“YourBrainOnPorn.com”). The trademark grab failed, and the marks were registered in Wilson’s name in 2020.
Meanwhile, in March 2019, Prause’s confederate Daniel A. Burgess registered a trademark-infringing domain name “RealYourBrainOnPorn.com,” which engaged in various transparent ploys to divert YourBrainOnPorn.com traffic to the impostor website. After many attorney hours, in January, 2021 Wilson obtained the RealYourBrainOnPorn.com domain name as settlement of allegations of trademark infringement. Earlier, in October, 2020, the impostor site’s associated Twitter account @BrainOnPorn was permanently suspended for harassment.
After his latest court victory Wilson said, “I am astounded by the calculated abuse directed at people who dare to speak publicly about porn’s harms.” He added, “The malicious censorship tactics of the porn industry and its sexology allies curb scientific and public debate. Just as Big Tobacco once did, they distract the public from the well-documented risks of porn’s harm to both users and those it exploits.”
Wilson hosts www.YourBrainOnPorn.com, a clearinghouse for the latest research, media, and self-reports on pornography’s effects and harms. Some years ago, he presented the immensely popular TEDx talk “The Great Porn Experiment” (~14 million views). Wilson has long critiqued questionable published research and public statements about pornography use. He is also the author of Amazon best seller Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. It is available in multiple languages, and one edition has already been praised as one of the top non-fiction books of the last decade.
* Donald L. Hilton, Jr. v. Nicole Prause, et al., United States District Court for the Western District of Texas San Antonio Division, Case No. 5: 19-CV-00755-OLG; Alexander Rhodes v. Nicole Prause, et al., United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Case No. 2:19-cv-01366, and Aaron M. Minc, Esq v. Melissa A. Farmer and Nicole R. Prause, Case No: CV-20-937026 in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. In each case, numerous men and women have come forward with sworn statements that Prause has also targeted them: affidavit #1, affidavit #2, affidavit #3, affidavit #4, affidavit #5, affidavit #6, affidavit #7, affidavit #8, affidavit #9, affidavit #10, affidavit #11, affidavit #12, affidavit #13, affidavit #14, affidavit #15, affidavit #16.

THE COURT ORDER
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For media enquiries, please contact ‘Press’ at Your Brain On Porn
EMAIL: [email protected]

Declaration of Gary Wilson

Below is the declaration I supplied to the court (I also supplied over 100 pages of supporting materials).

I, Gary Wilson, declare and state as follows:
This case is the second SLAPP suit Plaintiff has brought against me. The first was decided in my favor following a hearing on August 6, 2020 by the California Superior Court (Prause v. Wilson Case No. 20TRO01022). The judge granted my anti-SLAPP motion and dismissed Plaintiff’s legal action against me. He ruled that she had wrongfully attempted to silence my right speak out on a matter of public interest and stated that her legal proceeding lacked minimal merit.
A week before that hearing, Plaintiff’s own attorney attempted to resign from her case because Plaintiff had threatened him with litigation unless he did something her attorney regarded as “not warranted under existing law and [which] cannot be supported by good faith argument.” (From the Declaration of Brett A. Berman, Esq., dated July 31, 2020.) From earlier pleadings it appeared that she was demanding that he file a large quantity of inadmissible evidence. The judge refused to accept her attorney’s resignation. In addition, at the hearing a few days later, the judge ruled most of Plaintiff’s sworn statement to be inadmissible as hearsay, irrelevant, conclusory, etc.
Plaintiff is also the defendant in 3 defamation suits pending in United States Federal District Courts: Donald L. Hilton Jr v. Nicole Prause and Liberos LLC, Case No: SA: 19-CV-00755-OLG; Alexander Rhodes v. Nicole Prause and Liberos LLC, Case No. 2:19-CV-01366-MPK; and Aaron M. Minc, Esq v. Melissa A. Farmer and Nicole R. Prause, Case No: CV-20-937026. In the first two cases, numerous men and women, including myself, have come forward with sworn statements that Plaintiff has also targeted them.
Plaintiff has an extensive history of engaging in both malicious use of process and filing baseless administrative complaints against multiple targets. In the past few years, Plaintiff has filed more than 40 malicious complaints/reports with professional boards, law enforcement, employers, and oversight agencies/tribunals (against at least 28 different people and organizations). There are undoubtedly more such complaints/reports, as some boards and agencies do not disclose whistleblowers’ identities. For example, I believe she was also behind a complaint against me filed with the Oregon Psychology Board (for practicing psychology without a license). I only learned of it after it had been summarily dismissed. I have never held myself out as a psychologist, or as anything but an author, a former anatomy, physiology and pathology instructor at vocational schools, and a former adjunct instructor at Southern Oregon University.
In the past year or so Plaintiff has filed at least 4 small claims suits (in addition to a baseless restraining order request), and has publicly threatened several more. Plaintiff often directs her malicious reporting and malicious use of process toward those of us who have supplied sworn statements in the above defamation cases. Is she attempting to intimidate and discredit us as witnesses?
Last year, Plaintiff filed a USPTO trademark application for my well established common law trademarks, including an application for my decade-old website’s actual URL. This required months and hundreds of hours of attorney time to register and protect my trademarks, and to stop the illicit trademark squatting and infringement that she and her colleagues pursued in the interim. She has also threatened and misled my webhost endeavoring (unsuccessfully) to have my website shuttered, among other hostile actions too numerous to list here.
Background
Plaintiff, a former academic, is a researcher and public commentator on matters relating to sexuality, including purported benefits of pornography use. I am an author, advocate, and public commentator whose work focuses on the negative physical and mental health effects of digital pornography use. I host a popular website called YourBrainOnPorn.com. Amazon’s top selling book in the pornography studies category is my book Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction. It is already being translated into some seven languages. My evidence-based TEDx talk “The Great Porn Experiment” has been viewed more than 13 million times.
Plaintiff’s views and my views about pornography use and its effects frequently differ. I do not “hate” her research, but I have publicly critiqued a couple of Plaintiff’s papers and some of her public statements concerning her conclusions. Plaintiff appears to be cozy with the pornography industry. I say this based on her public online acceptance of an offer of help from the primary lobbying arm of the industry, photos of her attending industry events, her consistent backing of the industry’s interests on social media, and her attacking and defaming on social media, and via malicious reports, any who raise awareness of the potential risks of online pornography use.
From 2013 through present day, Plaintiff has made repeated false, public, defamatory statements about me in the press and via social media. Plaintiff has falsely and publicly stated, among other defamatory assertions, that I am a “stalker” of women; that I have made “death threats” against her and encouraged others do so the same; that I have engaged in illegal computer intrusion; that I have misrepresented my credentials; that I have engaged in fraud; that I am a white supremacist and a member of hate groups; and that I have threatened scientists.
Plaintiff has made similar defamatory statements about dozens of others who share my views about the potential risks of digital pornography use. As noted, several of them have already sued her, in part because she continues to make public, defamatory statements notwithstanding the pending defamation cases.
Anti-SLAPP
The goal of the special motion to strike procedure in ORS § 31.150 is to weed out meritless claims meant to harass or intimidate so as to prevent the exercise of constitutional free speech rights. Courts broadly apply it to all statements made “in a place open to the public or a public forum in connection with any issue of public interest,” that arises out of: (1) any conduct; (2) in furtherance of the exercise of the constitutional right of free speech; and (3) in connection with a public issue or an issue of public interest. “Public issue” and “issue of public interest” have themselves been broadly construed. An online search reveals that small claims courts around the country have granted anti-SLAPP motions when appropriate.
This lawsuit arises from my protected speech in connection with an issue of public interest: the potential effects of digital pornography use and the claims and activities of pornography researchers/spokespersons, including Plaintiff. Expert researchers in the field, other than those aligned with Plaintiff, often express views similar to mine.
My website YourBrainOnPorn.com receives an average of 15,000 unique visitors each day. It is a clearinghouse for research on the effects of pornography and other items of interest to visitors. A small percentage of my site’s 12,000+ pages are devoted to commentary on various scientists’ research and press statements. Some of my commentary is critical of methodology and claims made; some of it addresses the apparent bias and questionable behavior of researchers/spokespersons; and some of it documents Plaintiff’s hostile activities and defamatory material produced by Plaintiff and others.
It is evident from the widespread interest in my website, book and TEDx talk, that the public is interested in the subject of pornography’s effects and the work/behavior of researchers in this field. Thus, I believe the “public interest” test of ORS § 31.150 has been met.
According to Oregon’s anti-SLAPP statute, once the “public interest” test has been met the court will grant the motion to strike unless the plaintiff can introduce substantial evidence of a probability of prevailing on the claim. ORS § 31.150(3). Plaintiff cannot show a probability of prevailing on her claims.
In her earlier SLAPP suit Plaintiff sought a meritless restraining order based on numerous fabrications. In this suit she has listed multiple causes of action, but the only evidence she offers are statements, allegedly written by me, which she apparently considers to be defamatory. I indeed made all of the statements except for the last one. The last one was made by journalist Megan Fox in an article entitled, “’No Fap’ Porn Addiction Support Group Founder Sues Obsessed Pro-Porn Sexologist for Defamation.” (Plaintiff is the sexologist mentioned in the title.)
Plaintiff is a public figure who is very vocal on social media and in the press, which means that others can be expected to speak about her and her activities. The statements Plaintiff alleges I made do not rise to the threshold of defamation of anyone, let alone a public figure. Although not all of them were made by me, those I did make expressed publicly my good faith opinions and observations about Plaintiff’s potential biases, publicly exposed her malicious behavior, or publicly defended myself and others against Plaintiff’s unfounded claims. My statements constitute protected speech related to issues of public interest.
All my comments were based upon publicly available information or behavior I have personally observed in Plaintiff’s thousands of social media posts or in her sworn statements in legal proceedings. In the course of commenting on Plaintiff’s actions and her work I have never invaded her privacy, interfered with her business, or knowingly contributed to her losing any research contract. I have never threatened her or encouraged others to threaten her, and never posted her confidential information or anything that would place her safety at risk.
Plaintiff implies that my alleged comments were all made recently, but all of the statements I made, like similar observations I had previously expressed, were initially stated prior to the last 12 months. Defamation claims must be made within one year. (ORS § 12.120)
For all of the above reasons, there is no probability of Plaintiff prevailing in this action.
In conclusion, Plaintiff’s complaint is yet another transparent attempt to silence me through an unconstitutional and intolerable prior restraint on my right to free speech. I respectfully request that the court take notice of the recent anti-SLAPP motion granted by the California Superior Court based on Plaintiff’s similarly empty claims, and grant my motion to strike pursuant to ORS § 31.150 plus my court costs.
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of Oregon that the foregoing is true and correct of my own personal knowledge. Executed this 15^th day of December 2020 at Ashland, Oregon.
Gary Wilson

More on Prause’s defamatory activity, malicious reporting/litigation, and close ties to the porn industry

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

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

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

Prause began to put her name to falsehoods, openly cyber-harassing multiple individuals and organizations on social media and elsewhere. Since Prause’s primary target was Gary Wilson (hundreds of social media comments along with behind the scenes email campaigns), it became necessary to monitor and document Prause’s tweets and posts. This was done for her victims’ protection, and crucial for any future legal actions. As her defamation and harassment escalated Prause became embroiled as defendant in three defamation lawsuits: Donald Hilton, MD, Nofap founder Alexander Rhodes, and lawyer Aaron Minc, JD.

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

Indirect support of the porn industry: Defamatory & ad hominem comments targeting individuals and organizations that she labeled as “anti-porn activists” (often claiming to be a victim of these individuals and organizations). Documented here: page 1, page 2, page 3, and page 4.
Direct support of the porn industry:
- direct support of the FSC (Free Speech Coalition), AVN (Adult Video News), porn producers, performers, and their agendas.
- countless misrepresentations of the state of pornography research and attacks on porn studies or porn researchers.

This page contains a sampling of tweets and comments related to #2 – her vigorous support of the porn industry and its chosen positions. After years of sitting on the evidence, YBOP is of the view that Prause’s unilateral aggression has escalated to such frequent and reckless defamation (falsely accusing her many victims of “physically stalking her,” “misogyny,” “encouraging others to rape her,” and “being neo-Nazis“), that we are compelled to examine her possible motives. The page is divided into 4 main sections:

While there’s no evidence of any of Prause’s victims stating that Prause receives funding from the porn industry, anyone might be forgiven for wondering if she is indeed influenced by the porn industry. The Prause pages on YBOP are just the tip of a very large Prause Iceberg. She has posted thousands of times, attacking everyone and anyone who suggests porn might cause problems. (Prause later purged her Twitter account of 3,000 or more incriminating tweets.) She has defended the industry at every turn, much as a paid industry thought-leader could be expected to do. Clearly Prause, who lives in LA, enjoys a cozy relationship with the pornography industry. See this image of her (far right) apparently taken on the red carpet of the X-Rated Critics Organization (XRCO) awards ceremony.

According to Wiki pedia,

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

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

Her chummy tweets with a porn star suggest Prause had plans to attend the 2019 AVN awards (who knows if she did?). Trolling PornHarms, Prause offers free t-shirts to others willing to troll with her. The t-shirts are a tasteless parody of the FTND porn kills love t-shirts. The 3 winners are porn stars!

One of the porn stars (Avalon) is from Australia. She tells Prause that it’s too expensive to ship a t-shirt to her. Prause asks Avalon if she would like to pick up her t-shirt at “the AVN.” 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.

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