Gary Wilson, Your Brain on Porn author, wins NCOSE Founders Award.

Gary Wilson, who passed away in May 2021, was granted the 2021 Founders Award from the National Center On Sexual Exploitation on July 20. Gary Wilson is the author of the book Your Brain on Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction, presenter of the popular TEDx talk The Great Porn Experiment, and the creator of YourBrainOnPorn.com, a clearinghouse for the latest research on pornography.

The National Center on Sexual Exploitation, often abbreviated as NCOSE, is a nonprofit organization that describes itself as “the leading organization exposing the links between all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation.” Critics often point to NCOSE’s hard-line “abolitionist” stances against sex work and pornography. NCOSE’s website describes pornography as inherently harmful for all creators and consumers, and goes a step farther by advocating for federal obscenity laws to be enforced against porn companies. On the other hand, YourBrainOnPorn.com clearly states that Gary Wilson was not supportive of banning Internet porn.

NCOSE released a tribute video that featured content contributed by people who knew Gary Wilson.

Despite the ideological differences between Gary Wilson and NCOSE, NCOSE recognized the valuable work that Gary Wilson did in cataloging porn research and raising awareness about the potential negative effects associated with porn overuse. NCOSE’s announcement stated that “Gary’s TEDx talk, website, and book provided the answers that so many men and women unable to defeat their compulsive use of pornography had long sought. With a compassion deeply steeped in his encyclopedic knowledge of the social and neuroscience research on pornography’s effects, Gary literally rescued countless numbers of individuals from pornography’s grip of despair and despondency.”