General Curated Newsletter

Dear Friend,

As I look back on the month of September, I’m filled with gratitude for the varied, powerful voices calling for an end to sexual exploitation.

At the beginning of the month, NCOSE celebrated Haley McNamara and Dani Pinter stepping into new leadership roles—Haley as Executive Director & Chief Strategy Officer and Dani as Chief Legal Officer & Director of the NCOSE Law Center. For more than a decade, these two incredible women have been unmissable and foundational to the success that has become synonymous with NCOSE, and I am absolutely thrilled to be working alongside them as they take the organization to even greater heights.

Efforts to combat sexual exploitation have never been more needed, as congressional hearings and new research continue to expose the dangers that A.I., virtual reality, and emerging technologies inflict on kids. In light of these ever-worsening threats, NCOSE is proud to endorse the A.I. LEAD Act, a bipartisan bill that will establish a federal product liability framework to hold companies responsible for A.I. harms. This bill, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Josh Hawley (R-MO), is crucial for ensuring that innovation in A.I. is carried out responsibly and does not come at the cost of our children’s lives.

Looking forward to the next month, we are excited to be hosting Hope on the Hill, an event that will include a Congressional briefing on how federal inaction on sexual exploitation endangers children. This hearing will have a special focus on child online safety, including A.I., and the problem of a lack of legal accountability for Big Tech companies.

You are welcome to attend Hope on the Hill either in-person in D.C., or online via livestream! We hope to see you there.

Thank you, as always, for your steadfast dedication to building a world where all children, women, and men can live and love free from sexual abuse and exploitation.

Sincerely,

Marcel van der Watt
President & CEO
National Center on Sexual Exploitation

P.S. Read on for the rest of the newsletter!

Ending Sexploitation Podcast: 2025 TIP Report: Ranking Every Country's Effort to Combat Trafficking | Episode 79

The 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report has been released by the State Department of the United States, and Marcel van der Watt (President and CEO at NCOSE) joins Haley McNamara (Executive Director and CSO at NCOSE) and Dani Pinter (CLO and Director of the NCOSE Law Center) to talk about some of the surprises in this 25th edition of the annual report.

Each year, the report ranked countries into tiers based on their efforts to combat trafficking, and our team dives into why some of these rankings seem to miss the mark. They also watch and react to the recent video from Joseph Gordon-Levitt about the dangers of A.I. and how we need to stand up and make sure our voices are heard at every level of government.

Tune in and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform!

Study Shows Pornography Associated with Changes to the Brain Characteristic of Addiction

“I could not believe the intensity of the rush I got when I clicked to the site! Very powerful excitation – tingling, dry mouth, and even trembling.”

This is how one person describes their experience of compulsive pornography use.

One of the main components of addiction is the experience of craving. Craving is an abnormally high desire to pursue a behavior or substance. Addiction, at a very basic level, is the brain “learning” that something is extremely rewarding, whether it is healthy or not. Craving is your brain’s way of urging you to go get “it,” … again and again. When an addict does something, or sees something, associated with their addiction, they become extremely excited.

A 2015 study investigated how craving would appear in the brains of those who have difficulty controlling their sexual behavior (i.e., problematic hypersexual behavior). Also, they wanted to find out what specific brain changes differentiate this group from men without problematic hypersexual behavior (PHB).