LOS ANGELES—In a new tranche of court filings, the founder of the anti-masturbation, anti-porn "self-help" group NoFap LLC alleges that Aylo, the parent company of Pornhub.com, is nothing more than a sex trafficking ring engaged in a coordinated conspiracy to defame him and his organization.
Alexander Rhodes, the NoFap founder, initially sued Aylo, two academics critical of NoFap's claims of "treating" pornography addiction, an academic publisher, and the University of California, Los Angeles, which employs one of the named academics, late last year in a state court in his home of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
However, the defendants were able to remove the case from the state court to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. As the case has proceeded, all of the defendants have filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit due to Rhodes failing to make a claim so litigation can advance.
In response to those motions, the attorney representing Rhodes and NoFap LLC filed opposition briefs to each. Most of the claims levied in the filing attempt to paint Aylo as a sex trafficking ring and criminal enterprise from top to bottom.
"This case arises from a coordinated, multi-year campaign by the Pornhub/Aylo Defendants and their collaborators, acting as part of an alleged RICO enterprise, to protect their business model by discrediting, retaliating against, and economically harming Plaintiffs and others who threatened it," argues David M. Kobylinski, the attorney for Rhodes.
Kobylinski characterized Aylo as "the world's largest pornography company. ... It is highly profitable, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
"However, [Aylo's] main website, Pornhub.com, is rife with sexually exploitative content," the attorney writes.
Kobylinski goes on to charge that Aylo and Pornhub are "one of the world's largest distributors of illicit sexually exploitative content, including child sexual abuse material."
Note, 2024 data from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline clearly demonstrates Aylo's sites having millions fewer cases of suspected CSAM versus major social media networks such as Facebook and Instagram.
Aylo's sites also have some of the fastest takedown times after major reforms implemented in late 2020 and early 2021, per CyberTipline data.
"Pornhub knowingly partnered with sex traffickers to source content, including a sex trafficking operation whose founder was later placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for sex trafficking offenses," Kobylinski argues. He is referring to the GirlsDoPorn sex trafficking scheme that embroiled the tube site's parent company in a criminal investigation that was resolved with a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) between federal law enforcement and Aylo's ownership group, Ethical Capital Partners. A DPA is not an omission of guilt.
Further, Kobylinski attempts to argue that Aylo engages in tactics similar to those of Big Tobacco. But the core difference between Big Tobacco and Aylo is that there is no indication that the legal and regulated adult entertainment industry harms people's health. There is no consistent evidence that pornography is scientifically and medically addictive. This is a core element of the research of two defendants named in the complaint, Nicole Prause and David Ley.
Prause and Ley published academic research that rejected the notion that problematic pornography use can be treated through an addiction model. Rather, they argued that problematic pornography use is primarily a compulsive behavior or an impulse-control disorder that requires similar, but different care and intervention. While compulsions can be a component of other diagnoses, compulsive behavior typically follows a path tied to disorders like Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder or Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder.
But Prause started to expand research further into so-called pornography addiction treatment programs, such as those shared in the mythos of Rhodes' NoFap self-help product.
In the immediate litigation, the responses to the defendants' motions to dismiss share similar claims that Aylo bankrolled a supposed RICO conspiracy against Rhodes. As AVN has reported, the RICO claims prompted an attorney for defendant Prause to file a Rule 11 petition seeking to sanction Rhodes and Kobylinski for making false claims in a filing.
Aylo did not return AVN's request for comment by post time.
