As I reflect on a pre-conference workshop I recently attended on sexual wellbeing - presented by the esteemed Jane Fleishman, at the New York State Association for the Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Abuse/New York State Alliance for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse joint conference in Saratoga Springs - I find myself realizing just how controversial the topic of sex has become. The main topic of this workshop was sexual wellness - particularly for those who have caused sexual harm. We tend not to think about those who have caused harm as deserving of sexual health, but the message in that workshop was clear. Everyone has a right to sexual health and wellbeing. As Executive Director of Prostasia Foundation, it is my priority to fight for our right to sexual health information and sexual wellbeing.  

Around the country (and indeed, around the world as evidenced by recent laws enacted in Uganda) policymakers are drafting and signing into law increasingly restrictive policies surrounding how we - as citizens - are allowed to exist sexually (check here for a list of policies, curated by Prostasia). Not only does this include laws targeting actual sexual behaviors, but increasingly so, these laws target how and what we are allowed to say about sexuality. Add to this global efforts to end encryption for voice and written messages (as is the case with the UK’s Online Safety Bill), and we have entered into an era that would make George Orwell’s skin crawl. Indeed, it feels like 1984.

Everyone has a right to information about sexual health and wellness. Everyone has a right to learn about human sexuality in a manner that is consistent with their beliefs and desires. I want everyone to have access to the information and knowledge they need to live healthy, fulfilled, and meaningful lives. When we are empowered with knowledge, we are more equipped to prevent harm before it happens. Sexual health information is child sexual abuse prevention. 

I am excited to lead Prostasia into a new chapter of child protection and sexual health advocacy, promoting our vision that no child should ever experience sexual harm. While we have faced our share of controversy in the past, now is the time to focus on the future and how we can grow and build our organization to be a leader in child protection. I am proud to be associated with Prostasia Foundation!

In my role as Executive Director, I will work with the organization and its partners to promote access to sexual health information, to organize events platforming speakers on sexual health and wellness, and to advocate for evidence-based policies on sexual health. Access to this information is your right and Prostasia will lead the fight to ensure that access is not stripped away. 

Please support us in our mission to keep sexual health information legal and accessible for all. Become a member or donate today so we can fight the good fights. Our children deserve an organization dedicated to them and their rights. Join us today!

2023 represents a new year and a new chapter for Prostasia Foundation. I am incredibly excited to take on the role of Executive Director with this organization, whose mission I have strongly supported since its inception in 2018. I would like to take this opportunity to introduce myself and discuss my decision in stepping into the Executive Director role.

This year - in particular - has seen numerous attacks on sex education, science, digital rights, and those who advocate for a comprehensive, evidence-based approach to child protection. Prostasia Foundation has seen its share of the vitriol. While it does not appear to be ending soon, I am excited to step into the role of Executive Director to lead this organization, in whose mission - to ensure the elimination of child sexual abuse consistent with the highest societal ideals for our children - I so passionately believe.

I am personally and professionally dedicated to child protection. I am a new mother and academic - this is what I teach every day. I want to make it public that I am a mother and I work in child protection, although perhaps in an unorthodox way. I have never been one for taking the mainstream or traditional path in life; I think this is why Prostasia’s mission of keeping children safe through upholding human rights for all is so relevant and personal to me. When I look at my child, I see the future and I see all the children who deserve happy, healthy, harm-free lives. My purpose is to see this become reality, and together we will achieve this.

Certain voices are historically excluded from the conversation when society discusses the most effective ways to protect children from danger. Groups like the LGBTQ+ community, the trans community, sex workers, and the consensual kink communities have not had a seat at the table to join in the conversation that affects them directly. These are the voices I will fold into our work as we emerge from our hiatus as a stronger, more potent human-rights focused organization.

I come to the not-for-profit sector after spending several years in the academy in the U.S. I teach courses in psychology and conduct research into child sexual abuse prevention methods (interested readers can check out my Research Gate or Google Scholar profiles for a list of my work). I have no intention of giving up my research activities, only modifying them somewhat now as I step into the role as Executive Director of Prostasia. There is still so much we need to know about how to effectively prevent child sexual abuse, how to make those practices reality while ensuring digital safety for all.

In the not-for-profit sector, I have worked with the New York State Association for the Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Abuse (NYS ATSA - State Chapter of ATSA) and the New York State Alliance for the Prevention of Sexual Abuse. These are voluntary positions located in my home state of New York, where I have been able to invest efforts into sexual abuse prevention close to home. Now the time feels right to expand my efforts beyond New York and to contribute my energies to preventing sexual harm towards children nationally and internationally.

My personal goals for Prostasia are quite simple - I would like to see the organization stay active and grow, while maintaining our mission of a human-rights centered approach to sexual abuse prevention. I will bring together key stakeholders as partners to inform our activities and projects. Using my academic and scientific background, I will communicate to our members and the broader public that what we do is protect children. We have never and will never support initiatives that do otherwise. You will see me active with Prostasia - from revamping our TikTok and Youtube accounts to bringing in a diverse array of contributing authors for our blog account. You’ll see me interacting with our base, recruiting new members, expanding our Board of Directors and Advisory Council, and promoting our mission. Prostasia Foundation is the organization you want to support if keeping kids safe is your goal too!

The criminal justice system is failing to stop sexual violence, but it is causing grave harms of its own that target marginalized communities.

In an environment of pervasive moral panic, few are brave enough to talk about alternatives… but on June 8 you can meet and discuss with some of those who are.

• Featuring Gilian Tenbergen’s introduction as Prostasia’s new Executive Director
• With a screening and Q&A of The Recall: Reframed with Rebecca Richman Cohen
• And more!

In 2022, the Prostasia Foundation took a step back from public-facing activism. Doing so allowed us to regroup after our unprecedented success in starting a nationwide conversation about child protection. The move was also a response to the mainstreaming of QAnon-esque misinformation about abuse prevention and the anti-LGBTQ “groomer” smear, which contributed to harassment and smear campaigns against our staff and experts in the field.

From an outside perspective, you may have seen this change reflected in the slower publishing rate on both our blog and newsletter. Projects like The Prostasia Conversations were put on hold, and other human rights organizations took the lead in fighting against new censorship bills like EARNIT and KOSA. We also stopped organizing public events during the year, and only participated in one.

Behind the scenes, this time was an opportunity for us to look toward the future. We laid the groundwork for MAP Support Club to undergo a professional evaluation and took the first steps in developing a training program for its staff. Our own team welcomed new members and renewed our focus on growing child safety issues. We also reviewed our ongoing projects to identify growth opportunities and ensure they reflected our unwavering anti-abuse stance.

Among the projects that underwent this review was our CSAM Deterrence Project, the centerpiece of our efforts to fight the spread of child sexual abuse material online. The initiative uses advertisements in search engine results to stop people from seeking out harmful content and redirect them to professional support. As of February 2023, over 217,000 people have clicked our ads.

While the project looked incredibly effective on paper, our review identified several opportunities for improvement. Most notably, the targeting of our ads was too broad and they were sending users to outdated pages with limited resources. Luckily, we were already working on a new page with information on reporting CSAM and finding support to stop viewing illegal content, so we decided to direct individuals searching for CSAM there going forward.

Around the end of January 2022, we launched the updated ads, initially running them alongside our existing ads to allow comparison. Despite a somewhat underwhelming launch, the outlook improved over time. The number of clicks began increasing in March and spiked in April, and the cost slowly decreased after that. Combined with the increased efficiency from better targeting, they improved the project’s overall effectiveness and flexibility. We slowly discontinued the old ads over the following months, starting with the least effective ones to minimize the impact.

Near the end of the year, we discovered that the new ads were showing up for searches related to reporting CSAM. We saw this as another opportunity to stop the spread of harmful content and began developing another ad campaign to help these individuals find guidance. This second set of ads proved incredibly effective after launching in November 2022, receiving more clicks at a lower cost.

Today, we are running both new sets of ads, with plans to continue expanding their reach. In addition, we are also developing a CSAM scanning plugin for Discourse and continuing to offer consulting services to online platforms that want to implement abuse prevention initiatives. There’s a long path to eliminating CSAM from the internet, but we’re committed to the fight. Together, it’s one we can and will win.