The National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s CEO Marcel van der Watt is equating adult entertainment with “national security threats” —words typically used to describe terrorism, cyber attacks and organized crime. As first reported by Techdirt, Watt made the proclamation in an op-ed in the Washington Times on June 1, arguing that online sex content leads to underreported victim exploitation in the military specifically, because their financial resources “make them attractive targets for blackmail and extortion.”
Is ‘Sextortion’ in the Military a Real Problem?
Framing his call to ban adult content around military and government personnel with security clearances, Watt focuses on people being coerced or extorted by foreign adversaries over nudes/porn use. But his argument virtually ignores consensual adult sexual expression. He also points to porn as a symptom of cultural decline, while ignoring the rise of white Christian nationalism as a more obvious cultural shift. He argues porn “corrodes” social foundations and normalizes objectification leading to “increasingly extreme content” without providing evidence for his claims.
More Calls for an Obscenity Task Force
Van der Watt is one of many asking the federal government to revive its dormant Obscenity Prosecution Task Force (created in 2005 under President George W. Bush to prosecute porn producers like Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild). Part of a broader 2026 push to get the government involved in dismantling the adult industry, Watt’s use of “national security” concerns like many “child safety” claims in support of the KIDS Act and age verification, aim to give his obscenity arguments more weight.
NCOSE –formerly called Morality in Media — was rebranded in 2015, but its mission is the same. Past campaigns include pushing Walmart to pull Cosmopolitan from checkout lines and targeted academic database EBSCO over access to sex-education materials for students. NCOSE is a primary promoter of the “porn as addiction” public-health framing, which lacks scientific consensus. Calls for legislation against porn echo Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana, who recently urged acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to reinstate the task force, naming OnlyFans as a target.
NCOSE and FCC Grasp at More Straws Against Sexual Content
In addition to NCOSE’s overreaching claims, McReady’s Techdirt reporting also includes a story about FCC general counsel Adam Candeub, who just published an opinion column with the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal calling for stronger obscenity regulation by invoking the founding fathers. As the reporter lays out, Candeub, the general counsel for FCC chair Brendan Carr, makes presumptuous claims about what past leaders might do and his talking points reflect the religious right’s proposed censorship regime as promoted in Project 2025.
