Chris Sevier, a 36 year old attorney from Nashville, has filed a 50-page complaint against Apple, accusing the company of irresponsibly selling him a device with potentially unlimited access to pornography.
It hasn’t been the greatest week for Apple in the courtroom, after being found guilty of eBook price-fixing by Judge Denise Cote in a landmark case. Now Apple’s law team must assemble once more to take on the crisp legal mind that is Chris Sevier.
The complaint
The 50-page complaint outlines Mr Sevier’s porn addiction and the affect that it has had on his life. His marriage, he stated, lost meaning as he “became totally out of synch in his romantic relationship with his wife, which was a consequence of his use of his Apple product”. This was apparently a result of his wife being “no longer 21” and thus could not compete with the “younger more beautiful girls [sic] features in porn videos”.
Mr Sevier feels that all Apple devices should be sold with a default filter that (somehow) blocks all internet porn. Should any user over 18 wish to enable pornographic viewing on their device, they should have to contact Apple and fill out a form, detailing that they are aware of the dangers of pornography, after which they will receive an unlock code.
A better approach
Companies absolutely should rigorously test devices before they go to market to ensure the safety of their buyers. No company could ever possibly make a device or product completely safeguarded against acts of idiocy, intentional misuse or wonton displays of zero willpower. Companies should also not be blamed for the misuse of their products by addicts.
What Chris Sevier experienced sounds like less of a case of evil corporate negligence and more of a classic case of Hebb’s Law, likely mixed with a whole lot of other problems that we aren’t nearly qualified to speculate on. Simply put, Hebb’s Law follows that ‘neurons that fire together, wire together.’
Translated contextually, Mr Sevier watched so much porn that he began to find it difficult to find sexual gratification from any other source. There’s a great chapter in Norman Doidge’s The Brain That Changes Itself covering this. If you find yourself interested in this kind of thing we thoroughly recommend you check it out.
In the book, Doidge outlines that porn addiction is quite treatable, and often only requires the addict to stop watching porn in order to weaken the neural links between ‘porn’ and ‘gratification/need’. This does not always completely cure the addiction, but coupled with therapy most addicts make total recoveries.
In short, what Mr Sevier likely needs is a psychologist; not a lawyer.
Apple is yet to respond to the complaint.
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