No, Your Index Finger Destroyed Your Marriage
Lawyer Chris Sevier files suit against Apple because its devices lack a filter that keeps them from playing porn. David Ferguson writes at Raw Story:
The attorney is suing the company in an effort to have all of its devices equipped with a filter that blocks sexually-themed content....Sevier said that when a typing error led him to "Fuckbook.com" rather than Facebook, he was overtaken with the eroticism of the images and films he found there and that he became addicted to Internet pornography, causing difficulty in his marriage.
The images of naked young women on the web amounted to "unfair competition" for Sevier's wife, he said in the complaint, writing, "The Plaintiff began desiring younger more beautiful girls featured in porn videos than his wife, who was no longer 21."
Moreover, "(h)is failed marriage caused the Plaintiff to experience emotional distress to the point of hospitalization. The Plaintiff could no longer tell the difference between Internet pornography and tangible intercourse due to the content he accessed through the Apple products, which failed to provide him with warnings of the dangers of online pornography whatsoever."
Sevier compared pornography to handguns and cigarettes, products that are subject to regulation. He posited that Apple has an obligation to protect its users, and at a minimum to give them written warnings about Internet porn.
As I've written and as addiction treatment specialist Stanton Peele discussed on my show last night, substances themselves are not "addictive"; it's people's use of the substances as an escape from life.
From one of my columns -- from an upset wife about her husband who'd turned into a pothead and was secretly videotaping women's butts:
Your husband -- let's call him "the old bong and chain" -- is an addict. You may not think of him that way, because he probably doesn't have a physical dependence on weed or running around town making butt-umentaries (say, in the way I have a physical dependence on break-a-tooth-black coffee). Probably what he has is a psychological addiction to checking out (instead of engaging emotionally), and he's using these habits as transportation to get there.To explain that further, an addiction treatment specialist I respect, Dr. Stanton Peele, in "7 Tools to Beat Addiction," writes, "When people turn to an experience, any experience, for solace to the exclusion of meaningful involvements in the rest of their lives, they are engaged in an addiction." Another addiction therapist I respect, Dr. Frederick Woolverton, in "Unhooked," explains that what all addictions have in common is a longing to avoid "legitimate suffering" -- difficult emotions that are a normal part of being alive.
So, no, your husband's saying no to butt cheeks and "only sometimes" to pot probably isn't enough. These are just his preferred forms of checking out. To avoid simply replacing them with new forms, he needs to recognize that he's been using them to duck feeling his feelings -- maybe just in your marriage but maybe in other parts of his life, too. He also needs to commit to changing this, but not because you're hassling him and it would be an even bigger hassle to get dumped by you. (Change is especially tough for the emotion-averse.) He needs to come to the conclusion that it's worth it to tough it out and feel so he can connect with you on more than the pothead's deep philosophical questions, "What does paisley sound like?" and "Are we out of Funyuns?"
Science writer Maia Szalavitz calls addiction a "learning disorder":
What this means is that addiction isn't simply a response to a drug or an experience--it is a learned pattern of behavior that involves the use of soothing or pleasant activities for a purpose like coping with stress. This is why simple exposure to a drug cannot cause addiction: The exposure must occur in a context where the person finds the experience pleasant and/or useful and must be deliberately repeated until the brain shifts its processing of the experience from deliberate and intentional to automatic and habitual.This is also why pain patients cannot be "made addicted" by their doctors. In order to develop an addiction, you have to repeatedly take the drug for emotional relief to the point where it feels as though you can't live without it. That doesn't happen when you take a drug as prescribed in a regular pattern--it can only happen when you start taking doses early or take extra when you feel a need to deal with issues other than pain. Until your brain learns that the drug is critical to your emotional stability, addiction cannot be established and this learning starts with voluntary choices. To put it bluntly, if I kidnap you, tie you down and shoot you up with heroin for two months, I can create physical dependence and withdrawal symptoms--but only if you go out and cop after I free you will you actually become an addict.
Again, this doesn't mean that people who voluntarily make those choices don't have biological, genetic or environmental reasons that make them more vulnerable and perhaps less culpable--but it does mean that addiction can't happen without your own will becoming involved. It also means that babies can't be "born addicted." Even if they suffer withdrawal after being exposed in utero, they haven't engaged in the crucial learning pattern that shows them that the drug equals relief and they can hardly go out and seek more despite negative consequences.
Addiction--whether to sex, drugs or rock & roll--is a disorder of learning. It's not a disorder of hedonism or selfishness and it's not a sign of "character defects." This learning, of course, involves the brain--but because learning is involved, cultural, social and environmental factors are critical in shaping it.
If we want to get beyond "Is Sex Addictive?" and "Crack vs. Junk Food: Which Is Worse?" we've got to recognize that we've been asking the wrong questions. The real issue is what purpose does addictive behavior serve and how can it be replaced with more productive and healthy pursuits--not how can we stop the demon drug or activity of the month. We've been doing the equivalent of trying to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder by banning hand sanitizer when what we really need to understand is why and how obsessions and compulsions develop in particular people.
My show with Stanton from last weekend:
Dr. Stanton Peele on overcoming an addiction with values and self-determination.
Apple link via "Honest Courtesan" Maggie MacNeill, who recently published a book of her short stories, Ladies of the Night: Short Stories By Maggie McNeill.
-Moreover, "(h)is failed marriage caused the Plaintiff to experience emotional distress to the point of hospitalization. The Plaintiff could no longer tell the difference between Internet pornography and tangible intercourse due to the content he accessed through the Apple products, which failed to provide him with warnings of the dangers of online pornography whatsoever."-
That's one weak-ass lawyer, in more ways than one. Glad he's not mine. In more ways than one.
Pricklypear at July 20, 2014 8:21 AM
"We've been doing the equivalent of trying to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder by banning hand sanitizer when what we really need to understand is why and how obsessions and compulsions develop in particular people."
Obsessive compulsive disorder has a strong genetic link. Dr.Sapolsky has a great youtube talk on the subject.
Alot of the religious rituals we see today were created by OCDs. It isn't something they overcome by sheer will anymore than I can control my bi-polar moods.
I also think addiction has a strong genetic component, and it doesn't just happen because you are "sad" about your life. I was addicted to food under an atypical anti-psychotic and 1 month after I went off of it my addiction to food went away, I suspect that compulsion to food is naturally present in many grossly overweight people. I also don't see why it wouldn't be present in alcoholics.
Talk therapy, books, increase in self-esteem and better work/home environment did not help me any in overcoming my addiction to food.
Ppen at July 20, 2014 8:48 AM
The Plaintiff could no longer tell the difference between Internet pornography and tangible intercourse due to the content he accessed
If you cant tell the difference between [sex] and [jerking off while watching videos] you weren't that good at sex and your ex wife is better off
lujlp at July 20, 2014 9:24 AM
I can see misspelling Facebook as "Favebook," "Racebook," "Facenook" and a bunch of other things, but...
Sevier said that when a typing error led him to "Fuckbook.com" rather than Facebook
Child, please. The a/u and e/k aren't neighbors on the keyboard and they're not even on the same hand.
Kevin at July 20, 2014 10:14 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2014/07/20/no_your_index_f.html#comment-4862545">comment from KevinThanks, Kevin -- forgot to mention that.
Amy Alkon at July 20, 2014 10:18 AM
Ppen: "It isn't something they overcome by sheer will anymore than I can control my bi-polar moods... I also think addiction has a strong genetic component..."
Yes.
The brain controls thinking and behavior. What the heart is to circulation and everything affected by it, the brain is to awareness, thought, perception, mood, emotions and behavior. It's a physical organ that's just as susceptible to genetics, heredity, disease, injury and environmental conditions as the heart, lungs, kidneys, pancreas and any other organ.
A tiny, molecule-size effect of genetics or environmental factors on some receptor on the membranes of cells in the heart can have a huge effect on the health, quality of life and life expectancy of the person dependent on that heart. In the same way a tiny, molecule-size, genetic or environmental effect on cells in some part of the brain can have a huge effect on the person's thoughts, perceptions, emotions, mood, behavior (and dare I say morality)... and susceptibility to addictions.
Ken R at July 20, 2014 11:22 AM
I agree with Kevin. Typing "Fuckbook" instead of "Facebook"... A parapraxis at best, but not a typing error.
Ken R at July 20, 2014 11:28 AM
As noted above "facebook" to "fuckbook" is highly unlikely. Also fuckbook requires registration -- the lawyer did not get in without intentionally asking to be let in.
He is lying. Pure and simple.
parabarbarian at July 20, 2014 11:37 AM
Blaming Apple for his porn surfing is like blaming AC/DC for going deaf. That you played their music at 10 on your stereo caused it. Not the particular band.
Jim P. at July 20, 2014 1:09 PM
And to those who say "my kid was a straight-A student before becoming addicted to pot" I'd say: Never underestimate the secret desire of a teen to escape both responsibility and growing up in general. There are, after all, kids who ruin their grades and prospects with nothing more than too much skateboarding and screen time - because they WANT to.
lenona at July 20, 2014 4:39 PM
Yeah, the story is walking, talking bullshit. Most addicts have some preposterous story about how they got hooked and it was totally not their fault. Like walking into a men's room barefoot and accidently stepping on a syringe full of heroin that just happened to be laying in the floor. (Yes, I've actually heard that one.)
Cousin Dave at July 21, 2014 8:41 AM
Good pornography is hard to come by.
Jim Kennedy at July 23, 2014 12:55 AM
Esq. Sevier may find people declining to shake hands with him from now on.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at July 23, 2014 5:35 PM
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