Who is Ashley Madison?
Well, that’s just the thing—she’s not a she at all. Ashley Madison is a hookup site with a very specific type of hookup in mind: affairs for and with married people. (For the record, Ashley Madison is actually a dude—the site is run by a Canadian man.)
This site promises with a 100% guarantee that if you join, you will have an affair. Sure, plenty of people find them all on their own everyday, without paying a fee for a special infidelity-driven social networking site. But for $49 you can get a basic membership, and for $249 you get the Affair Guarantee Package, which offers your money back if you don’t find a little something on the side within three months. Well, at least it’s a site with solid business ethics, right?
Sadly, I’d never even heard of Ashley Madison until I read a Vanity Fair article by a journalist who decided to do an undercover experiment to prove that “marriage and monogamy needn’t always go hand-in-hand.” Which is about as much breaking news as the recent development that crack is bad for you. So she, a single woman, went undercover on AshleyMadison.com as a young newlywed and had lots of hot extramarital sex and then wrote about it like it was news. Take that, Campbell Brown—no bias, no bull! Well, maybe a little...
So I clicked over to AshelyMadison.com. Once there, I saw the following words, smeared across the page in a classy, Victorian font:
“Life is Short. Have an Affair.”
And I threw up in my mouth a little bit.
According to the article, 50-65% of men and 45-55% of women have had an affair by age 40. And, let’s face it—that’s probably being conservative. Which apparently translates to big dollars—especially when you factor in current exchange rates.
As one of the undercover journalist’s Ashley Madison-procured beaus put it, “monogamy through adultery” is en vogue—and is saving marriages across the country; therefore Ashley Madison offers an invaluable service.
Is it me, or does that not even make any sense? The whole article left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
But, as any dedicated journalist would do, I decided to do a little research of my own to get to the bottom of this Ashley Madison phenomenon. A few stats: there are approximately 4.3 million members on the site to date (yes, really), and the majority of these members are married—although there is a portion of single people with profiles seeking an affair. Not surprisingly, there are more men looking for a tryst here, and women are typically bombarded with 100+ emails a day from married guys who lament that their wives don’t have sex with them anymore; or that they have an unspoken “agreement” with their wives wherein they get to have sex with others.
I Am Not Ashley Madison
I briefly entertained the idea that some people really could make their marriages better by going outside their vows. If so many people are doing it, it surely can’t be wrong for everyone. I also wondered what kind of men I would encounter were I to join, and if I would indeed, find that these really were good guys, just sexually frustrated or ‘trapped’ in unhappy marriages. I came this close to joining. But then I decided that I really didn’t need to know. And I did know that I respected my husband too much to interact with them, even for the sake of research.
And then I slapped myself upside my head for being so naïve.
Because after serious thought, I was fairly certain that most of these men and women were conducting their affairs behind the backs of their spouses. They can hide behind statements like, “monogamy is just not natural for me,” and, “my marriage is better because I cheat” until the cows come home, but in reality, they are cowards. They married someone, promised to be faithful, and then changed their minds. Yes, it is every spouse’s prerogative to change their mind, and people fall out of love all the time. But can’t we accept the fact that unless you’ve sincerely agreed on having an open relationship, using a site like Ashley Madison is just kinda sleazy? Let’s all man—or woman—up, and either be married or not—and adhere to the decorum that comes with it—which includes being faithful.
There are many happy couples out there who do have open relationships, or enjoy swinging or swapping partners, but Ashley Madison is peddling a whole different brand of infidelity. The site is effectively encouraging these people to possibly destroy their marriages by seeking someone to have sex with on the sly. Ashley Madison is an enabler. But enablers don’t act alone. Ashley Madison is not single-handedly ruining marriages because of their savvy marketing strategies. A spouse is not going to cheat simply because they saw a clever ad; if they’re going to cheat, it is because they choose to. It’s not about marketing, it’s about commitment.
However, I have to wonder how the creator of Ashley Madison rationalizes the service he provides. Then again, I guess he’s rationalizing all the way to the bank, so who am I to judge?
I don’t want another man. I don’t need another husband. I love the one I have, and I promised to love, cherish and be faithful to him. So I have no use for a site like Ashley Madison.
Now, another wife...that’s something I could get behind. Think of all the laundry that would get done. I’m thinking of starting my own site—WifeFinder.com. The slogan? “No Sex. Just Laundry.” It’d be like Big Love, minus the annoying, manipulative Nicky—and the Viagra, but definitely with all the free babysitting.
Who’s with me?