“Life is short.  Have an affair.” - Ashley Madison

One more “lesson” or disorder - rather, for me to metabolize while watching the news with Alex, my thirteen-year old.  The news of ashleymadison.com, the site which helps married couples cheat, unfolded over our breakfast together.   I could have changed the channel, however Alex is beyond my clumsy protectiveness.   He is curious.  He wants the truth.  He wants to know I am truthful with him.  So?  We listened to the breaking story of nail-biting betrayal - adulterers, adult websites, no-fault divorce states and cyber-terrorism.  I watched him from the corner of my periphery, trying not to wince.   

I was calculating where to go with this one, before our eyes met - and fast.   Betrayal?  Desire?  Adult websites? Uploading personal information?  CRAP.  (it’s not as clear cut as trans-gender and gay-marriage).  When our eyes met, Alex looked at me quizzically, “Well, mom, if you upload your information, it can get hacked.  A hacker’s gonna hack.”  He let me off easy.  

Online.  Adultery.  Help.

If I’m being honest, it took me a moment to process this news heading.  At first I was thinking Dolly Madison, my favorite childhood ice-cream.  Ashleymadison.com’s adultery website whose tag line, “Life is short, have an affair”, however, actually helps married couples cheat.  The websites’s homepage boasts over 37 million anonymous members! and a brunette donned with red lips and a visible wedding ring whispering Shhh…

While enmeshed in all of my momma and marital duties, I had no awareness of an online playground for consenting adultery.  I simply have zero time for fantasies and extra-marital affairs - but, that you can secretly while married - shop your fantasies online - for delivery, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.  It’s not really funny, but it is.  I imagine spouses incognito - uploading personal information and concealed credit card numbers - excitedly adding attention, intimacy and sexual simpatico to their carts while I am busy tripping in the aisles of zappos.com and amazon.com  What am I missing?

Ashleymadison.com boasts 37 million members.  37 million members subscribe to cheating on their spouse with the help of ashleymadison.com.  Why?

Oddly, I am compelled.   

I listened to a love doctor on CNN explain why your spouse ends up on ashleymadison.com and here is what she says, “People’s brains are not built to share - they are dishonest.  They cannot not cope with sharing… technology isn’t changing love, it’s changing how we court.  It can never change love.  For thousands of years in our farming background, the only way a woman could get ahead was to marry well.  And so, she might not be in love with that dupe, but she’s gonna marry him because she needs to form a deep attachment with somebody; a lifelong attachment.  Today we don’t need that.  The stigma of divorce has disappeared.” 

Is she serious?  She is a doctor of love?  Did she just explain ashleymadison.com’s clientele as dishonest women who cannot cope with sharing and are looking to get ahead without an attachment to a dupe?  I’m so confused.  

As I thought about though from my perspective, I realized I am not naive.  I was never taught the anatomy of an affair.  Infidelity is a freedom - a risk to recover missing parts of ourselves.  Today, in our pop culture, we face a dilemma - we can secretly buy-back love and desire - but this free-market of consumerism is hardly free.  Facilitators of entitlement to pursue desires - sites such as ashleymadison.com, cougarlife.com, establishedmen.com and adultfriendfinder.com have propelled us to cross the line in search of passion without a shelf life.  All you need is a credit card and a penchant for perilousness.  

I once read, betrayal in a relationship comes in many forms - contempt, neglect, violence, sexually and that the victim of the affair may not be the victim of the marriage.   

Perhaps the ashleymadison.com expose (should it come to fruition), will yield a new perspective for its clientele.  One of honest self-discovery.  While it seems easier not to cheat, sites like ashleymadison.com are validation it’s easy to cheat and perhaps harder to keep a secret.

So, do you like piña coladas and getting caught in the shame? (I have this song in my head - ouch).   

Sarah Kato 

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