Madison Avenues and Alleyways
16 million private records leaked online, including credit card transactions linked to email addresses, dates of birth, telephone numbers – the work of hackers yet again. Not nice, this is true; but context counts for a lot in such cases. Imagine if these were the private records of genuine paedophiles or active members of ISIS; the evidence of wrongdoing could put plenty behind bars that society would be better off without. Despite the criminal intrusion, many would probably regard the release of that kind of information into the public arena as justifiable.
What of Ashley Madison, though? I know it sounds like the name of some upmarket 80s porn star, but for those not in the know, Ashley Madison is the infamous dating site whose tagline happens to be ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’ With a sexy (if self-consciously provocative) logo consisting of a slender female finger held against glossy lips lifted straight from the pages of ‘Vogue’ and reminiscent of the misleading images once used to promote 90s telephone chat-lines on late-night TV (Altogether now, ‘If you’re sat around at home/make new friends on the telephone’), Ashley Madison could be said to have been asking for this kind of thing ever since it began. Thanks to the efforts of a hacking group calling themselves Impact Team, users of the site now find themselves exposed to the unpleasant prospect of blackmail – that is if their extramarital sexual fantasies (also amongst the hacked info) haven’t already reached the notice of their previously oblivious spouses, of course. Sympathetic? Err…
Potentially serious consequences could await Ashley Madison users of the gay inclination, especially if they live in those countries that have yet to warm to homosexual acts, and that is genuinely awful. However, it is difficult in general terms to react to news of this leak without three little words forcing themselves out of the mouth – ‘Serves you right’.
Infidelity within marriage or a long-term relationship is a wrecking-ball smashing into the carefully laid foundations of that union; whatever the outcome once all is out in the open – forgiveness, divorce, reconciliation – nothing is ever quite the same again and the damage can be effectively irreparable. Many affairs spring from conjugal unhappiness on the part of the perpetrator, but just as many spring from the desire to have one’s cake and eat it. Ashley Madison’s open invitation for anyone already spoken for to indulge in a bit on the side poses several questions, one of which concerns suggestibility. Partners have been cheating on their other half ever since Eve was seduced by a serpent, so Ashley Madison can hardly be held responsible for inventing the concept, but how many of its users were seeking an affair before becoming aware of the website and how many had never considered doing so until stumbling upon it?
Bit of a moral minefield, this. Some affairs can lead to a positive outcome, possessing the ability to facilitate freedom from the moribund bonds of a marital mismatch, whereas others skim the surface of domestic contentment before sending out devastating ripples in a myriad of directions that affect lives the guilty party failed to take into account when he unzipped his pants or when she dropped her knickers. The cheated-on partner suffers, but so do the children, as do the parents, as do the in-laws, as do joint friends. The latter are forced into taking sides, leaving one spouse suddenly blacklisted by those they could once count on for social comradeship. The ramifications of a reckless fling as soon as the clandestine cover is blown can last years.
A dating website that encourages such behaviour, without once pointing out the possible legacy of indulging, could be accused of profiting from future misery that it utterly absolves itself of. One of the founders of Match.com, Trish McDermott, says that Ashley Madison is ‘a business built on the back of broken hearts, ruined marriages, and damaged families’, an opinion refuted by Ashley Madison’s CEO Noel Biderman, who denies the site promotes adultery or puts ideas in heads that aren’t already there. It goes without saying that many users of ordinary dating sites aimed at single people are married or engaged in a relationship of many years’ standing, so it could be argued at least Ashley Madison is being honest and open about the intentions of its users. At the same time, it’s difficult not to come to the conclusion that Ashley Madison is tapping into the current mainstream vogue for sexual activity that flirts with the dark side of eroticism (see also, the ‘Fifty Shades’ phenomenon).
Anyone emanating from a household in which one parent cheated on the other, permanently breaking the marriage in the process, or indeed has been cheated on (both applicable to me personally) will find it very hard to feel any degree of sympathy towards those whose most intimate personal details are now accessible at the click of a mouse. If their relationship was in an irreversible state of mutual decay when they gave Ashley Madison a go, then yes, it is unfortunate and unpleasant; if, however, they were simply greedy and fancied an extra slice in secret, I can’t really say I’m especially sorry for their worldwide exposure as lying, cheating shits.
People enter into relationships for various reasons – loneliness, lust, desperation, unexpected pregnancy, and occasionally, love – and if the latter remains intact on the part of the partner who embraces adultery, even in the form of a one-night stand, then his or her notion of love is clearly missing the factor that makes true love: the absolute absence of a craving to be intimate with anyone else.
Petunia Winegum
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August 20, 2015 at 9:41 am -
The get-out clause for many implicated people will be that MA did not require verification of the email address used. So many will say (truthfully? – how will we tell?) that their email was used by others, possibly for destructive or vindictive reasons.
Since my teens, when I tried dating two women at the same time and ended up losing both (which was deserved, instant Karma), I’ve never cheated or “overlapped” my loves, so have little sympathy with these Players.
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August 20, 2015 at 10:01 am -
Is “Second Life” still fashionable? It seems not so long ago this was being promoted heavily as escapist fun. People would become Avatars and roam virtual worlds, having virtual sex with other Avatars. There was a scandal in that regard about Habbo Hotel I recall (suspected Mark Williams-Thomas was part of that) because children were said to inhabit the site, but how did anyone know who were the children and who were the grown-ups, if everyone was just playing a character anyway.
Is “Swinging” still popular? seems like much the same thing insofar as sex is the driver.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swinging_(sexual_practice)Maybe this is why the Americans have licensed a new drug to make women horny. can’t wait for the first prosecution.
“he told me it was for my headache Judge. I had no idea he was drugging me for sex.”-
August 20, 2015 at 10:24 am -
Ah, I remember once seeing a documentary about ‘Second Life’ years ago. Two users whose avatars resembled Marvel Comics superheroes and heroines met in real life and, unsurprisingly, didn’t quite match their online identities.
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August 20, 2015 at 11:46 am -
The same could be said of this pair, who met online and spent four years together before she caught him in virtual flagrante delicto:
A couple are divorcing after a woman found her husband cheating with a virtual character in an online world. In February last year, she caught her husband’s avatar, Dave Barmy, having sex with a call girl in the game. Mr Pollard apologised and begged for forgiveness but the final bombshell came this April, when she caught her husband with his new online flame, Modesty McDonnell.
Ms Taylor said she was down for a while but now has a new man, who she met in the online game World Of Warcraft.http://metro.co.uk/2008/11/13/second-life-sex-causes-divorce-145922/
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August 20, 2015 at 10:02 am -
” … many will say …. that their email was used by others, possibly for destructive or vindictive reasons.”
That excuse has already been used
But doesn’t that presuppose the perpetrator would know beforehand, that details would be leaked?
If an email address is linked to a credit card, then politicians or others who claim to have been ‘hacked’ AND whose applications used a ‘.gov.uk’ address should be called-out. If the credit card was issued in their name, then they’re (stupid) liars and should suffer the consequences.
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August 20, 2015 at 9:43 am -
Eleanor Rigby, picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face
That she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it forAll the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?Father McKenzie, writing the words
Of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks
In the night when there’s nobody there
What does he careAll the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?Ah look at all the lonely people
Ah look at all the lonely peopleEleanor Rigby, died in the church
And was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt
From his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was savedAll the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?-
August 20, 2015 at 2:03 pm -
Incredibly profound stuff considering McCartney was still only 23 when he wrote those lyrics.
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August 20, 2015 at 3:13 pm -
I have always thought it cloyingly badly worded and sentimental garbage , on a par with ‘she loves you, yeah, yeah yeah’. Although it is saved by the face/jar/door construct-that is rather good. I also dislike the anti Catholicyness of it (and Father McKenzie surely would have had a housekeeper to darn his socks or sent them for repair to the Sisters Of Perpetual Abuse’s nearest Magdalen Laundry).
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August 20, 2015 at 9:47 am -
I did love the early crowing, from the mendaciously ignorant, about the obviously fake “tblair@labour.gov.uk” email address somebody had entered.
You have to suspect that the silly people who used their work email addresses are lucky that the site wasn’t very effective – they seem like they wouldn’t have been capable of keeping up any form of pretence.
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August 20, 2015 at 10:01 am -
We shouldn’t be surprised that the very medium which we use to bring together here some like-minded folk for debate and banter would also be used to bring together folk whose intents are of a more carnal nature. AM did not invent extra-marital cross-jostling, it’s always been there, the site merely helps overcome some of the early logistical hurdles encountered by those minded to participate.
We live in times when married wanton women and married macho men, or those of identical gender, are brought together, particularly in workplaces, far more frequently than in the past, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that their hormones will sometimes override their judgement, leading to the exchange of bodily fluids, especially when that exchange can now be almost guranteed to be unproductive at the nappy-filling output level. Where’s the harm, they will say.
The only things left to prevent it now are those old moral values of fidelity, loyalty, commitment etc. but, in the full flush of heaving hormonal highs, those can often be overwhelmed for all but the most sturdy of adherents.
The AM-hack will undoubtedly make potential players more cautious, but it won’t stop the game. It’s human nature at work, whether we like it or not.-
August 20, 2015 at 10:15 am -
Nothing proves the adage that, “sex is all in the mind”, more than this sort of thing…
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August 20, 2015 at 10:50 am -
That’s an interesting point, the increasing unisex nature of the workplace in comparison to the strict demarcation lines of the past. One of the main objections by the military to having women soldiers participate in combat was the fear the battlefield would quickly descend into a mass orgy. Mind you, judging by some of the female Turkish PPK fighters featured on ‘Newsnight’ last night, I wouldn’t blame them. And it’s an improvement on killing each other. Make love, not war indeed.
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August 20, 2015 at 11:51 am -
I suspect the nature of the modern workplace is more ‘omnisex’, than unisex.
In my working days, often involving offices with over 1000 mixed-gender staff, the rate of known cross-jostling was high – at one place, one of my female staff prided herself on knowing pretty much who was doing what to whom all around the place (although I also knew what she herself was doing with another staffer, ‘the biter bit’). With the increased amount of ‘senior’ positions now occupied by women, jobs which involve more travel and frequent staying away from home, the opportunity just increases for what the basic inclination desires.
I’m not entirely ashamed to say that, on rare occasions, that ‘inside information’ was used for the purposes of corporate politics – great way to get a departmental budget increase when you know that the FD’s humping the MD’s secretary, and you quietly let him know that you know. Dirty work perhaps, but it’s dog-eat-dog out there (that’s not to imply that the MD’s secretary was a dog, of course, although …….)-
August 20, 2015 at 12:03 pm -
“In my working days, often involving offices with over 1000 mixed-gender staff …” What? There were >1k LadyBoys?
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August 20, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
If only…..
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August 20, 2015 at 10:03 am -
Yet it is almost de rigeur for the rich, powerful or famous to have extras – even Solomon. Is monogamy natural? Is polygamy worse? Was adultery more acceptable when marriage was indissoluble?
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August 20, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
Do British mothers miss having a milkman in the morning?
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August 20, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
We still have a mikman who comes every morning – maybe now I know why Mrs Mudplugger won’t buy our milk from Waitrose. She says it’s only to save me all the humping, and I always thought she meant humping the milk in from the car……
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August 20, 2015 at 10:22 am -
The older and wiser (SNORK! Ok, I’m kidding) I get , I can’t help agreeing with my Ol’ Norfolk Nana Dwarf : “Life would be a whole soigh’ simpler do we all jist leaarn’ ‘o keep ooor knickers on.
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August 20, 2015 at 10:27 am -
Is there a Norfolk equivalent of Ashley Madison? Ashley Mam-and-Son, perhaps?
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August 20, 2015 at 10:36 am -
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August 20, 2015 at 10:39 am -
I seem to recall the old bat upstairs doing a piece about the Norfolk Sex Trade not so very long ago.
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August 20, 2015 at 10:45 am -
That reminds me of a 70s ‘Coronation Street’ storyline when Len Fairclough first bought the Kabin shop and Rita as shop assistant found there were a surprisingly high number of orders for ‘Pig Farmer’s Gazette’, which the previous owner had used as a euphemism for certain gentleman’s magazines. I suppose it’d be the other way round in your neck of the woods…
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August 20, 2015 at 11:10 am -
I suppose it’d be the other way round in your neck of the woods…
No doubt but bear in mind that those ‘knickers’ that Ol’ Norfolk Nana Dwarf spake of were probably , or at least included those that were, pink edged, with the days of the week emblazoned on them and a ladybird on the label …(the ladybird being the symbol for St.Michael the patron saint of Undies.)
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August 20, 2015 at 11:25 am -
Oooh memories! When I had a bed & breakfast on the Suffolk borders, I had a young engineer book in for a month or so – first job….
He asked for evening meals, no problem, and then whether I could do his washing…unusual but I agreed.
Kept us happy in the kitchen for weeks afterwards, the regular supply of terry-towelling two tone (I Kid you not!) y-fronts with the days of the week printed on them that his Mother had sent him off to his first ‘away from home’ job…..
How could any woman do that to him?-
August 20, 2015 at 11:43 am -
How could any woman do that to him?
My mother did! Except they were brown terry Ys without the days of the week. Aged 16ish or so and still a shy virgin , the 19 year old Object Of My Desire (whom I had worshipped from afar) invited me, out of the blue, to a ‘party’ one Friday night. At some point that night, after copious amounts of Merrydown and other substances she and I landed up in the master bedroom of the flat where the party was being held. Both very drunk , she very very experienced and me not at all. We undressed each other and then she saw my knickers and had a laughing fit that turned into a laughing ‘cramp’ that put paid to the moment because by the time she was ‘calm’ again, she had totally shattered what tentative male confidence I had .
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August 20, 2015 at 3:30 pm -
In the interest of amusing the regulars I have just scoured Google images. With hindsight i now feel her laughter fit was totally understandable…
http://farm8.static.flickr.com/7389/16478653241_3f2daf803e_m.jpg
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August 20, 2015 at 5:31 pm -
Seared onto the cells of the brain forevermore now. Thanks!
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August 20, 2015 at 6:02 pm -
Funnily enough, on the way back from that party, I stopped at the local men’s haberdashery and procured my first pair of black Jockeys/briefs….and have remained true to that style ever since…not even the Frenchfloosie (my Parisian Ex) nor my sons could persuade me to try the heresy that are ‘boxers’. “Son, If you want to look like an American, go the whole hog and get the end chopped off your willy”
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August 20, 2015 at 10:49 am -
Ashley-Mam-and-Son. Purveyors of fine quality inbred Village Idiots to the Crowned Heads of Europe. (Extra fingers etc. provided gratis with every purchase)
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August 20, 2015 at 10:52 am -
Judging by the amount of in-breeding amongst those Crowned Heads, I think they got there 300 years before the internet!
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August 20, 2015 at 11:03 am -
They do like to ‘keep it in the family’ don’t they!
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August 20, 2015 at 11:12 am -
A fellow reader and commentator here just emailed me….
“Just FYI, apropos comments on AR; there is a pig company called Easey Pigs in Norfolk. Sadly, I don’t think they have a website “
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August 20, 2015 at 12:15 pm -
Would you remind the locals that “Screwfix” is not a dating site.
http://i2.hinckleytimes.net/incoming/article9200376.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/screwfix.jpg
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August 20, 2015 at 12:48 pm -
Anyone whose mother buys their underwear deserves everything they get, frankly.
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August 20, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
Serves them all effing right. Who would be stupid enough to give credit card details to such a Web site? Mostly men in pursuit of elusive horny housewives, but probably mostly finding hookers if they are lucky. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.
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August 20, 2015 at 3:13 pm -
Yes, the Russians are coming; the Russians are coming… but not as we knew it Jim…
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August 20, 2015 at 3:08 pm -
Indeed, it’s about time having an affair was made illegal. Perhaps the Daily Mail could be persuaded to start a campaign.
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August 20, 2015 at 5:26 pm -
I have no sympathy for any of the users of AM that have been exposed. Such sites IMHO show just how depraved we have become and how low our morals have sunk not to mention how this debases the value of real relationships.
The site never have been allowed in the first place but it has to be said it would not have got anywhere unless the moral scum that use it had registered to use it.
I despair for the human race. Sometimes we’re no better than animals…
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August 20, 2015 at 5:57 pm -
I despair for the human race. Sometimes we’re no better than animals…
Sometimes I feel ,usually when I look at (I won’t say ‘read’ in this context) the The Bestes Wife’s Daily Xenophobe, strangely enough, that most of humanity (and I include myself, genus Homo Runticus Dwarfus, among that number) would have to take lessons and step up a grade or two to reach the level of your average animal.
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