"The Ashley Madison Agency specializes in meeting the distinct needs of attached and married adults with unmet needs who wish to meet single or attached people that share a mutual desire for friendship, novelty, excitement, romance and intrigue, and to provide these romance-seekers with a safe, discreet way to meet each other.

Many Male and Female users are in open or committed relationships and often have lingering needs inadequately served by their current partner. These individuals share a common desire to engage in a secret romance or simple casual encounter that will not compromise or replace their primary relationship."

If a relationship is so tenuous that these ads, or Ashley Madison or anything else are going to attract serious interest, it is doomed in any event.

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These ads are a symptom of a problem; nnot a cause.

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What I mean to point out is that this has been going on for centuries. It's only now that the tee-vee crew has slithered onto the scene that we are so struck by it.

Besides, you would be very surprised how many couples engage in "open" style marriages, seeing other people with consent and participation of their spouses.

But you know what; it happens and continues only as a result of a mutually sustained commitment. It doesn't result from resrictions, or from lack of other opportunities.

If you or your spouse are open to the possibility of "straying", then eventually you will. It won't be caused by any prime-time T.V. ad. Nor will it be caused by the provocative, sexy guy or woman in the next office.

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Nor will it be caused by the provocative, sexy guy or woman in the next office.

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what the hell's the use?

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Talking about it/analysing it helps assuage our guilt as we swirl downward in the toilet of moral corruption.

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Originally posted by Anchoress:
Actually I've seen in several sources recently studies that show almost all the animal species that were believed to be monogamous actually aren't, but 'step out' on their mates on the sly.

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How do they exercise birth control?

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Originally posted by Zahid Zaman:

How do they exercise birth control?

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Talking about it/analysing it helps assuage our guilt as we swirl downward in the toilet of moral corruption.

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Have any of you looked at their web site? I have (thought there might be an interesting story in it, so call it research), and done some reading about them (if you google them, there have been several different articles) and it seems that women don't have to pay, but men pay a premium if they wish to contact any of the women on the site. They take debit card, and have a special code for your bank statement, quite innocent-looking, so your spouse won't know who they are.

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Originally posted by steffie_slick:

Personally, I'd like to see an even more frank discussion of this need for sex and companionship we have in society. I'm working on a commercial script that I will share with babblers at a later date. The opening line will probably sound something like, "Hi, I'm Stephanie and I'd like to get naked and spend the night with you. For $5.99 a minute."

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It does make me curious why there is such a need to cheat. I've never really felt the need to cheat, if I'm not satisfied with a relationship, I leave it. Maybe I have too much respect for people I commit to - maybe I'm naive but shouldn't respect and commitment go hand in hand? Why do we cheat?

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Originally posted by JamesR:
If a relationship is so tenuous that these ads, or Ashley Madison or anything else are going to attract serious interest, it is doomed in any event.

These ads are a symptom of a problem; nnot a cause.

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Exactly. If someone's looking, their relationship is already over. Well, maybe not over. But it's already "breached" shall we say.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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With six dollars a minute for the whole night, you better hope a lot of millionaires are tuned in.

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[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: josh ]

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or friendship, novelty, excitement, romance and intrigue, and to provide these romance-seekers

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It does make me curious why there is such a need to cheat. I've never really felt the need to cheat, if I'm not satisfied with a relationship, I leave it. Maybe I have too much respect for people I commit to - maybe I'm naive but shouldn't respect and commitment go hand in hand? Why do we cheat?

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I'm with you on this. I don't understand cheating at all. I always figure that if I were having feelings for someone other than my partner, then there must be real problems between me and him, and probably I shouldn't be with that partner anymore.

On a related note, did anyone catch Dr. Phil yesterday? His new 'family in crisis' is a mormon couple with six kids, two or three of whom were conceived in the wife's extramarital affairs.

The whole show was just so frustrating. It seemed so clear to me that they didn't even like each other, and that there was so little reason for them to even try to repair the damage or rebuild a relationship. Why not just quit and go on to greener pastures?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
What is reading access?

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Yee hee hee hee.

Actually, it's the spaghetti I remember -- Lemmon straining spaghetti through a tennis raquet. Everyone started to try that!

Wonderful movie.

Monogamist tho' I am m'self, I think that huge numbers of people have good reasons for finding comfort elsewhere, and it is none of anyone else's business at a moral level.

The two things that bother me about services like this are, of course, the commercialization, and then, maybe, the danger.

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It does make me curious why there is such a need to cheat. I've never really felt the need to cheat, if I'm not satisfied with a relationship, I leave it. Maybe I have too much respect for people I commit to - maybe I'm naive but shouldn't respect and commitment go hand in hand? Why do we cheat?

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It's not always as cut and dried as that.

I've never cheated on a spouse or co-habitant either. When faced with a situation where I either started falling for someone else, or just no longer wanted to be in a relationship, I left.

However, I can understand why others don't. First of all, it's not like you wake up one day and say, "Gee, I think I'm going to find someone other than my spouse to have sex with today!" Sometimes marriages grow cold gradually, and sometimes friendships grow into love gradually. And if that happens (marriage grown cold, friendship with someone else growing hot), it doesn't mean that you no longer care about your spouse, or love them. You can love someone and yet no longer feel passion for them. It can be harrowing to feel passion for someone else, but still care about your spouse, and not want to leave the life you've built up with them.

If it were cut-and-dried, black-and-white, there wouldn't be so much infidelity. People WOULD just leave when it's over and start new ones up afterwards. But it doesn't always work that way. It's not always just about getting laid on the side. It's about human relationships, and grey areas, and blurred edges. A lot of people don't want to believe that, because we have certain societal "rules", and it's much easier to believe that it's easy, and that people who follow the rules do so because they're good, and people who don't follow the rules do so because they're scum.

But in real life, I just don't think it works that way.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

I've never cheated either, but then, I've never been married, and have always had the freedom to just leave a relationship before things got cold and bitter...not that that's always the state of things when an affair begins, I guess.

I don't mean to sound like I'm moralizing. I just feel like if people were a little more self-aware or self-critical sometimes, or if they were willing to look at the bigger picture or really try to communicate with their spouses, a lot of cheating would be unnecessary, and a lot of relationships would either end before they got too damaging for the involved parties, or be strengthened and deepened as a result of the folks opening up and talking about what they're missing or how they're feeling empty or whatever...

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Why do we cheat?

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Don't neglect the possibility that much of our "cheating" behaviour is grounded in the morals of days gone by, when a person simply could not divorce or separate, and when marriages were often as strategic as romantic. If you married, but loved another, you had to love them on the sly.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
Some people do "cheat," sure. But deception is not always cruel; love is complicated; and sex is not sinful.

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In my off minutes, of course, I also enjoy contemplating power.

Exclusive sex isn't the only thing people promise to do in their marriage vows. They promise a whole bunch of other things that get broken every day. Is everyone always loving toward their spouse, no matter what the provocation (sickness and health, rich or poor, good times and bad)? Is everyone always respectful?

In marriages that are turning "cold", lots of marital vows often get broken before the sexual one. And yet, it's the person who breaks the sexual one that we demonize, and we treat it like it just sort of happened out of the blue somehow. I am willing to bet that's rarely, if ever, the case.

Marriages break down. Almost all the vows get broken before a divorce. In my marriage, all the vows EXCEPT the fidelity vow got broken - and mostly by him. But once my marriage had broken down completely in every other way, had I found comfort in someone else's arms before leaving, I'd have been wearing the scarlet letter, and people would look at it as though my infidelity was THE reason the marriage ended.

I say that's baloney. And I say that too much emphasis is put on sexual vows and not enough put on the emotional ones.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by kuba:
I very rarely disagree with you Skdadl but cheating is not a victimless sin/crime whatever you want to call it. I only speak as someone on the other end of the equation one time.

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I think deception can rarely (never?) be a good thing. Although love is complicated I am hard-pressed to find a situation where in the best interests of love one should satisfy their own needs in a manner that may be unacceptable to their partner and therefore keep that outside relationship from their partner. In fact I can't think of any situation where the best solution is to keep information from one's partner so they do not have any choice in the matter.

Also, I agree that it is not victimless. Eventually, when the parties involved find out it is devastating. Although I have never been cheated on and have never cheated on anyone I have unknowingly been the "other" girl. The experiences have left me with some serious trust issues. I didn't get to know because he felt it was better if I didn't- but him keeping that info from me made me unable to make the choice that would have made me happiest in the end - to not have gotten involved with him at all.

Maybe because of my own experience I see “cheating” as a selfish act and am hard pressed to see an example when it is done with consideration for anyone else.

If you want to ensure that you'll never be a victim, then never fall in love, never get married, and stay home. Because in any kind of human interaction within a deep relationship, people victimize each other, whether with words, or with coldness, or with changing feelings, or by falling in love with other people.

Or, instead of looking at it in terms of who's a victim, you can look at it in terms of growing and changing relationships, and beginning and ending relationships.

I have suspected in the past that a partner might have been communicating with someone else in a way that was not quite on the up and up fidelity-wise near the end of the relationship. It bothered me, sure. But so much water had passed under the bridge at that point that, had I discovered he was "cheating" (I hate that word - how come we don't call it "cheating" when your partner says something cruel to you, or breaks any other marriage vow?), it probably wouldn't have hurt me any worse than any of the other crap we had been going through.

So, it's true, infidelity isn't victimless. However, in a marriage where infidelity is happening, I very highly doubt that there is only one victim in that marriage.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

It is so hard for everyone.

But does anyone want a return to the days when we called all sex outside of marriage either adultery or fornication? Seriously: do you?

I know how horribly painful it can be to learn that your trust has been betrayed, that everyone knew but you, but sex is not the only way in which that can happen.

Sometimes, lovers make each other feel free -- and that is when marriage works, when it becomes exclusive for the right reasons. But that, in my experience, is a lucky connection.

What can I do except hope that it will happen to you too?

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Maybe because of my own experience I see “cheating” as a selfish act and am hard pressed to see an example when it is done with consideration for anyone else.

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Originally posted by skdadl:
But does anyone want a return to the days when we called all sex outside of marriage either adultery or fornication? Seriously: do you?

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We don't call it adultery anymore?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Life isn't victimless. Love isn't victimless. Marriage isn't victimless. So of course, infidelity isn't victimless either.

If you want to ensure that you'll never be a victim, then never fall in love, never get married, and stay home. Because in any kind of human interaction within a deep relationship, people victimize each other, whether with words, or with coldness, or with changing feelings, or by falling in love with other people.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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I see degrees of victimization here. (I might even go so far as to say that I don’t think some of the behaviours listed constitute victimization but that is only my opinion- but I do see your point).

The thing that makes these instances of "victimization" different is the element of control and choice. If I am cold to my partner he can choose to stay or go, if I say hurtful things he can choose to react whatever way he wishes. If I start another relationship without his knowledge I take his ability to choose away.

To me this is where the problem with "cheating".

Also, maybe I have a hardened sense of the word victim but I believe marriage and love should be victimless. I know that there are times when my relationship is difficult but I doubt i would still be in it if i felt that I was a victim, and I doubt my partner would either.

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Does anyone want to have relationship with liars, well that's precisely what cheaters are --- nothing but liars.

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We all have relationships with liars. Everyone lies. Big lies, small lies, everybody lies.

And nobody is "nothing but a liar". Everyone lies, and even people who lie compulsively have more to themselves than their lies.

Does anyone want to have relationships with liars? Depends on what they're lying about and why, and whether I have the kind of relationship with them that involves trust. Nobody is completely honest with everyone. Lots of people are completely (or almost completely) honest with some people, and quite dishonest with others. People who "cheat" on their spouse aren't "nothing but liars". They, like everyone else, are complex human beings navigating relationships, sometimes poorly, sometimes well. They, like everyone else, do their share of fucking things up, and doing things well. They, like everyone else, do things in their relationships that are not very smart and not very nice. Find me one person who has kept every promise they ever made to their lover and I'll show you an inflatable doll.

People who subscribe to such black-and-white thinking scare me. That's the stuff that neo-con law-and-order bullshit is based on. That's the kind of essentialist thinking that fundamentalist religious types use to distinguish those who are "good" from those who are "evil".

I just don't buy it.

[ 11 August 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Although I do think that there are better and worse. I have certainly met a few of the worse.

It is awful to realize that you have been betrayed. Simply awful. And I repeat: I am thinking, and remembering, not only sexual betrayal here, although perhaps that is worst, but any betrayal of trust.

This thread surprises, me, actually. Perhaps it will shift direction soon. Usually on babble, these discussions head in the other direction.

I guess all I'm saying is that the automatic, knee-jerk assumption that "it must be the cheater's fault" when a marriage breaks down isn't always true. It may sometimes be true, if the person who cheated was also emotionally abusive, physically abusive, cruel, etc. But just the sexual infidelity in and of itself is not a guarantee that a person is a bad person or wholly (or even mostly) to blame for the end of a marriage. And this is the assumption we see so often. The assumption crosses the political and spiritual spectrum, and it's one that I think is faulty.

Some people are real jerks and treat their spouses much worse than their spouses treat them. However, it is possible that the cheating spouse could be the non-jerk spouse in that equation.

I knew this one couple a long time ago, when I was still a teen and they were adults. It was the gossip of the family friends circle I was in. A couple was breaking up and there had supposedly been infidelity on the wife's part. A couple of people completely took the husband's side, saying that she was a horrible person because she cheated.

However...others took her side, saying that the guy was an alcoholic, was emotionally abusive towards her, etc. When I was old enough to think about both sides of the story, I actually had more sympathy for her than for him. (And not because she was the woman - believe it or not, I have taken men's side in the past too ).

Maybe he felt betrayed by her "cheating". However, she spent a long time before that feeling betrayed by the way he treated her. And I've seen other marriages where one spouse is very emotionally abusive to the other. If there was infidelity involved, I would consider that a much lesser betrayal than the emotional abuse I have seen happen in some marriages.

I think all marriages that end in divorce, end because of betrayal. And I don't think sexual infidelity is any worse than any other kind of infidelity, particularly emotional. If I'd had my choice in my marriage, I would have much rather had my husband cheat on me than to utterly destroy my self-confidence with emotional abuse over a long period of time.

Where's the stuff about how to have guilty, furtive sex, in the middle of the day, at a seemy motel (the ones on the Lakeshore are passing so quickly into oblivion!) with mildew on the bathroom tiles?

Where are the hats? Nobody on that site is wearing a hat. If you're having an affair, you must wear a hat: broad-brimmed for women, preferably with a scarf, and for men, fedoras only, please. And, there's not a single supplier of trench coats listed.

And where's the directions on how to smoke your cigarette woefully after the passion is spent, while you lie on the threadbare sheets in your black slip, gazing up at the water-stained ceiling?

It's not enough for the site to provide the bodies with which to have affairs - where are the lessons in panache? I mean, really - there are conventions to be observed, after all.

[ 12 August 2004: Message edited by: andrean ]

[ 12 August 2004: Message edited by: 'lance ]