I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck.
I have lived and traveled throughout the United
States. I have visited numerous foreign countries. I have served in the
military.
I have practiced the craft of journalism for nearly 50
years, which requires a finely honed dose of skepticism.
I have been involved in the coverage of thousands of
stories. I have seen and heard it all. Nothing surprises me. At least so I
thought.
Then I read this past week that an Internet site that
caters to married folks on the prowl for extramarital affairs had been hacked.
Revelations are threatened. Fear and loathing ensues.
The existence of the website is no surprise. The
Internet is full of enough decadence and depravity to make the Marquis de Sade blush.
What caused my jaw to bounce off my chest is that the site,
called Ashley Madison, claims to have nearly 38 million subscribers in the U.S.
and several foreign countries. You read that right: 38 million. Just for the
sake of comparison, there are 68 million married couples in the U.S.
Apparently, there’s a whole lot of cheatin’ going on.
Or not. There are a lot of ways to look at this: (1)
The website has greatly exaggerated the number of clients or (2) many who go on
to the website are curiosity seekers who don’t indulge in actual adultery. Or
(3), 30 million of the subscribers are teen-age boys who are getting their
jollies on the Internet.
Of course, there is also (4) we are a morally corrupt people
who preach devotion while practicing deviousness.
The answer is probably (5) all of the above.
According to several published articles, cheating
isn’t cheap.
The site offers a guarantee that you will find
someone: "We guarantee that you will successfully find what you’re looking
for or we'll give you your money back.”
However, the guarantee is so restricted by
conditions—one must buy the most expensive package, send "priority"
(more expensive) messages to 18 unique members each month for three months,
send 5 Ashley Madison gifts per month, and engage in 60 minutes of (paid) chat
per month,—that qualifying for it is
difficult and expensive.
And, cha ching, female members are allowed to send
"collect messages" that male members must pay for in order to read
them.
Making this somewhat less than user friendly is that
"more men than women use the service, with the disparity increasing as
they advance in age," and "Men seek sex, while women seek passion.”
What’s most astonishing about all of this is that are
38 million people who have no problem giving up their credit card numbers, sexual
proclivities and adulterous intent to a bunch of strangers running a
website. What could possibly go wrong?
Something did.
A group of hackers called The Impact Team reportedly
has posted some data already and is demanding that parent company Avid Life
Media, shut down Ashley Madison and a sister site, EstablishedMen.com,
according to Krebs On Security, a blog run by former Washington Post
reporter Brian Krebs.
In a manifesto obtained by Krebs, the hackers said:
“Avid Life Media has been instructed to take Ashley Madison and Established Men
offline permanently in all forms, or we will release all customer records,
including profiles with all the customers’ secret sexual fantasies and matching
credit card transactions, real names and addresses, and employee documents and
emails.”
All of this raises a question: Does hacking an
Internet site and revealing information about its clients constitute a worse
offense than infidelity?
Perhaps these statistics will shed some light on the
issue.
Asked about infidelity, 22 per cent of married men
admit to having strayed while 14 per cent of women admit to cheating at least
once. But 74 per cent of men say they would have an affair if they knew they
wouldn’t get caught while 68 per cent of women agree.
So the fear of getting caught in flagrante
delicto is a major deterrent. And what’s a sure-fire way to get
caught? Send your darkest secrets off to
a sleazy Internet site.
In this case, perhaps hackers hold the moral high
ground. After all, The Impact Team doesn’t appear to be interested in financial
gain or to have a political agenda. Instead, their purported motivation
is moral outrage.
Interestingly enough, a 2013 Gallup Poll that
listed behaviors and societal realities that included porn, gambling, abortion,
polygamy, and the death penalty, 91 percent of survey respondents flagged
adultery as morally reprehensible. It drew a higher rate of disapproval than
any issue on the survey.
Instinctively, we sense that lying to and betraying
the one person we’ve sworn fealty to is far worse than simply divorcing that
person. Condemnation of divorce has decreased since 2001, but disapproval of
adultery has held steady.
All of which proves that 38 million people can be
wrong.
Robert Rector is a veteran of 50 years in
print journalism. He has worked at the San Francisco Examiner, Los Angeles
Herald Examiner, Valley News, Los Angeles Times and Pasadena Star-News. His
columns can be found at Robert-Rector@Blogspot.Com.
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