Ad airs on MSNBC for one-night-stands: How pop culture convinces men they deserve to cheat

Ashley Madison wants your husband to cheat. In fact, Ashley Madison believes that your husband (and you, for that matter) deserve to cheat. "Life's short. Have an affair," is the company's slogan, and it's in the business of helping you do exactly that.

I'm not making this up, though, if you're as naive as I was, you're likely shocked. The company, incidentally one of many, acts as pimp or affair broker, if you will, hooking up those looking for affairs with those offering affairs.

The company tries to look upscale, implying that your affair won't be with some toothless hooker, but with an elegant, gorgeous, brilliant partner who will thrill you in bed...and out. The ads deftly ignore the destruction wrought by affairs – the potential STDs, the dishonesty, the lack of respect for another's feelings.

You don't see the sobbing wife. The confused children. The divorce lawyers drawing up papers. No, Ashley Madison peddles in the currency of entitlement and no regrets.

Sure, cheating would happen without ads on MSNBC encouraging it. But somehow making money off helping married men deceive their spouses seems utterly grotesque.