The Ashley Madison Hack: Let's Think of the Wives

Ashley Madison, as I've said before, was created by a smug idiot delighted to profit off other's pain. Adultery did quite well on its own, of course, long before Noel Biderman created a site with the tagline: Life's short. Have an affair. (If life's so damn short, how hard is it to stay faithful to your spouse?) But to encourage and facilitate cheating takes garden-variety infidelity to a new low.
So it was with a certain glee that I heard about the hack of Ashley Madison and the threat by a group calling itself the Impact Team to expose the 37 million male subscribers (female subscribers don't have to pay so they're largely exempt from exposure, at least for now).
I couldn't resist a few tweets about the irony of guys who paid to join a cheating Web site expressing outrage that the site that had promised them anonymity and security had betrayed them. Or wonder aloud if life probably mightn't seem so "short" now that there's the possibility of spending years of it without your wife and kids by your side.
My glee, however, was short-lived. Because for every jerk who gets outed by this hack, there's a wife whose life is blowing up. And don't we all know her pain and the long journey ahead?
However this plays out, I hope that even the threat of exposure has made more than a few AM subscribers reconsider just what the hell they're doing. To ask themselves why they're risking their marriage for a not-necessarily-discreet encounter. To examine why they're going outside of their marriage rather than spend some time and/or money to fix what's wrong inside their marriage. Or, if they're really miserable and hopeless, spend some time and/or money to work toward an amicable divorce.
Cause that's the thing with cheating: you can't un-cheat. Once you've crossed that line, whatever the line is (texting dirty photos, confiding in a "secret" friend, or sex in a hotel room), you've betrayed your partner.
Maybe "cheating dirtbags who deserve no discretion" is a bit much. I doubt all of them are dirtbags. I imagine some are guys who are lonely and at a loss for how to reconnect with their partner. Some of them likely believe their partner has lost all interest in them, which may or may not be true.
Some might be struggling with their sexual identity. They might have bought into the promises of porn – quick easy sex that makes them feel like a stud.
Most have convinced themselves that what they're doing is a victimless crime. Nobody has to know, after all. So nobody gets hurt, right?
Until, of course, they do.
And then, if they have even a shred of integrity, all their excuses sound ridiculous. In the face of a loyal wife's bewilderment and pain and outrage, none of it really seems worth it. Not the thrill. Or the excitement. Or the novelty. Or the ease.
And certainly not the $19 fee that promised to protect your identity but did nothing of the sort.
So yeah...maybe these guys have it coming. They made the choice to cheat.
But not their wives. They don't deserve to discover that their husbands have betrayed them by reading about it on the front page of a tabloid. They don't need the additional pain of having to explain to their children just what Daddy has done and why the kids at school will be whispering. Or to face the embarrassed silence of their colleagues at work.
I wish these Ashley Madison subscribers would think about that when they're fuelling their self-righteous fury about their security being compromised. I hope it hits them like a slap in the face that the terror they feel right now about being exposed is nothing to the terror of realizing that trusting your husband was a mistake. Or the humiliation of sitting in a doctor's office to be tested for STDs when you've been married to the same man for two decades. Or the paranoia of wondering how many people have known and for how long and why did nobody say a thing.
So while the Impact Team is ostensibly threatening to take down a company on the basis of some high-handed moralizing – to embarrass the corporation and anyone who trusted in it – I'll be thinking of the millions of women about to join our ranks. Because they are the only truly blameless ones in this whole mess.

6 Signs Noel Biderman is an idiot: The founder of Ashley Madison shares his..uhhh...deep thoughts

Noel Biderman considers himself simply a businessman...and, perhaps, one unfairly persecuted for his particular business. But whether you think he deserves persecution would likely depend on whether or not you've ever been betrayed. Biderman runs AshleyMadison.com, a Web site for married people seeking affairs. Its slogan, "Life's short. Have an affair" offers up an indication of just how cavalierly Biderman takes this particular transgression.

He wants us, similarly, to view affairs not as devastating or soul-destroying, but rather as fairly harmless...in some cases, he believes, even helpful. In fact, he's written a book "Cheaters Prosper: How Infidelity Will Save the Modern Marriage" to guide us through his thoughts and recently spoke with a Globe & Mail reporter to share his wisdom. And while I know women who believe that their spouse's affair ultimately led to some wonderful changes in their own lives, I know not one who would ever suggest having an affair is a path toward personal growth or marital happiness. So...6 signs Noel Biderman is an idiot?? Read on...

1. Biderman asserts that polygamy is a more natural state than monogamy and that "many cultures are still happy to condone that kind of approach." While I'm no anthropologist and I know of at least a few studies that suggest humans are not naturally monogamous, I nonetheless know of no cultures in which women are polygamous. In other words, polygamy is essentially gender inequality – a state of matrimony in which women are little more than baby-making machines. Hardly something we women aspire to.

2. His subtitle, indicating that he believes infidelity will save the modern marriage, is based on his belief that "postinfidelity, you find that it's a real opportunity for you to take a reflection." I would suggest that this reflection should ideally take place before one invites another into the marriage. However, upon further reading of the article, I realize that...

3. Biderman suggests that this reflection occur in the betrayed spouse! How naive of me to assume that it was the cheating spouse who might  want to spend a little time "reflecting." The "you" is...me. And he suggests that, once I learned about my husband's infidelity it was my chance to "come to the logical conclusion that [I] was contributing to this affair..." How? Apparently, by not giving my husband enough sex. Which brings us to:

4. Biderman, like many, many people, believes that affairs are about sex. Yet there's ample evidence, anecdotally and in books, articles, journals by marriage counsellors who've dealt with the fallout of thousands of AshleyMadison.com et al casualties revealing that affairs are rarely just about the sex. According to Gary Neuman, a marriage counsellor who wrote The Truth About Cheating, ninety-two percent of men say it wasn't primarily about the sex. "The majority said it was an emotional disconnection, specifically a sense of feeling underappreciated. A lack of thoughtful gestures," Neuman says. Which still amounts to another man blaming wives for their husbands cheating...but at least he isn't blaming it on lack or variety of sex.

5. Biderman's evidence that infidelity will improve our marriages? A lot of men, he says, are "angry and taking things out on their family." Why? Sexual frustration, of course. "They start having an affair and all of a sudden, that stress if removed." As a result, he suggests that "it might be easier not to be frustrated with your partner. The conversation could take a different directional tone and that could lead to intimacy." Conversational tone such as "did you get a blowjob over the lunch hour, honey?" or perhaps "will I need to be tested for STDs or did you use a condom?" Is this guy for real?

6. And finally, Biderman notes that he'd be devastated if his wife cheated on him. Surprising, since her cheating would, by his estimation, lead him to incredible soul-searching and marital bliss once he comes to terms with what he did to make his wife cheat. In other words, I don't think even he believes his own bullshit. 

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.