WTF Friday: A Website for Cheaters

I was tucked into bed on Wednesday night (well…technically Thursday morning since it was 1 am) flipping through the channels on TV to decide on a good bedtime story for my roommate and I.  After the usual Sex and the City disappointment, “UGH we JUST saw this episode” we were thrilled to stumble across our second favorite show: The Millionaire Matchmaker. Using commercial breaks as bonding time, we typically do not take much notice to the commercials.  But while gossiping about our latest drama, one particularly racy commercial caught our attention again and again and again.  It was a bit confusing, but it aired at least once during every break.

Take a look:

With no explanation of exactly what the advertisement was for, we were confused and interested.  WHAT is this website?! I grabbed my laptop, closed out of Facebook and searched for ashleymadison.com.

And what was it? “The World’s Premier Discreet Dating Service.” Now, nothing about this website was discreet, but it did have a creative motto: “Life is short, have an affair.”

Yes, my friends, this is a dating website.  For married people.  To find a cheating lover.  With 5.4 million members??? We were shocked!  Naturally, I googled the agency to read the buzz and to get to the bottom of this operation.  One blog writer claimed that the owner offered Tiger Woods $5 million to be the spokesperson.  Most likely a rumor, but funny enough to mention.  Of course there were numerous YouTube hits of President Noel Biderman on almost every talk show out there.  I thought to myself, “this guy is making a fortune off of ruining people’s lives… I  need to hear what the hell he has to say for himself.”

He preached the purpose of his website on Tyra, The View, CNN, etc. making ridiculous claims about how he believes he is actually helping people.  As he explains, about 30% (no idea where he got this statistic) of people on regular dating sites lie about their marital status so that they can start an affair.  Clearly an overwhelmingly good-natured person, he claims that eliminating these deceitful people from dating sites will help honest single hopefuls in their quest to find true love online.  He validates his company mission in a similar way to how a pro-gunman would support the legality of gun ownership, “guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”  Translated to assisted affairs:  the website does not make people cheat, it only helps those who have already decided to cheat find others in the same mindset.

Biderman is confident that he cannot convince someone to cheat, and that those who join have already made the decision to go down that path.  While this may be true to an extent, it is no rationale.  Some people who are conflicted in their marriages may think about wanting to cheat but never take action because it is too risky and the consequences would not be worth it.  This website creates an outlet for those individuals, making it extremely simple and “risk free” to start an affair.  Suddenly, something that they have only thought about doing becomes a realistic option.  There is a huge difference between thinking about cheating, and actually doing it.  Not to mention, the refund policy (of the completely reasonable $250 application fee) can only be awarded to those who have tried to contact twenty people.  Right, he can’t force someone to cheat, but he will require them to try TWENTY times before they can get their money back for failed efforts.  Oh, and he’s married with two kids.

Yeah, I know – WTF, dude?