A woman one loves rarely suffices for all our needs, so we deceive her with another whom we do not love. - Marcel Proust
As a whore myself I have to admit the Ashley Madison Agency ads with slogans like “Don’t pay for an escort, find cheating wives in your area!” irritate me a lot more than the ones which simply say “Life is short. Have an affair.” But not by much. As I’ve said before, while I accept that male infidelity is extremely common, I think it’s reprehensible for a married man to have sex with amateurs without his wife’s permission. A whore is a professional who wants nothing more than her fee; she is scrupulous about protection and will not disrupt a marriage by calling her clients, demanding they leave their wives, whining “you don’t spend enough time with me” or any of the other behaviors which make a mistress a danger to a marriage. So as you might expect, I find the idea of a dating service which specifically markets itself to married people looking for affairs to be repellent in the extreme.
Before Thursday night (when I wrote this article) just about everything I knew about Ashley Madison appears in the paragraph above. I suspected that, like most dating venues which emphasize casual sex without commitment, the ratio would be dozens of men per woman, that most women who did join would not be the sort whom men pay attention to in real life, that the agency disguised the male-female disproportion by posting hundreds of fake woman-seeking-man ads and paying women to pretend to be customers, and that just about every other female ad which didn’t fall into one of the above categories was placed by an escort. As it turns out I was right (no big surprise), but what I didn’t realize was just how far this scam goes to part horny guys from their money; from what my research revealed, “chat lines” are bastions of ethical business practice by comparison.
I’ve seen Ashley Madison ads online for a number of years now, but never thought much about them until I saw this article about the agency attempting to purchase an ad during the Super Bowl. You would have to have lived under a rock for the past few decades not to realize how incredibly expensive Super Bowl ads are; a couple of million dollars a minute now, unless I’m very much mistaken. So the fact that Ashley Madison could afford such an ad made me sit up and take notice. I therefore decided to do a little digging, and what I discovered disgusted me even more.
Ashley Madison (named for two popular baby girl names of 2001, the year it was created) is the brainchild of a Toronto lawyer (why am I not surprised?) named Noel Biderman, who apparently thinks laws are more important than morals because he goes around saying things to interviewers like, “Adultery is the only thing in the world people think is immoral but a consensus still do it…What I’m saying is don’t have an office romance and risk losing your job. Don’t start a relationship with an unsuspecting single person and definitely don’t visit an escort service and risk breaking the law…We’re secure, anonymous and it was created exactly for people like you.” Because, you know, breaking an arbitrary law (which doesn’t even exist in Biderman’s country) is so much worse than risking destroying your marriage because you’re too cheap or too proud to call a whore and would rather risk entanglement with an emotionally damaged woman instead.
But that’s only the beginning of Biderman’s attacks on hookers and only the tenth part of his self-serving sleaziness. Do a Google search for any phrase like “Ashley Madison scam”, “Ashley Madison fraud” or “Ashley Madison review” and you’ll find websites stocked with testimonials for the agency and either insinuating or outright stating that escorts carry venereal diseases. Of course, as my regular readers know this is a crock of shit; escorts have a vested interest in staying clean, and promiscuous amateurs have far higher rates of every known STD. Why are these sites so eerily similar and why do they all carry praise for the agency when their names suggest otherwise? Because they’re all owned by Biderman, of course, as a quick whois search will reveal. It took me a bit of diligent digging to find any REAL criticism of the agency, and what I found is pretty much summed up on this site (there were a few others but this had the most and best-written critiques).
In a nutshell, if you’re a woman Ashley Madison is just fine because ten seconds after you sign up the men will be all over you like white on rice. But if you’re a guy it’s a total scam; you buy “credits” which are needed to do pretty much anything on the site (send a message, receive a message, start a chat, etc). The agency employs a number of shills and/or robots which bombard male members with fake messages that cost credits to open, and sending messages to the fake “too good to be true” ads costs credits as well and goes nowhere. If a man lucks out and picks an ad which actually goes to an escort he’ll get laid (after paying her fee, of course), but he could’ve made the same connection on a hooker board, Backpage, etc for free and without the hassle of trying to figure out which ads were for whores, which for fakes and which for real women twenty years and fifty pounds ago. Everything is set up like a casino or a carnival con game, enticing the poor bastard to keep throwing good money after bad in a futile effort to get something for nothing.
One of my serious university boyfriends (he was 28 when I was 19) once told me, “Maggie, nobody can take advantage of you unless you have larceny in your heart.” It took me a while to understand what he meant, which is this: There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. Ashley Madison holds out the promise of something for nothing: Extracurricular sex without monetary cost, commitment or risk. But as with all such offers, it’s a lie: Pussy costs, and free pussy is the most expensive kind. And Noel Biderman, AKA “Ashley Madison”, has figured out a way to tack on a hefty surcharge.
Excellent!!! How very true this is. I have tried to tell men this for several years, but millions still jump on the so called (Dating Sites) looking for free pussy, I ALWAYS told them NO Pussy is free.
I think many of the older guys that were in NAM, got use to pussy on demand, as the women would do EVERYTHING TWICE for a smoke. They come back home and never stop longing for the (good old days)..LOL!
Joyce
And I completely forgot what I intended to post. Whoops.
Too right. On one of the econ boards I read, a poster has a signature line which I think is brilliant.
“We’ve gone from a society that inherently understood there was no such thing as a free lunch, to one that believes the consumption of free lunches is revenue-generating economic activity.”
While what you say about escorts is generaly true, Maggie, it’s not universal. A few years ago, I patronized one who, trying to make more money out of me than I was willing to allocate for her because of my marriage to my very wonderful wife, did become a great pain and caused a strain on my relationship with my wife to the point where I had to go o great lengths to sever all ties with her. Of course I can chalk her actions up to her youth (18 at the time) and perennial drug use I learned of later. That said, she was a noteworthy exception. Most others I’ve dealt with have been smart enough to know I am devoted to my wife and are unwiling to hurt their own financial prospects by doing anything that would cause a rift between me and the woman I love so dearly.
Oh, there are definitely some bad ones; the type you’re talking about is the one I call a bad penny.
Either a bad penny or a total amateur. Weed those out and stick to professionals
Your university bf was a Heinlein fan, no? Good man.
It seems most (all?) of the dating sites operate the same way as Ashley Madison. What’s a decent, serious-minded fellow to do?
Yep, and so am I.
What reader with a brain isn’t?
“On the bounce, you apes!”
I can’t say that I’m a fan of Heinlein, because I could never finish his books. The only one I cotton to is “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” but that was only because of the different forms of marriage that existed in the Lunar Colony. Of course, as anyone who’s read it, polyandry was the rule due to the shortage of women (it being a penal colony and all).
That also struck me as interesting in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, Susan, and it also agrees with Heinlein’s later “sex operas” (as I like to call them — even though sex is not their only topic and often not even the main one, the sex part always gets the readers’ attention…), from Stranger In A Strange Land to To Sail Beyond The Sunset.
I will defend Heinlein, though. The man had an undeniably positive energy, and his characters, albeit often a little too perfect, are so pleasant to read about, to actually care about, that I find him quite worthwhile. Maybe you find him a little too preachy (who would have thought of inserting two full sections of aphorisms in a science fiction as he did in Time Enough for Love?); but think about the opinions he expresses, and how often they offer insight into people and society. And he’s so clear! Even if you disagree with him, you always know exactly why — which isn’t always easy to do. (Compare him with Samuel Delany, for instance — another author I quite admire, but who — alas! — is never ever clear…)
I’d also recommend “For Us the Living”, which was his first novel. You’ll see many of these same themes explored even at this early point in his writing career.
Curiously, this is almost literaly what I thought when I encountered a reference to Ashley Madison (in a feminist blog, of all places) — except for the escort part which didn’t occur to me.
As is very much always the case, if anything looks too good to be true it almost certainly isn’t.
[...] after reading a post by Maggie McNeill in regards to mistresses, there was an interview on HLN with this chick – Cathrine Goldstein – who was a mistress for [...]
When I was seeing others for sex only friendships, I put in my personal ads “NO married men”. Personally, I wouldn’t use this Ashley Madison service from what I’ve learned about it on here. I do want to say that the last time I saw anyone the website I used was free and run very well. I didn’t have any problems and the man I chose to meet after he answered my ad was wonderful. As far as cost went: sometimes I paid for dinner/drinks and other times it was Dutch treat or my date paid. There were a few times we didn’t spend anything and only talked. That was fine with me. A lot of this depended on how much money either of us had at the time. I also always had condoms, lubricant, etc., so didn’t ever ask for anyone to provide them. I did want to have a meeting in person before having sex, but there were a few times I felt so comfortable during phone conversations that we then met in person at my place. I did quit doing this, though, for various reasons and wouldn’t do so again. I did meet 1 of the men I saw on a regular basis this way before making that change. I also never lied about my weight and age. I was totally disgusted when I heard about the women who answered personals and lied about these things and others from the people I met. That was 1 reason I never did that. The website I used was for women who are big which I loved. I was already losing weight then, but wanted to just deal with men who like big women when going through replies. Thanks for this forum that lets me share these things openly.
You’re very welcome, Laura; I’m glad you feel so comfortable sharing here.
Maggie, I just wish to say; yes you are correct regards your findings of the males who constantly think with their small heads believing the hype of Ashley Madison and their ilk. After all male Hockey players were wearing a protective cup for their genitals as early as 1874 and did not put on a helmet for their upper heads until 1974……..
I do however disagree with, unless I have misunderstood, your making a comparison of synonymous definition regards, a Professional Courtesan, a Whore, a Prostitute and a Hooker.
As a male septuagenarian in the autumn of the age, having traveled almost all of the world in 33 years of military service, my experiences matured with advancement of age and somewhere about my thirties I became fully aware of the value, skills and talents of the Professional Courtesan especially in Viet Nam in 1968, finding very little commonality of comparable merit with the Whore, Prostitute and Hooker.
It is not my desire to enter into combative dialogue with you or any one else, I just believe that respect is due those who truly earn it by the merit of their performance.
Hi there, Jorge! “Whore” is a general term for any woman who takes money for sex, “prostitute” is its legalistic synonym and “hooker” is a slang term. They’re all general terms, whereas “courtesan” is a term for a specific kind of whore. Think of it this way: Master chefs and fry cooks are a world apart, but they’re still both cooks. I like using the general terms because 1) the different “classes” of whores aren’t sharply defined; 2) all of us, from $50 streetwalker to $1000/hour escort, are equally “criminals” under American law; 3) it keeps me from getting too full of myself; and 4) if I use those terms myself, nobody else can use them to insult me.
This whole thread is refreshing. It’s just a great piece that provoked some well written responses. I particularly liked the differences of opinion on whore, hooker, prostitute, streetwalker and courtesan. Before I head off to ‘NAM’ where women apparently do everything twice for a smoke (do they still, really?), I do have a comment for Maggie. As someone who opens a piece with ‘As a whore myself…’ and gone on via main post and some really well written responses to write about the honey trap (I meant money trap) that A-M is, you have immediately propelled yourself from being a $/hour service provider to a pen(wo)man of some rather deft skills. Well written stuff, girl. And true too, I believe.
Thank you, Major Tom! Please keep visiting, reading and commenting!
While I do agree in general,
My little experience looking at AshleyMadison as a free user “seemed” to have a fair number of real-looking women.
There are obviously fakes (I doubt they are actually online all the time).
But I’ve found matching accounts on sites like okcupid for real people.
Now I refuse to pay for the AM site.
Which gives me little real interaction and only hopes that women would google my username to email me.
But my 3 interactions with “whores” have been complete failures. None have really turned me on. The most successful was when I posted an ad on CL when I was visiting another city (more discussion and pics over email)
But I’m fairly young, maybe too young for this.
Oh…I was on match.co.uk for a bit. I must have emailed 100 psycho women and finally went on dates with TWO who made the cut after talking to them….and BOTH of them were crazy when actually put to the test of a date. I never renewed and I would NEVER bother with a dating site again.
I figured AM was the same. They all are.