- Ashley Madison's 2015 data leak offered evidence that all types of people cheat for various reasons.
- Immediately after the leak, those cheaters were harassed, blackmailed, and fired from work. Some committed suicide.
Cheaters are everywhere.
That's an obvious truth in today's internet-absorbed and hyper-connected world. But if it wasn't for Ashley Madison's massive 2015 data leak, during which the private information — including nude photos in some cases — of an estimated 32 million users was released online for anyone to access, we may not have realized just how many cheaters may really be among us.
When Ashley Madison launched in 2001, the site was a pioneer for discreet yet judgment-free cheating via the internet. And people hated it. To the critics, the site was helping unfaithful spouses who, by mainstream standards, were considered inherently bad people who could never justify their behavior. Cheaters deserved to be hated, and that was that.
Despite the critiques, the site said it kept growing, bringing in new members each year. And in 2015, when hackers released the names, addresses, and intimate photographs of enough Ashley Madison users to completely populate the state of Texas, we had solid proof that all kinds of people, including politicians, mothers, and reality stars known for being devout Christians, are cheaters.
Hulu's new three-part docuseries "The Ashley Madison Affair," which premiered July 7, recounts the infamous website's rise to international recognition, its 2015 data leak, and the aftermath of those impacted. Unfaithful spouses' personal information and nudes were leaked for the world to see. They were given no privacy and no basic human respect, and many lost their jobs, families, and even lives because their affairs were made public.
But the site never stopped running and its executives now purport to have 75 million global members. Though unintentional, Ashley Madison's massive security flop forced us to reconsider the cheater stereotype and wonder if pervasive cheating signaled a deeper problem with how we view marriage, monogamy, desire, and honesty as a culture.
At the time, people felt justified in humiliating leaked Ashley Madison cheaters
An estimated 23% of American men and 12% of American women say they've cheated, according to the General Social Survey's latest data. And that's only the people who've admitted to it.
Clearly, monogamous marriages aren't working for everyone.
When certain Ashley Madison members were exposed, the damage of their decisions to put their monogamous marriages on the line became evident. They suffered some big losses — their jobs, their marriages, and even their lives, with at least five known members, including a pastor, committing suicide in the months that followed the leak. Others were excommunicated from their small communities when their local churches distributed their leaked nudes, as Hulu's series recounts.
When the fallout happened, bystanders debated whether the cheaters deserved it as penance for their deceptive and damaging behavior.
But if the leak happened today, it's hard to imagine it'd have the same deep and far-reaching impact for the cheaters involved.
Sexual monogamy is losing its chokehold on American society
Two years after the leak, renowned therapist Esther Perel released her book "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity" to explain the complexity of cheaters' motivations. It became a New York Times best seller and inspired a 2017 story in The New Yorker called "In Defense of Adulterers."
That same year, therapist Talal Alsaleem published a book outlining a course he created to help cheaters save their marriages, instead of turning them away to deal with the aftermath of their mistake alone.
In the mainstream, conversations about adulterers appear to be more nuanced, with more stories about why affairs happen and how to prevent them, including considering non-monogamous relationships. Even Jay-Z publicly shared his affair, and his wife Beyonce's decision to stay and work things out.
On the podcast She Wants More, women journalists take a non-judgmental approach to asking married women and mothers why they cheated, including one who used Ashley Madison.
Across all of these investigations into infidelity, the message is clear: Cheaters' cannot be stereotyped because their decisions to be unfaithful are far-reaching and complex.
A relationship must be constantly negotiated between partners, or else it runs the risk of dissatisfaction, distrust, and deception through an affair, Tammy Nelson, a therapist who researches cheaters' motivations and wrote "When You're The One Who Cheats," told me. To prevent unfaithful behavior in a relationship, partners must communicate with radical honesty, including the possible admission that maybe they'd like to have sex with other people, watch their wives sleep with someone else, or have a threesome. And maybe, saying those things out loud, instead of stuffing them down and joining an affair website, could be a better way forward.
People are realizing that dynamics like polyamory, swinging, and open relationships can be ways for partners who want more and varied sexual or emotional experiences to feel fulfilled, without the deception that we now know can lead to unimaginable emotional turmoil.
Ashley Madison's mess up brought non-monogamy to the mainstream
Despite these societal changes, and perhaps unsurprisingly, unhappy marriages still exist.
In the docuseries, three anonymous current users say that the 2015 leak didn't dissuade them from joining the website. And if they got caught, they would figure out how to deal with it, one user said, in spite of reports that some 2015 data-leak victims are still being blackmailed and extorted.
"We're offering something that's needed, wanted, and desired," Ashley Madison's Chief Strategy Officer Paul Keable said during the third and final episode of the Hulu series.
Ashley Madison's mere existence made us collectively aware of how common cheating really is. But the site's unintended leak, and its seismic effects on cheaters and their families, brought an even bigger concern to the surface: Is anyone really safe from cheating, and if not, how do we prevent it?
Ashley Madison screwed over its users in a massive way, but the site's unforgettable mistake also led to a massive realization: Cheaters are not a monolith, and they shouldn't be treated or judged solely by their unfaithfulness.