AshleyMadison.sg: your Q&As

OK there has been so much said in response to my original post on the Ashley Madison controversy that I simply have to do a follow up! Just to update you guys, the MDA has moved to block ashleymadison.sg before the site was even launched, as a response to the public protest against the site. It gained enough attention in the press for it to be turned into a political football and the government reacted, seeing the goal just sitting there, waiting to be scored. Many Singaporeans were indeed very happy with the result and there weren't actually any who lamented at the lost opportunity to find an affair on ashleymadison.sg! So, I want to do a follow up and answer some questions and comments which have been left in response to my last post. Let's start with this one from the TRS website:

Xavier Cham · National University of Singapore

No one denies that adultery has existed long ago. The issue here involves the barriers-to-entry of adultery. There's a difference between having cocaine available in the black market and selling it in 7-11. By keeping AM out of Singapore, people would have to stick to more troublesome means of committing adultery. This will filter out the desperate. Introducing the website will not only intensify the vices of the already adulterous, it will also make adultery so convenient that normally faithful partners, who happen to be going through a rocky time, may start to view adultery as an option because of how easy it can be achieved on a website specifically aimed at promoting it. To say that adults can think for themselves and hence, bear the consequences, is moreover not a sufficient consolation, because when adultery happens, the price is paid not only by the adults, but the children involved.

Well Xavier, you are clearly an intelligent guy... But let's look at the issue in a little bit more detail for I believe you are indeed simplifying things. You are flattering Ashley Madison by imagining that it does remove (or at least greatly reduce) the barriers to entry when it comes to adultery. It's just a website at the end of the day, a dating website - I trust you've been on one of them before, it is not a new concept. You get to meet other people online, chat with them and they still need to like the way you come across, the way you look etc before consenting to an affair. Now the website can't help you with all that - it is down to the individual to make himself attractive to any potential lover out there.

Does Xavier understand what adultery actually is?

Like any dating website, Ashley Madison does not guarantee success - in fact, it is free for women to use the website but men have to pay. That's like those clubs who let women in for free but charge men an entry fee just to try to balance out the gender ratio on the dance floor Furthermore, there was an embarrassing story for Ashley Madison when it emerged that they hired a woman to create fake profiles in for their Brazilian site. By that token, there are probably far more men on Ashley Madison than women, something they're unlikely to admit but are desperately trying to deal with if their users are to be able to have some success on their site. So please, some of you like Xavier are treating it as if you're almost guaranteed success when you use the Ashley Madison website when really, your chances of finding an affair there is probably pretty low if you're a man but the odds are somewhat better if you are a woman.

So really, I believe Xavier is looking at it the wrong way when it comes to the issue of adultery. How hard or troublesome the path to adultery is does not depend on the existence of technological aids (such as dating websites) - rather, it boils down to something a lot more basic: how beautiful you are. That's right, we live in a very shallow world: it's all about your looks and it is all about physical attraction.

Your chances of finding a lover depends on your looks and wealth. 

My former colleague Ian is married with two daughters - he is well educated, charming, intelligent, has a good job, dresses well and is devilishly good looking. I have seen the way women and gay men flirt with him over the years. Ian is faithful to his wife and is not looking for an affair, but because he is just so darn handsome and oozes charm, he naturally attracts a lot of attention by people seeking good looking men and if he wanted to have an affair, it wouldn't be difficult or troublesome at all as these people are coming to him (rather than him going to them).

Let's contrast Ian with another one of my former colleagues 'Brown' - let's call him Brown because he always wore this old brown sweater in the office. Brown is single and looking - he goes out of his way to pursue any single lady who would talk to him. But does he have any luck with them? Absolutely not. Sorry, but Brown just doesn't quite have the social skills to do well on the dating scene - he isn't good looking either (if I may be blunt, most would consider him ugly), he is rather overweight and has no dress sense either. Despite being single and available, he is single and unwanted. Ouch, I'm sorry, it sounds extremely cruel of me to speak of Brown like that - but I remember speaking to a female colleague about him and she was like, "yeah he's a nice enough guy, I'll gladly be his friend and go for a drink after work that kinda thing, but a date? No, I don't think so - he's just not my type. My type tends to be good looking men. Sorry, so sue me, I am shallow. Guilty as charged."

Comparing it to cocaine isn't particularly helpful either Xavier, the thing about cocaine is that you can purchase it with cold, hard cash. It doesn't matter if you're fat or thin, male or female, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, old or young, as long as you hand the cash over to the drug dealer, you will be able to buy your cocaine. The drug dealer is interested in your cash, he's not interested in having an affair with you or having sex with you. It is simply the wrong analogy in this case. As for what Xavier said about 'filtering out the desperate', well let's look at what he is referring to then.

"The desperate" I suppose as those who are desperate to find sex outside their marriages - well, if they are really that desperate, that's a really straight forward solution: visit a prostitute. Look if you're that desperate, simply pay a prostitute for sex et voila, problem solved. There is no shortage of prostitutes in a city like Singapore (has Xavier somehow conveniently forgotten that they existed) and indeed, the red light district of Geylang has been infamous for prostitutes and brothels way back in the 1970s and 1980s. "The desperate" are going to make their way to Geylang - they are certainly not going to bother with Ashley Madison. Ashley Madison caters for those who are looking for something different and are willing to take their time to search online until they find something right.

The desperate go to Geylang for a far more low-tech, traditional solution.

Let me give you an analogy. I like shopping for shirts online - I like to be able to track down unusual designs and find something that is unique and not found in the shops on the high streets. I have no shortage of shirts in my closet at the moment and I'm not desperate for a new shirt - but am willing to spend a lot of money if I can find something unique and beautiful online from a designer who isn't that well known. Yes, I do adore my formal wear, I like to look smart and still have a touch of personality whilst dressed for the office.

Let's contrast this with my friend Matthias - he has recently graduated from university and has just started a new office job. He had to go out and buy a whole lot of shirts because he needs to be in formal office attire for this new job (university students tend not to have a whole lot of formal office wear). So he went to the high street with a desperate need to buy at least five formal shirts to wear to work. Thus by the same token, not everyone who goes onto Ashley Madison is 'desperate' - they may simply be doing what I am doing when it comes to shirts, looking for something special but happy to hold back until we come across something truly beautiful and unique. The desperate would not go online and look but simply rush to the first place where they can get what they want: in Matthias case, it was the shopping centre on the high street to buy his shirts and in the case of married men desperate for sex outside their marriage, the answer is Geylang (or the nearest red light district).

Matthias has been busy shopping for new shirts.

So will this website "intensify the vices of the already adulterous" as Xavier alleges? I don't think so. Let's stick with my shopping for formal wear and imagine that my vice is that I am addicted to shopping. (Have you seen the movie Confessions Of A Shopaholic?) What would make someone like me buy ten new shirts, six ties and five pairs of shoes on a shopping spree? Now that would happen if I walked into a shop that had the sign, "clearance sale! 75% off! One day only! SALE SALE SALE!" Lelong-lelong bargains!" Is Ashley Madison promising all that? No, it is quite clear what it kind of service it provides and it clearly does not promise you success on the site just because you pay for the service. And hence no, it will not intensify the vices of those who are already adulterous.

This begs the question: so what will intensify the vices of those who are already adulterous? Well there's a simple answer: the logistics of adultery - something Xavier probably has never ever thought about and which I will discuss now. I have already talked about my former colleague Andy who is a serial adulterer in a recent blog post. He lives with his wife and two children and thus trying to bring a mistress home is strictly out of the question. He works in an office and observes fairly standard working hours (say 9 am to 6 pm). Weekends are mostly spent with his children and extended family (he regularly takes his children to visit their grandparents on the weekends), so weekends are not good either. Realistically, the only time slots he has for adultery are lunchtimes during weekdays and that time slot between leaving the office and arriving home. The latter tends to be the more convenient time slot for him to use as lunchtimes can be really too rushed, especially on busy days.

Andy's problems revolve around the logistics of adultery. 

What would help Andy intensify his adulterous vices then? It is not a website to help him find more lovers (he has no problems doing that believe you me), it is simply being able to have more time to meet his lovers or having a convenient place to have sex with his lovers near his office in central London. Business trips tends to be the time when Andy has the most freedom to "intensify his adulterous activities" - he is more likely to have more free time on his schedule between meetings, he will have a hotel room in town and most of all, he is not expected to return home to his wife by a certain time. All of these logistical challenges for Andy's adulterous activities cannot be solved by Ashley Madison - Andy will have to use his money to solve these issues, for example, by paying for an expensive central London hotel room to meet his lovers in, for an hour or two after work. Indeed, there are hotels around the world where you can rent by the hour (rather than by the night) and such arrangements allow those who intend to use the hotel for adulterous activities a convenient solution to a logistical problem.

Indeed, there are hotels in Singapore who do indeed allow you to rent a room by the hour (rather than paying for a whole night), so why isn't the government (or indeed Xavier) criticizing these hotels for offering a logistical solution to those looking for a convenient place to commit adultery then?

Is it even possible to discourage someone like Andy from committing adultery?

Let's move on to Xavier's next statement,  "it will also make adultery so convenient that normally faithful partners, who happen to be going through a rocky time, may start to view adultery as an option because of how easy it can be achieved on a website specifically aimed at promoting it." No Xavier, adultery is not convenient because Ashley Madison doesn't guarantee any kind of success and your relative success when it comes to establishing any kind of relationship (romantic or adulterous) depends so much on basic factors like how handsome or ugly you are - such a website cannot fix an ugly face, to put it bluntly. If you have an ugly face, you need a plastic surgeon, not Ashley Madison, if you want to find a lover.

In any case, if you are going through a difficult patch in your relationship, the most obvious solution is to break up. This may take the form of a separation or a divorce. This is a fact of life, not all marriages will survive and some will fail. You are putting the horse before the cart here Xavier. It is not adultery that makes marriages fall apart - if a marriage is already dysfunctional, that's when adultery happens. Adultery is a symptom rather than the cause of a broken, dysfunctional marriage. Now please note I am not justifying adultery in any way here (I believe that divorce is always a better option than adultery), I am just pointing out a huge flaw in Xavier's logic.

Adultery is a symptom, not a cause, of a broken, dysfunctional marriage. 

Whilst Ashley Madison does have an interesting marketing campaign, how many of us are actually susceptible to their marketing campaign? Time for a reality check, let's look at this Lynx ad below for their deodorant (click on this link here if you're reading this on TRS as they always remove my embedded youtube clips). Warning, it is such a bad ad.

How many of you are going to watch this ad and think, "great, if I use Lynx's deodorant, I will get a lot more sex, women will literally hunt me down." Most of us would be like, "yeah right and ugly guy with deodorant is still an ugly guy smelling of deodorant - nothing's changed." Sure Ashley Madison can try to convince you that their website will bring you great pleasure and the sexiest experiences in the world - but how is that any different from the Lynx ad above? Surely Xavier is not going to watch that Lynx ad above and take it at face value? Are Singaporeans really that naive? Xavier seems to think so. He's not giving Singaporeans the benefit of the doubt when it comes to believing the hype in advertising.

Are you impervious to the messages in advertising?

Lastly, moving on to the last point Xavier made. "To say that adults can think for themselves and hence, bear the consequences, is moreover not a sufficient consolation, because when adultery happens, the price is paid not only by the adults, but the children involved." Let's talk about children in the case of adultery. When it comes to adultery, parents tend to hide it pretty well from their children and the spouse they are cheating on. They call it cheating for a good reason, when you cheat, you are hiding something. If the husband came home and announced to his wife that he has a mistress, then that's not cheating. That's adultery but that isn't cheating when you're open about it.

It seems that Xavier doesn't actually know anyone who has been personally affected by adultery or is involved in adultery actively - I do. My friend Jill (who is about my age, 37) told me that she found out that her father had an affair when she was a teenager - it was with a work colleague and it went on for many years. Jill knew that her parents had relationship problems and argued a lot, but it was always behind closed doors and her mother did find out about the affair - but her parents chose to shield the children from the whole episode. I asked Jill how she felt about it - Jill said she thought it was silly of her mother to have bottled up her feelings like that rather than came to her for support, even if she was just 14 or 15 years old then, she could have given her mother emotional support. Her mother just said, "you wouldn't have understood or knew how to deal with it then, you were just a child, so we kept it from you, we had to."

Parents always shield their children from the ugliness of the adult world.

Parents who do indulge in adultery do so because their marriages have broken down to the point where they are looking for romance elsewhere - it happens.The love in some marriages fizzle out over the years to the point where you become two housemates, living under the same roof, domestic partners who have drifted apart over the years. However, how the parents feel about each other do not reflect on how the parents feel about their children - that is a completely different issue. There are many things that parents do shield their children from and the ugliness of a dysfunctional marriage is one of the things that they usually do a pretty good job of hiding from their children.

Please note, I am not condoning adultery per se - I am just saying that parents don't stop loving their children even if they stop loving each other. Indeed, when parents stop loving each other, it may make far more sense for them to get it over and done with and just get a divorce, rather than turn to adultery. That would be the obvious solution - yet so many choose not to take that option.

Parents may fall out of love with each other but not with their children.

Ironically, do you know what Xavier has done in his post? He has given Ashley Madison a great advertisement - he is spreading the message that it is a website that works brilliantly! Let's look at the glowing endorsement he has given the website. In Xavier Cham's very own words, he said that:

" (Ashley Madison) will also make adultery so convenient... because of how easy it can be achieved on a website specifically aimed at promoting it."

- Xavier Cham of NUS, on TheRealSingapore.com 

This is the kind of publicity and endorsement that money can't buy. Note that despite my somewhat more liberal attitude, I did not endorse or condone the website. In fact, I went as far as to say that it wouldn't deliver the kind of results it promises and that the success rate on it is no different from any other dating website - so much more is dependent on other factors (such as your looks, your wealth etc) rather than anything else the website can deliver. It's just a website at the end of the day. I am actually telling people not to waste their money on Ashley Madison and spend their money on themselves, improving their appearances (hair care, skin care, nice clothes & shoes, teeth whitening, a gym membership, yoga classes etc) if they want to improve their chances of getting a lover (in whatever context). Xavier is actually telling them that Ashley Madison works and is fantastic, you really can't ask for a better endorsement than that! #irony Oh Xavier, Xavier, Xavier... you didn't think this one through, did you? 

Does Xavier realized he has given Ashley Madison a glowing endorsement?

Have you ever heard of the saying, "the forbidden fruit is always sweeter" - or in French, they say it is l'excitation d'avoir l'interdit ("the thrill of having the forbidden"). The way Xavier has wrapped it up by labeling it both a sleazy website that is convenient, efficient and that delivers results easily plays right into the hands of the owners of the website. Noel Biderman would probably dance with joy if he read Xavier's statement and probably scowl at me if he ever read anything I have ever written about his website. Let's move on to two other questions that have been left by others.

Davin9 November 2013 12:53

The fact the government repealed Section 498 (which criminalises a man from having illicit intercourse with a married women) a couple of years ago means that the government had essentially legalised adultery in this country. Why ban the site then? It facilitates a legal activity.

Well Davin, it is not about the legal status of adultery, it has turned into a political football. The government has to decide if it has more to gain or lose by banning the website - after doing a cost-benefit analysis, they decided that they have a lot more to gain (appeasing the conservative Singaporeans) by banning the website than actually allowing it to function. What have they got to lose? Pissing off some liberals who believe in the freedom of the internet? (They can live with that.) Losing any tax revenue from AshleyMadison.sg (if it is operated out of Canada, then there's no tax revenue to be collected, unlike say a business which has a real presence in Singapore like a shop, resort or a hotel.) Thus in that context, the government made a carefully calculated decision in their best interest and it doesn't surprise me at all. There really wasn't any alternative for them but to ban the site or risk looking weak. 

Chin Lam Toh9 November 2013 02:45

Hi LIFT, We've just heard that the MDA intends to block the Ashley Madison website so Singaporeans wont be able to access it after all. Not sure how this works: why would Ashley Madison launch a Singapore website, only for it to be blocked by the government? It sounds like a roundabout way of outlawing the website.
It would have been easier for Noel Biderman to seek a greenlight before deciding to launch, rather than launch & then get blocked. The question now is: if the website has been blocked, does that mean it'll be illegal to access it, if you somehow manage to get around the firewalls & pay a curiosity visit to the site?

Good question - Ashley Madison originally intended to launch the Singaporean version of their website in four languages (English, Mandarin, Malay and Tamil) to cater for the local market, which begs the question, how well do they understand the local market when really, just English would probably suffice. Hence why was it necessary to try to even launch a local version when the existing international versions would be able to cater for English-speaking Singaporeans anyway? Now that just seems somewhat illogical to me, why did they bother? 

Was a Singapore version of the site even necessary in the first place?

If you were to log onto their American version, you would be able to search geographically for someone local to you. So if you're in Los Angeles, you won't be interested in chatting to someone on the other side of the country in Miami or New York - you want to find someone local. The database allows you to narrow your geographical search so you can choose to see all the relevant profiles within California, the greater Los Angeles area or within a specific area very local to you. By that token, they can just so easily allow Singapore to be classified as another one of the geographical areas on one of their English language sites without launching a Singapore-specific version of the site. From an IT perspective, it doesn't make sense to launch a Singapore version of the site, but one can only then assume that they are deliberately trying to be provocative and stir up controversy. After all, no publicity is bad publicity. 

As for accessing the site from Singapore (say via VPNs), no it is not illegal to simply look at a site that is blocked. But please, as I have said before, you're going to be sorely disappointed when you get there as it is no more than an ordinary dating site. There has been so much hype about this website but when you actually get there, if you're expecting anything really sleazy or outrageous, you're going to be disappointed. It is not pornographic in nature, it really resembles any other dating website. The police in Singapore are far more focused on activities which are indeed illegal, which result in victims of crime - to be totally blunt, they know that if some Singaporean does somehow manages to go onto the website and have a look at it for a victims, well, what are the consequences of that? It doesn't result in any victims or damage to property or anything which necessitates police intervention. Let's be realistic here about the concept of what is a 'crime'. The blocking of this website (with the help of local ISPs) is a symbolic move to appease the conservative Singaporeans who oppose the website and that has already been achieved. 

Why is Ashley Madison treated like a scapegoat in this case? 

So there you for, that's it from me for now. If you have any other questions for me about this website, please give me a shout, leave a comment below, thank you for reading.