The Ashley Madison Controversy in Singapore Analyzed

Much has been said about the Ashley Madison controversy in Singapore - for those of you who are not familiar with it, let me summarize it for you in a nutshell. Ashley Madison is a website for married people to seek sexual partners outside their marriage - it was launched in 2001 and is a successful website that has been established on five continents. There are plans to launch a Singaporean version of the website this month (November 2013). Many Singaporeans have protested to this website trying to target the Singaporean market, given that it facilitates adultery, but why is there such a strong reaction to this? Why this huge moral panic over Ashleymadison.com? In this article, I want to examine some of the issues behind this controversy.

Disclaimer: I want to make it clear that I am not expressing an opinion on the website myself - this is not about what Limpeh thinks of Ashley Madison, it is not me expressing a liking or dislike of the website. It is simply me looking at both sides of the argument and allowing you, the reader, to make up your own mind on the issue.

How do you feel about this whole Ashley Madison controversy? 

To begin with, it is easy to see why there has been such a strong reaction towards this website: not only is it condoning and facilitating adultery - it celebrates adultery. They are deliberately trying to be provocative with a slogan like, "Life is too short. Have an affair." To most Singaporeans who have never committed adultery or have even contemplated that idea, this is shocking to say the least - some found that idea extremely distasteful and hence have voiced their opposition to this website making its debut in Singapore. In an interview with My Paper, Mr Brian Liu, a member of Singapore’s National Family Council, said that the site had the potential to ruin "the foundations of a family".

I would like to play the devil's advocate for a moment and ask a few questions: is the concept of adultery totally new to Singapore? Does it take a Canadian website to teach Singaporeans how to commit adultery? No. Can anyone remember this:  "I have some mangoes for you. I love you and miss you loads.” Let's look at the Michael Palmer incident more closely and use it as a case study. How did Palmer meet Laura Ong, the woman he had an affair with? They reportedly met when he was a grassroots volunteer at Punggol South Ward, a perfectly innocent and respectable activity which still led to a scandalous, adulterous affair. Did they meet online, via an adultery website? No, they didn't - they met in person, in Punggol South. There must have been a moment when someone said, "Laura, I'd like you to meet someone please. Have you met Michael? Michael, this is Laura, one of our volunteers."

Laura and Michael met in person, not over the internet.

The fact is, Singaporean men who are determined to commit adultery have found ways to do so way before the age of the internet. Yes, I am old enough to remember the 1980s, way before any of us had smart phones, tablet devices and all manners of social media. But some Singaporeans still found low-tech ways to commit adultery - they didn't need the internet to help them, they simply had sexual liaisons with the people they met in real life in much the same way Michael Palmer met Laura Ong. As for the married men who were desperate to sleep around, there were always prostitutes around in places like Geylang even back then. They just had to pay for it - what Ashley Madison offers is an alternative to that experience with a consenting partner (rather than as a paying customer).

Let me tell you a story from my NS days. A group of guys in my unit regularly made trips to Johor Bahru and these trips often involved visits to massage parlours where you sexual services were thrown in for a bit of extra money. One of the guys in that group was the boyfriend of a former classmate of mine from my VJC days - I was then put in a dilemma: should I tell her about what actually goes on in these trips to Johor Bahru? Would she even believe me? Do I risk losing both her friendship and ruin the working relationship with a colleague (whom I had to face daily in camp)? Or would I be betraying an old friend by keeping quiet about it? I chose to keep quiet  then (I took the path of least resistance, I'm sorry, please don't hate me) but that was certainly not my first encounter with adultery in NS nor Singapore.

 

So whilst I'm sure all Singaporeans (even those who are vehemently opposed to the Ashley Madison website) would acknowledge that adultery is nothing new in Singapore, they will still argue that acknowledging (and even tolerating) adultery is quite different from celebrating and promoting it. They would argue that there will be many innocent spouses who would be hurt by their partner's infidelity and such a website would play an important role in facilitating adultery. Whilst this may all be true, allow me to ask another question: hypothetically, if the Ashley Madison is prevented from entering the Singaporean market, would it have any impact on the rate of adultery in Singapore? Would the rate of adultery in Singapore go up significantly if Ashley Madison was allowed to launch its Singaporean version of its website? Would it actually encourage faithful spouses to stray once this website is launched?

These will have to be hypothetical questions as it is virtually impossible to gather reliable data on something like adultery as those involved do always keep it a secret. I would however, like to play devil's advocate again. I lived in Singapore from 1976 (when I was born) till 1997 and one of the most memorable films from that era was Fatal Attraction (1987) which was a movie all about adultery. And yes, I watched it in Singapore despite the fact the movie being all about an adulterous affair - you could argue that such a movie could have encouraged impressionable young minds to believe that adultery is fun or acceptable and that this movie should not have been shown at all in Singapore.

But wait, whilst we're on the subject of movies that were big in Singapore back in the 1980s, what about any movie that contained murder, violence, sex, drugs and anything that could have offended the morals of innocent Singaporeans? I'm talking about movies like Scarface (1983), Hellraiser (1987), Evil Dead II (1987), The Fog (1980), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Die Hard (1988), Platoon (1986) and The Untouchables (1987), just to name a few. Did Singaporeans blindly ape what they saw in the cinemas back then? No, they didn't. Was there a moral panic over some of these films that were being screened in Singapore? Yes there was - but thirty years on, no Singaporean has become a terrorist just because he has watched Die Hard or become a mobster just because he watched Scarface back in the 1980s. Allow me to state the obvious here: this is just light entertainment, I may watch and enjoy a movie but I would not blindly copy anything I see in the film because I am an intelligent person who knows how to exercise judgment on what I see.

Why should it be any different with the Ashley Madison website then? Just because it is there doesn't mean that all married Singaporeans will log on, pay to use the site (that's right, it is not free - it is a profit-making business) and commit adultery. Let me give you another analogy - there is alcohol widely available in Singapore. Simply walk into any respectable supermarket and you will find a wide range of spirits, wines, beers and other alcoholic beverages. If you wanted to drink an excessive amount of alcohol (and effectively be an alcoholic), then there's really nothing to stop you from doing so and indeed, yes there are some people in Singapore who are indeed alcoholics but most of us know how to exercise some self-control when it comes to the consumption of alcohol. Let those who want to drink decide how much they wish to consume - alcohol is not outlawed or banned just because here is the possibility of some people becoming alcoholic. We trust adults on the issue - there is no moral panic over alcohol.

Should wine be banned to stop people from becoming alcoholics?

Ask yourself this: will the presence of a website like Ashley Madison in Singapore encourage those who have never ever thought of adultery before to stray from their marriages? I'm going to answer that question with another question: have Singaporeans who were determined to commit adultery find a way to do so without the help of a website like Ashley Madison? Evidently, they have - even all the way back in the 1980s and 1970s. This website may have caused a moral panic because the very concept of it has offended some Singaporeans - but this website is merely adding a commercial element to what has been going on already in Singapore for a very long time: it is using internet technology to make it more efficient for married people to find a lover discretely.

Sure, you have the right to be offended by websites like Ashley Madison. Sure, you have the right to speak up about it and voice your opposition to it. But then again, if it does go ahead and get launched, really, nothing much is going to happen. Those who are going to commit adultery are going to go onto that website and use it - those who won't will simply steer clear of it. Nothing is going to change in Singapore, really. So let's not get our knickers in a twist here.

Why do people get so angry over the Ashley Madison website?

Personally, the thing that disturbs me most about the Ashley Madison website is the hypocrisy of the owner Noel Biderman. He said that he is monogamous to his wife and would be devastated if his wife was on the website. I don't know... That doesn't sit well with me. You think it is so bad you wouldn't do it yourself, yet you're happy to help others do it? That's just double standards. But then again, I find this more puzzling than disturbing. It is like finding out that one of the biggest wine producers in France is teetotal and doesn't touch a drop of alcohol.

Lastly, just to finish off, let me tell you about a former colleague of mine Andy (not his real name) who is a serial adulterer. Andy is married with two kids and has been unfaithful to his wife for many years. Their marriage has fallen apart years ago, yet they are staying together to bring up the children and neither of them are in a position to bring up the two kids on their own. They both love their two kids, even if they no longer love each other. Their family unit is held together by a mutual desire to bring up their two children - rather than by any love left for each other. Thus Andy goes on dates with women and sleeps around and I asked him if his wife does the same thing. He said, "I don't know, I don't ask - probably, I think so, yes... but she won't tell me. I don't care if she does what I do."

Should Andy just get a divorce instead?

There simply isn't a typical profile of a married person who cheats - there are all kinds of reasons why a marriage ends up in a state where one (or both) partner(s) starts looking for fulfillment elsewhere. Certainly, in the case of Andy's marriage, the problem stems from the breakdown of communication between him and his wife and if I may be blunt, I don't think they were right for each other from the start. You can't blame some website that Andy stumbled upon - no, by all means, please blame Andy if you must for getting himself into this situation (of being trapped in a dysfunctional marriage), but don't use a website like Ashley Madison as a scapegoat for Andy's predicament.

I'd love to hear what you think about the issue, please feel free to leave a comment below, thanks! I shall leave you with one of the most beautiful songs by the late Whitney Houston 'Saving All My Love For You'- listen to the lyrics carefully, she is singing about being the other woman in an adulterous relationship. I remember singing along to this as a 9 year old (back in 1985) not realizing this lovely ballad was all about adultery.