How a Scandalous Sex Site Stays Hot in the Era of Throuples
Ah, the scandalous 2010s: Anthony Weiner’s sexts, Fifty Shades of Grey, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s love child. It was in this fecund soil that Ashley Madison—the infamous website dedicated to extramarital affairs—became a household name. The website and its purposely eye-raising slogan—“Life is short, have an affair”—seemed to define a decade filled with tawdry turpitude and tabloid titillation.
But when I recently received an email from the Ashley Madison press team, my first reaction was, “That still exists?” (I am apparently not alone here: The first suggested search when you type the company into Google: “Is Ashley Madison still a thing?”)
It’s not just that the site suffered one of the most famous data breaches of the 21st century, revealing millions of member accounts and exposing the affairs of government workers, celebrities, and probably your middle school softball coach. It’s also that, in the golden age of “ethical non-monogamy,” when New York magazine is publishing “A Practical Guide to Polyamory” as its cover story, and major celebrities are coming clean about their open marriages, you have to wonder if anyone is still having “affairs”—especially on a website older than Facebook.