WHILE an estimated 1 million Australians were presumably nervous wrecks on Tuesday in the wake of the Ashley Madison data hack, there was another concentrated cluster of cheaters wringing their hands on the other side of the world.
One in five Ottawa residents are allegedly subscribed to the cheating website, according to figures provided by the Toronto-based company, whose slogan is “Life Is Short. Have an Affair”.
In February, 189,810 Ashley Madison users were registered in the Canadian city, which has a population of about 883,000. It’s the biggest affair city in Canada and potentially the highest globally per capita, Reuters reports.
Noel Biderman, chief executive of Avid Life Media, which owns Ashley Madison,told a Canadian newspaper earlier this year that Ottawa was the marriage infidelity hotbed of the world. He claims the top postcode for Ashley Madison members is Parliament Hill, the home of Canada’s parliament.
Mr Biderman said capital cities around the world tended to have higher subscription rates, due to “power, fame and opportunity”.
Ottawa marriage counsellor Nataxja Cini said the city was full of professionals with demanding careers, many in government, which could put a strain on relationships. But being part of a stable family was still seen as a badge of success, and so an Ashley Madison subscription may be preferable to a divorce
“In our buttoned-down city, it may not be acceptable to openly explore outside of a committed relationship,” Ms Cini said.
An Ottawa resident, who declined to give her last name, said she was not surprised by the news her city was a cheating capital.
“In a blue collar city, they’re not going to use a website, they’re going to do it at a bar,” said Kary, 38. “[In Ottawa], you can’t run the risk of someone seeing you at a bar doing that.”
Private investigators and divorce lawyers in Ottawa say they expect their phones to be ringing off the hook in the wake of the scandal.
John Sullivan is a private investigator whose company Triangle Investigations Agency primarily investigates adultery. He says the scandal is a “goldmine” for PIs, but would “ruin marriages all over the world, all over the country”.
“There’s a lot of very nervous people walking the street,” Mr Sullivan told The Ottawan Sun.
People who are suspicious their spouse is cheating on them hire a PI to accumulate evidence in case they divorce. “Where the information is helpful is it becomes leverage to negotiate a better settlement for the client,” Mr Sullivan said.
Avid Life Media said on Monday that an “unauthorised party” was able to gain access to its data through various unauthorised points on the website.
A group calling itself “the Impact Team” claimed responsibility and said it was part of an effort to shut down Ashley Madison.
“Shutting down AM … will cost you, but noncompliance will cost you more,” the statement said. “We will release all customer records, profiles with all the customers’ sexual fantasies, nude pictures and conversations and matching credit card transactions, real names and addresses.”
Avid Life said some personally identifiable information was posted online before being removed and apologised for “this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information”.
The company said it was now offering members a “full delete” of their profiles in light of the attack. Previously, members had to pay an approximate $US20 fee to remove their profile data.
Ashley Madison claims to have 37 million members worldwide. Picture: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man Source: AP
WHY DO PEOPLE CHEAT?
Dr Helen Fisher is a biological anthropologist and human behaviour researcher who has studied romantic interpersonal attraction for more than 30 years.
She says while most people try to live monogamous lives, humans are built to have many partners.
“We make all kinds of decisions about how we’re going to lead our love lives; and the vast majority of people have found that it’s a whole lot easier, if you pick the right person and fall in love with that persona, to stick with that person, because the human brain is simply not built to share,” she told CNN.
Dr Fisher says we want the best of both worlds — passion and stability.
“We want a deep trust and attachment to somebody, we want to feel electric romantic energy when we’re with them and we want to crave them sexually, we want all three systems operating 100 per cent all the time,” she said.
“We want it all and we’re willing to walk out if we can’t get it from one person.”
WHY ARE WE FASCINATED WITH CHEATING SCANDALS?
We love a good liar and we love to take them down, relationship expert Dr Nikki Goldstein told news.com.au.
“You can go back to Jerry Springer and Maury Povich to understand our enjoyment of it, that moment when the woman raises a chair about to hit the guy. We are fascinated with people who lie and deceive the people that they love,” she said. “It’s scary, because everyone who is in a relationship goes, ‘What if that was my partner?’”
But while a cheating scandal is juicy from the sidelines, Dr Goldstein questions whether Ashley Madison’s members should be publicly named and shamed.
“There are so many different types of relationships these days. We have to be careful about jumping on the self-righteous high horse, because we don’t know if their relationship was open to other people, or if their partner knows and they’ve both decided to just deal with it and get on with their lives,” she said.
Dr Goldstein says she’s seen a lot of people turn a blind eye to their partner’s cheating, because they have a stable home life and don’t want to give that up.
“We can’t understand it completely and I don’t think it’s so black and white,” she said.
“Publicly naming and shaming someone you don’t know online is very different to say, discovering that your best friend’s husband is cheating on her and speaking up.
“Yes, we don’t want people feeling hurt and being cheated on, but there are so many different scenarios that an outsider cannot possibly know what’s right for the people on that list.”
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