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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Explore your deepest desires, if you dare. The Last Show with David Cooper. Ashley Madison, the dating website built for people who are already taken, which sounds either diabolical or extremely efficient. What does the research say about the people who use it, who cheat, justify it, and then feel totally fine about what they've done?
Although some may not, some may feel guilty, but we'll get to that in a second. We're here to discuss all this with social psychology researcher at Heterodox Academy, Dylan Selterman. Dylan, welcome to the program.
Thanks for having me.
So the very existence of a platform like Ashley Madison feels almost like a social experiment to me in human temptation.
Chapter 2: What is Ashley Madison and why does it exist?
What does it say about us that millions of people are signing up for a service like this designed for affairs?
It means that a lot of people are cheating on their significant others. It means that infidelity and adultery are common. Certainly not everyone cheats, but, you know, a lot of people do.
I think a lot of us pretend that we don't, but throughout all of human history, cheating has not been an uncommon thing. But the data breach in 2015, for those who don't remember, many, if not all of the users who'd used the platform or ever signed up were posted online. And I think there was a lot of shocks there, right? Like a lot of people got looked up.
Chapter 3: What does research reveal about infidelity and its justifications?
People respected in their communities were found on the website. Having that real data of millions of users, did scientists look into that so they could kind of study infidelity?
Yeah, I mean, people looked into what people were doing on Ashley Madison. That was part of my research as well, was trying to figure out what are people hoping to gain by signing up and looking for an affair partner on Ashley Madison. And we find that a lot of people are just... They're looking for a sex partner.
They're, you know, dissatisfied with their primary relationships in a sense because they're not having sex. That was one of the key findings from our research was that I think about 50%, so like half of our participants said that they were not sexually active at all with their partners. But their relationships were otherwise at least decent, if not good.
They expressed high levels of satisfaction, high levels of romantic love and intimacy with their partners. So their relationships were otherwise, I think, at least moderately well-functioning, if not highly functioning. It was the sexual dissatisfaction that was a key factor for those folks.
There's a small fraction of relationships that report being happy, even though they know their partners are with other people. What do they call it? Like polyamory or open relationships. But I imagine those people aren't on Ashley Madison. This is a website for really finding a person in secrecy.
How can someone say that, like, I love my partner and then sign up for an affair website when they know that their partner would be devastated if they found out?
Well, let me say something first about the people in polyamorous or open relationships. We did find some of those in our sample that signed up on Ashley Madison. So it was not very common, but I think between 15% and 20% of the participants in our sample told us that they knew or their partners knew that they were on the site.
And so they had some kind of understanding with their partners that they were doing this.
I can see how someone like that could say that they love their partner if there's the communication. But I'm talking about the ones that don't. It's wild to me that you can report being in love and satisfied and happy and all that and still do this. Why would people do that?
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Chapter 4: How do users of Ashley Madison perceive their relationships?
Do we underestimate how central sex is to relationship satisfaction?
Maybe. I think humans are very horny sexual creatures. We have sex even in situations when we know that procreation is impossible, which is uncommon in the animal kingdom. So we're doing it all throughout our lives, all throughout the day, all throughout the month, all the time. And that's in part because sex is just intrinsically... good.
It's just it's pleasurable and it helps us in terms of connection and bonding. So, yeah, people are of all ages are having lots of sex.
I would imagine if I used a platform like this, and side note to my girlfriend Miranda, if you're listening, I'm not on the platform. But I would imagine feeling a lot of regret if something like this happened in secret. Do the people who use these platforms report having regret after these affairs?
Or do they just kind of do this thing that humans are so good at doing, which is like push it out of your head, don't think of it, cognitive dissonance, all that?
Of the people we surveyed who said that they had an affair, meaning they signed up and actually met an affair partner and did the deed, on average, those people said that they were highly satisfied in emotional terms and in sexual terms and felt little regret. So that doesn't mean nobody felt regret.
It just means on average, the people who were there felt like they were not doing anything wrong.
There's like a disconnect here because the narratives we tell about ourselves as someone in that position, even if they don't get caught, should feel regret. But yet, on average, like you say, not everyone, but on average, people aren't. How do we explain this kind of gap between what we would expect people to feel and what people do feel?
That's a great question in general for us to answer from a moral perspective. Like, why do people do things that they think are immoral in a general sense? Because if you look at national surveys, the vast majority of people, like over 90%, will say,
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Chapter 5: What role does sexual dissatisfaction play in infidelity?
For her, keeping the peace. Cartel's moving in. Means every investigation. People are getting threats. It's close to home. At the end of the day, I'm responsible for this town. Secrets, loyalties, and small town justice collide in the new hit drama. I'm a damn good sheriff. Sheriff Country returns Friday, February 27th on Global. Stream on Stack TV.