Last week, I got a mayday call from a close girlfriend.
‘Can you meet me at the park for a hot lap in 20 minutes?’
This was code for: something has gone down with my affair and I need to dissect it while we get in our daily 10,000 steps.
As the token single girl among my peer group, and a sex columnist to boot, I’ve become the unofficial vault of my friends’ secret flings, full-blown affairs and oh-God-what-have-I-done moments.
I’ve been living by the motto ‘Listen, don’t judge’ before it was trending on TikTok, but recently the role of Confidante-In-Chief has become a near full-time job.
More than ever, my female friends – and female friends of friends – are searching outside of their marriages for extracurricular activities. One married pal cheated with a local DJ while on a girls’ weekend. Another got the 7-year-itch and hooked up with an old flame ‘just to feel alive again.’ A third had an indiscretion on an overseas solo trip.
Intrigued by what I was hearing, I thought it my duty as a journalist to investigate this sudden surge of feminine adultery, so I went straight to the source of faithless fornication – the Mecca of Forbidden Love Making – the owners of the website Ashley Madison.
For those (who pretend) not to know: Ashley Madison is a dating site designed for people looking to have discreet affairs. Its tagline: ‘Life is short. Have an affair.’ Subtle, right?
As the token single girl among my peer group, and a sex columnist to boot, I’ve become the unofficial vault of my friends’ secret flings, full-blown affairs and oh-God-what-have-I-done moments
For those (who pretend) not to know: Ashley Madison is a dating site designed for people looking to have discreet affairs
This controversial platform was also at the center of one of the most explosive scandals in internet history.
In 2015, hackers leaked the personal details of 37 million users. We’re talking names, credit cards, sexual fantasies, the lot. The fallout was brutal. Divorces, lawsuits, public shaming… even suicides.
It was grim and everyone assumed it was game over for Ashely Madison. But, instead of collapsing, the website thrived. Cheating, it turns out, never goes out of fashion.
I sat down with Paul Keable, Chief Strategy Officer (or, as I called him, Chief Infidelity Officer) and what he told me, while surprising, only confirmed everything I’d already seen firsthand with my own girlfriends.
Going into the interview, I wanted to dislike the man who keeps the gears of the world’s infidelity engines turning. I wasn’t expecting to meet a charming guy in his early 50s, calm, confident and somehow completely unburdened by the fact that his entire career revolves around cheating.
Honestly, he was kind of hot. (Oh god, Jana! This is why you’re single.)
Still, I was determined to get some answers and not be swayed to join the site. (Men must pay to join Ashley Madison, but for women it’s free).
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Keable walked me through all their juicy user details, which are… oddly specific.
Turns out, male engineers and female sales managers are the biggest cohort of site users. Virgos, Geminis and Scorpios outrank the other star signs (no surprises there, chaos and kink, the lot of them).
Most members are eldest children and nearly half are introverts, proving you don’t need to be loud to be naughty. Oh, and 73 percent of Ashley Madison users have kids (school pick-up lines just got a bit more exciting).
And there’s another twist: many women aren’t just cheating with men. They’re logging on to explore their bisexuality.
Ashley Madison has always offered same-sex pairings, but Keable said they’ve seen a noticeable rise in women signing up to act on their long-simmering curiosities.
‘A lot of people are coming to our site to experiment and explore different aspects of their sexuality,’ he said.
But what I really wanted to know was: were women becoming more likely than men to cheat?
Well, according to Keable, the answer is yes. There’s been a major shift in the infidelity landscape and women are the ones driving it.
‘Eighty percent of women [on the website] are cheating because they’re in sexless or orgasmless marriages,’ he said. ‘They very much love their partners and they want to maintain their primary relationship, but their partners are either unable or unwilling to conduct the types of intimate activities that would fulfill them.’
It’s what my friends keep saying, but with fewer stats and more wine-soaked tears.
I sat down with Paul Keable (pictured), Chief Strategy Officer (or, as I called him, Chief Infidelity Officer) and what he told me, while surprising, only confirmed everything I’d already seen firsthand with my own girlfriends
According to Keable: ‘Women often aren’t finding out how their bodies truly work from a sexual standpoint until their 30s or 40s.’ (Easy for you to say, Paul. But, as a woman, I tend to agree.)
‘They discover: Okay, I can have good sex, I can have an orgasm, but I need certain things,’ he continued.
And (here’s where I add my expertise) those ‘certain things’ are not complicated.
A cheeky text during the day. A compliment. A sense of being wanted, not just needed. What Gen Z now calls ‘fanny flutters.’ When women are stuck playing the roles of housewife, maid, therapist and mother, it’s easy for their partners to forget that underneath it all, they’re still women with very real sexual needs.
I left my chat with Paul feeling… perplexed. I wasn’t shocked when he told me that women are now cheating just as much, if not more, than men. It confirmed what I’ve long suspected.
But I did come away with the sense that while more women may be giving in to the urge to cheat, there is no guarantee that they actually find what they’re searching for.
Remember, sex never comes without complications. And that rule is even more true when it happens outside the bounds of a marital union. Though of course, that’s not to say that Ashley Madison’s findings should be dismissed.
Men, consider this your gentle warning: check in with your wives.
Ask the sexy questions. Have the awkward conversations. Because the truth is, a little curiosity, and a lot of listening (perhaps over a glass of wine), could reveal some unspoken issues and possibly unlock the best sex of your lives.