ASHLEY MADISON - AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE AFFAIRS PARADISE WEBSITE WITH SENIOR DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS ISABELLA MISE

My guest today, Isabella Mies, is the Senior Director of Communications for Ashley Madison.

For those of you who don't know, Ashley Madison is the very controversial website for people who cheat specifically. Isabella has been working for Ashley Madison for over six years, And she came over to the show to shed light on why more and more people around the world are exploring non-monogamy and using Ashley Madison.
And the site attracts millions of people. They have over 80 million members globally since it started in 2002.
I know the numbers are massive. It is crazy.
It's a fact. People do cheat and they do use the site.
I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm not saying it's right, but it's a fact that it's something that happens worldwide.
And a lot of people are curious about it. And she was very open in terms of answering all the questions that I threw at her.
So if you were ever curious about the subject, if you were ever curious about Ashley Madison, she was super kind, super nice when it came to answering everything about it, including how she feels about working for a website where everyone is lying to their spouses and cheating. So I hope you guys enjoy this episode about Ashley Madison, the inside scoop.
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Isabella, welcome to Cut on the Loose. Thank you so much for being on the show.
It's a huge pleasure to have you. Thank you for having me.
I'm very excited to chat. I am very excited as well.
And of course, we have a million questions because this is kind of like a controversial, cloudy subject. So I really appreciate that you're here to clarify everything.
We're going to talk about Ashley Madison. So to get started, for those who don't know what it is, or maybe for those who think they know or have an idea, can you explain in a nutshell what it is and who is it for? Absolutely.
So Ashley Madison is a married dating site. So it's an online dating platform, primarily created for those that were already married in a relationship and looking to outsource and make other connections.
And we've been around since 2002. So it's been a while,

you know, it's been around and we're currently more than 80 million members around the world.

Wow. So it's massive.
Like, yeah, we're going to talk about the 80 million members.

Now, you said it's specifically for married people. That was, again, why this site was created back in 2002 was actually interesting.
It was created based on the insight that at the time, around 30% of people that were on singles dating sites were actually married. So the people started the website said why not create a space where people can actually be honest and transparent about the fact that they are married and looking for something else rather than pretend to be single on single dating sites when they were in fact married so that was the light bulb moment where they decided's amazing.
Okay, so but you said they're being honest and transparent on Ashley Madison, but they're lying at home to their partners, right? It's interesting. So yes, again, the site originally created primarily, again, for married people.
Obviously, it's been around now for more than 20 years. So our audience, while still the majority, again, are married daters, we still attract a number of different users who are in less conventional relationships.
What I mean by that is we can look at it sort of disclosed and undisclosed non-monogamy. So undisclosed, obviously people are having secret affairs without with the knowledge of their partner but then there's also you know a whole portion of our membership today that are actually on the site site in a disclosed non-monogamous relationship meaning some form of open relationship maybe polyamory swinging monogamish so they're either on the site with their partner or at least with

the knowledge. That's very interesting because these open marriages are becoming more and more

common every single day, right? A lot of people don't want to admit it or talk about it because

I know there's so much stigma because our idea of marriage, maybe because the way we are brought up,

we think like, you know, I'm going to be with one person and I'm loyal to that person and I can't

Let's see. because our idea of marriage, maybe because the way we are brought up, we think like, you know, I'm going to be with one person and I'm loyal to that person and I can't cheat.
And that's the way it is. It's like, you know, that square, which of course it works for a lot of people.
But for a lot of people, it's changing and evolving. Yeah, it's really interesting.
So I've actually worked at Ashley Madison for more than six years now. And even in that time, I joined in 2017, I've seen section evolution in our membership and sort of what they're looking for.
But you're right. Like even the people who are in an open relationship, they still come to us for that discretion.
So at its core, Ashley Madison offers discretion. That's really, again, people come for the like-minded community, people who are looking for the same thing, but also for that discretion piece.
So even people who are in open relationships, they don't tell a lot of people in their life. They don't tell their family, their friends, their kids.
The couple knows, but that's sort of it a lot of times because there is even, again, even though it's a mutual agreement, there is a fear of that judgment and what will people think. And so they do want to keep it discreet.
And so again, that is often why they, they're first attracted to join Ashley Madison. But it's interesting because I do think that is evolving.
I do think it's changing as well. And I think even the pandemic was a huge turning point for how people view relationships that idea that maybe you can't get everything from one person after all and we have to sort of start getting a bit more creative and how we design a relationship yeah that's a very evolved way of thinking because I do know like for a lot of couples it's a big deal but let's go step by step because there are so many questions and we're getting ahead and I know because I know my listeners are going to ask so the the headline that you guys use I think from the very beginning right is life is short have an affair so like you said this is how it started and I think that was the number one criticism when we talk about Ashley Madison to this day I think the number one criticism we we hear, even when I tell my team and my friends, oh, I'm going to interview Isabella from Ashley Madison, the immediate thing that comes to mind is, oh, my God, they are destroying marriages, they're destroying relationships, they're encouraging people to cheat.
So can you talk about this marketing headline and how you guys see it? Yeah, of course. I think it's a totally fair question.
So again, the site started back in 2002. It really was, I think, one of the first disruptor brands in the online dating space.
And obviously, again, there was controversy and a lot of, I think, cheekiness even from how we approached the brand and the marketing back then. Obviously, I wasn't there back then, but I think just, you know, we're not a brand that took ourselves overly seriously.
And we really, you know, again, I think we've always approached it in that same way. So I think the headline really, again, the tagline spoke to the fact that again, what we were doing was targeting married dating, um, married daters and the idea of, you know, if you're not getting everything from that one person, you know, there's an opportunity to, again, you know, I think Nut it's either, you know, you stay and maybe, you know, fully fulfilled or you get a divorce, right? It's very binary.
And I think at the time, Ashley Madison presented another path, right? Where you don't necessarily have to leave your partner. You can perhaps outsource some of these needs with other people who are also looking for the same thing.
They're being honest and upfront about looking for the same thing. And neither party is looking to leave their current situation, right? So I think it was the idea of both having equal amount of skin in the game, right? Whereas I think, again, a lot of people will either, again, back then would pretend to be single and walk into a bar, pretend to be single and go, you know, into a single dating website.
Ashley Madison really was creating a space where people could pursue those types of relationships very directly. So you guys, I guess you felt, or the creator of Ashley Madison, you guys felt that obviously people cheat, period.
It existed. Infidelity existed long before Ashley Madison.
So you're just facilitating a platform where everybody that wants to have these affairs can meet each other. Basically, that's how it was created.
And again, the core offering really being that discretion piece. So how does that work? I know you and I read that about you as well.
You say it's very discreet. How is that? So like, do you protect the members? Do you guarantee that they're not going to be found because if you google Ashley Madison there's a bunch of things in forums and stuff that say like oh this is how you can find out if your husband is cheating this is how you can find out if your husband is on Ashley Madison how do you have a way to protect your members so really what we mean again by by discretion and being sort of having a discretion offering at its core is the site was designed and built that people can really control their experience.
So I would say the biggest sort of feature around that is the idea of having a private key for your photos. So again, you can control when you want people to have access to seeing what you look like, your photos, all that.
So it's not putting everything out there at once. And again, giving members a bit more control on how they want to really sort of reveal certain parts of themselves.
It's really just in how the product is really designed with that discretion piece. And obviously, again, so much of our audience over time has really evolved.
But I think that just knowing that there is that like-minded community of people, I think gives people a lot of comfort that they're in a place where people are looking for the same things. And again, most people are, interestingly enough, we call it straying to stay.
Like, so straying to stay married. Like, they really, and I think this is, you know, would come as a surprise, at least for me, it came as a surprise when I started learning more.
A lot of people consider themselves, in a lot of of ways happily married you know in right four to five areas areas of those key pillars of marriage

a lot of times it's just that one piece missing and they don't really feel

that they want to leave their partner right and and sort of love their whole life because this

fun thing is missing so I think that's the idea of people who come to our site are not necessarily

again looking to to leave they really are looking to preserve they just want an adventure do you know the main reason most of your clients use ashley medicine did you guys ever do some kind of a research about it is it boredom is it i don't know like just an adventure try something new do Oh, yeah, absolutely. So again, a big part of what we do is that research piece, like you mentioned.
So and we do that different ways, right? We have the opportunity to survey our members. So we actually survey our members almost on a biweekly basis around the world.
And we will, you know, each survey has a different theme, and we'll pull our members on different themes and different questions we have. And that's a really great way for us to get a temperature check on why they're on our site, what benefits they're getting, what brought them there, et cetera.
And we've also historically worked with a lot of external research partners. And it's interesting because I think a lot of what we're led to believe around infidelity and monogamy isn't entirely accurate, right? So again, we have this long-held belief that infidelity is a male-dominant behavior.
We have this long-held belief that monogamy is harder for men than it is for women. Men, cheap for sex.
Women, cheap for emotion. all of these sort of things that I think in mainstream media were sort of told.
And that's really sort of flipped on its head, at least from our research and what we see. And so we worked with a researcher, Dr.
Alicia Walker out of the University of Missouri. And she actually did separate research projects on

why women cheat and why men cheat. And in both of those studies, she looked at people on Ashley Madison and what she felt primarily and what she found primarily in her research was that women were cheating for sex, good sex, better sex.
Men were cheating for more of the emotional validation. That's interesting, right? Yeah.
And so, you know, her research ended up, you know, turning into two books. The book on my men cheat was called Chasing Masculinity.
And a lot of the themes she explored there from her research on people on Ashley Madison was really men wanted to feel wanted again, desired. So a lot of time,

even just chatting with women and not actually like reaching the point of a physical affair

was enough for the men, just knowing they were wanted and they were feeling desired again.

And oftentimes that would lead to a physical affair, but really that desire to feel wanted

and listened to and heard and seen was a huge motivator for men. Women, on the other hand, were in oftentimes sexless or orgasm-less marriages.
And, you know, again, they didn't want to leave their partner. They felt very, you know, emotionally fulfilled in a lot of the ways.
They like they had a good co-parent, a good, a best friend, a financial partner. They really built their life around this person, but they weren't having great effects or the type of sex they wanted.
And that was why they chose Ashley Madison. They were really coming to outsource physical needs, physical intimacy.
Um, they didn't want to, again emotional necessarily emotional yeah they just wanted sexual yeah it's interesting they say that because i just interviewed a few weeks ago one of the top sexologists in the united states and in the world dr tammy nelson and she said the same thing she does tons and tons of research and she does research for different websites i don't know if she worked with you guys i forgot yeah but yeah but she said yeah she said that and i had no idea but she said nowadays women cheat just as much as men and many times because they're unfulfilled sexually like maybe they don't want to leave their partners or whatever or there's the stigma or the family the criticism but they also want to have more sex basically absolutely yeah and there was a stat that came out not long ago that said i think you know since the early 90s female infidelity rates have gone up around 30 percent where male infidelity rates have remained relatively stagnant. But that also begs the question, are women cheating more or are women just more comfortable talking about it? Right, that's a good question.
I don't know. I think they're just, I personally think they're cheating more because women are becoming more independent.
Women are more balls so to speak to go after what they want and i'm not saying it's right or wrong because i know i'm gonna get 10 million messages saying like i'm encouraging people to cheat blah blah i'm not encouraging anybody to cheat i'm just saying that it's a fact people cheat uh yeah and and I think that's why because they're trying to just seek whatever they don't have in their relationships yeah and I think that's you know totally the approach you know I take as well and I actually you know I have the privilege of talking to a lot of uh both women and men that use our site and I hear directly from them sort of what brings them there and I just approach it from you know again it's a place of curiosity right it's not about good bad right wrong if you agree if you don't it's almost just understanding human behavior and human motivation and I think whether or not you agree with it you can't deny that it's happening and it's happening in huge numbers yeah and you think oh when it comes to non-menogamy more and more women are really leading the way they're the trailblazers actually and i think um we're just gonna see more and more women i think talk about it and what's also interesting is i think that this idea of variety sexual variety we think is so unique to and what they need. But a lot of times women that find themselves in sexless relationships, the women I talk to, they actually convince themselves.
They hit their mid-40s, 50s. They convince themselves that maybe they don't like sex anymore because they're uninterested in having sex with their spouse.
And, you know, they feel a decline in attraction and they sort of chalk it up to, okay, maybe sex is just sort of something I've lost interest in as a whole. And then they have their first affair and they say, wait a second, no, I actually love sex.
It's just that I lost interest in having it the same way for so many years. And again, things impact like family motherhood parenthood senior partner maybe differently and kind of getting into routines but it's anyway i can go on and on yes very interesting no and i agree with you and like i said me personally i'm just saying for for my listeners i don't condone cheating because not that I'm a prude or anything, because I don't

like lies. I think lies are kind of like cockroaches, you know, where there's one, there's like 10 million.
So that's the part that bothers me. I would be more like the person if I'm in a relationship, if I wanted to cheat or see somebody else, I prefer a person to look me in the eyes and just say it.
I have a lot more respect for people that do that. But that being said, I agree with you.
Most people don't have that courage. Most people know if they look at their partner's eyes and say, oh my God, you know, I want to have more sex.
I want to have most, especially wives. If a husband would tell them that, most wives in the world would freak out and almost die of a heart attack because they don't want to be cheated on.
And I understand it's a big stigma around this situation. Like, you know, I'm not happy, but I can tell my partner that I'm not happy because I can't rock the boat.
So as much as I don't agree with people that cheat because of the lying part of it, I understand why they do, if that makes sense. No, absolutely.
It makes sense. I think those are all really valid points.
I do think in terms of having that toolkit on how to communicate with, you know, with your partner and how to broach those conversations, I think, I mean, that's a lot of what Dr. Tammy Nelson does, right? It's actually, I think people need that, that language and that those tools and those resources to know, how do you even begin to have these conversations? You know, I'm not married, but I would imagine, you know, if you're with someone for 20 plus years, you know, and that part of your life has gone stale, it's intimidating to have to broach those topics in a way where you still want to protect your partner's feelings and you don't want them to feel like your relationship is threatened at all.
And you want to just, I think it's hard and I don't think there are enough tools out there, but I think it's changing. I agree.
It's super intimidating. I'll tell you, I was married for 15 years and I had a really crappy marriage because I talked about on the podcast many times because my husband was very wealthy and the more money he made, the more he drank.
And, you know, alcoholics, usually they don't want to have sex because they're always drunk. So my sex life dwindled, dwindled, dwindled.
And I never cheated, by the way, ever. And like you said, I was this woman that was super frustrated in my 30s.
And I thought, okay, that's it. And then once I got out of the marriage and I started having great sex with whoever I was dating, I realized that that's really important.
So I agree with you. I think maybe if more couples would communicate during the relationship maybe they would have less affairs or maybe they would go to Ashley Madison together and find other people that agree with the same lifestyle in terms of being everybody should be fulfilled for whatever they want to do I don't know exactly no it's's true.
And I mean, a lot of, again, like it's easy when it comes to having those conversations and all of those things and making those changes. It's always easier said than done, I think.
And again, when talking to members, a lot of them say, you know, I try talking to my partner or we went into couples therapy or I try bringing this up or we try and experiment and to no avail, right? It just, it wasn't successful. Um,

you or we went into couples therapy, or I try bringing this up, or we try and experiment, and to no avail, right? It just, it wasn't successful. But I do think, I mean, again, I'm not sure if you spoke to Dr.
Tammy about this in your conversation, but I really like this idea of developing a monogamy agreement. Because what Dr.
Tammy speaks about a lot in her work is when you get married, you make an explicit promise to be faithful, to be monogamous, with a lot of implicit assumptions about what that actually means to be monogamous and to be faithful over time. And that is why I think a lot of couples hit these roadblocks because yes, of course, you're meant to be faithful to your partner.

But the expectation is that you're going to get sex, you know, in that relationship. Yes.
All of a sudden, one person completely loses interest in sex altogether. Is the other person then meant to be celibate for the rest of their life? And that's a good point.
I mean, so it's interesting, this idea of the monogamy agreement is, you know, the vows you make when you get married may no longer be, you know, what you need five years in, 10 years in, when your kids leave the house and you're empty nesters and you just look at each other and say, are we still in love? You know, do we still want the same things? So it's almost having this agreement where you revisit the terms, right, at different touch points in the relationship. And for some people, you know, monogamy makes sense for the purpose of raising a family.
But maybe beyond that, it no longer makes sense. I love that idea.
I think that's a very fair idea. Yeah, it's something that should be revisited as the marriage goes on and on and on and things change because yeah some people have very high sex drive some people are more adventurous other people are not that interested and I hear that complaint both from men and women all the time now uh what's the ratio of men and women on on the side yeah that's that's a great question so we're actually pretty balanced globally really but there are certain yeah there are certain markets um brazil for example that actually have twice as many active women as they do seriously oh that's so funny because you know i was born in brazil and bra Brazil is a really funny society because like in front of everybody, they're like all family oriented and Catholics, blah, blah, blah.

But I think it's one of the countries where people cheat the most because it's ingrained in their personality.

Yeah, exactly.

In fact, it's interesting because that's an interesting point in that when you look at different places in the world the place that sometimes you think be the most conservative or actually where people are speaking that out yeah well yeah but no um generally speaking we are we are pretty balanced in terms of male to female ratio how about the united United States? Yeah. So United States, it's, and again, we actually produce annual reports.
So we look at it year over year, but yes, in the States, it's, it's quite balanced. And yeah, I think, again, people find that surprising because I think there's just an assumption that it's more men or only men cheat.
But again, it's just not what we're seeing. And again, I think that's why I'm always so fascinated speaking to women on our side because I think the story around infidelity is just, we've really only, I feel like, heard about it in the context of men cheating over the years.
And I think that's same with just like sexuality in general. Female sexuality is so understudied in comparison to male sexuality.
And so I think that, yeah, I think people are very surprised to learn sort of, again, how many women really are coming to Ashley Madison and sort of again coming for the purpose a very pragmatic purpose of just getting their sexual needs met um so yeah now one question that I think a lot of people have and I did too and I think it's a normal curiosity because there are so many married men and maybe men with money maybe maybe successful men, I don't know. Does the site attract a lot of sugar babies, escorts, women who are there for the wrong reasons, women who are there because they want this guy? They know these guys are needy, probably.
They want something. Many times they just want great sex.
So do you guys see a lot of these women who want guys, you know, to pay them for things?

I'm not saying prostitutes, but like, you know, sugar babies, arrangements, et cetera,

et cetera.

So those are, yeah, those are two obviously different things that you're talking about.

But no, the answer is that is not what our site offers.

That's not what people are coming for.

Now,

does that mean we never come across things like that?

No,

but again,

if we have processes in place that if people are coming for certain

purposes or intentions that are not in line with what we offer,

or again,

our terms and conditions,

then those people would be removed from the site. Cause at the end of the day, we want to preserve our member experience.
And what our members are coming for is not that. Our members are coming, again, for the true purpose of, you know, finding connections, you know, like that married dating is that core offering.
So again, like with any dating dating site people are always going to come in with the wrong intentions or different purposes but we again we have processes in place that really will weed that out yeah for sure for that matter that that's one thing that i agree you can open bumble and that's the number one complaint by the way i talked to hundreds and hundreds of men because of the podcast and they all complain that no matter which site they use there is always the girls asking for money asking for gifts asking for this as for that so i don't think it's a national medicine problem i think it's a dating site problem it's not i'm dating right exactly it's an issue yeah question. It's a valid question.
Yeah. No, because I know a lot of people are going to want to ask that question.
So it's not for somebody who is trying to find. It's not like a sugar baby sugar daddy type arrangement website.
No, no, it's not. So and it's not an app.
You specifically have to go on the site. No, we have an app as well.
Oh, you do? Oh, okay. Because somebody asked me that question.
I didn't know. So you do have an app.
Yes, we have an app, exactly. And, but how does it work? Like practically, let's say I register there, I put my profile, you said you can hide your pictures if you want to maintain your privacy.
It's free for everyone to join,

but it's worth noting that men pay.

So men purchase credits to initiate conversations,

but it's free for women.

Oh, really?

So women don't have to pay for anything?

Sorry, go ahead.

So women don't have to pay for a membership or anything?

Yeah, so no one has to pay to join,

but to initiate a conversation,

men would have to purchase credits. The only there is if it's um female seeking email so if it's um women looking to talk to another one then the female who initiates the conversation would have to pay but for the most part it for the most part it is only the men that have to pay so to protect Because because i would guess most people because they're married or in relationship whatever they don't want to put all their pictures out there right so how do you choose how do they choose each other initially if they because usually you know dating sites you see the person's photo and you're like oh oh, yeah, he's attractive.
She's attractive. Let me look at everything else.
How does that work for Ashley Madison? Yeah. And that's, again, another great question.
So it's different for each member. I think, again, we have the private key feature where people can choose to just sort of initiate a conversation first and then slowly reveal photos.
There's also, again, people that might only want to include certain photos where you can't really tell you know you can't really see their face or you can sort of get a sense but but again it's a comfort level thing so I think that um it's when they're comfortable and then again other people by the way we have single people on our site which also surprises people oh really so so what are the single people doing on the site they want to have relationships with married people yeah so again like i think in terms of the discretion piece i think that just to go back to answer your question in terms of like how people like physicality or sort of physical attraction is such a huge component in connecting with people right you need to know if you're going to be physically attracted so i think to answer the question around that i think it really depends on the scenario in the sense of, again, if someone is single joining Ashley and Biason, they're not going to be as concerned. So they're probably going to be more forthcoming with showing photos, right? Same with people maybe who are, again, a lot of people come to our site who maybe are going through a divorce, but they're not yet ready to go on a single dating site.
Maybe they don't want their partner to know they're out there dating because you understand like how online dating works. If your friend sees your partner on an online dating site or your ex or people.
So I think that discretion piece is still really valuable for people who are in between relationships or have sort of a complicated situation. They might want to just, again, not be as forthcoming.
But again, if there's someone that, you know, on with the knowledge of their partner or in between relationships or single, they might not be, again, as concerned in terms of showing photos than someone who is having like sort of what you would would consider a traditional secret affair where they might want to take more of a slow approach to put up their photos so yeah so if somebody doesn't want to show their face you still let them put like i don't know a picture of their body do you let them put sexy pictures or again and they might they might eventually like they might start with more a, a body shot. And then gradually as they're talking to someone feel, okay, I'm comfortable now.
I want to show them, you know, my face. Or again, there's that it's designed to give people that freedom to sort of share sort of as they feel comfortable.
But again, like I said, because our audience is changing and evolving and evolving um not it's different degrees of people wanting to have that um i serve so that's all that's very interesting so how about this is a an interesting question and you've been working there for a long time right? Six years. It makes me think, do you remember the movie Fatal Attraction? Like that the guy has an affair because an affair is supposed, everything's supposed to work out, right? You go, you have an affair and then you go back home to your family.
You don't rock the boat. Everything is fine.
But there are crazy people out there that they have an affair with you but then they decide

they want more because I always hear these stories you know because I do the podcast like oh my god

I went out with this woman and now she's trying to follow me and now she knows my picture and now

she knows my name and then they you know obviously the extreme is like the blackmailing or telling

the wife and all that stuff because it happens have you ever heard of stories like that I think again that's almost just I think dating in general I think it's to a degree it's I mean I think you see things happen I don't honestly I don't even know if again like I don I don't even know with online dating, I just think it's sort of a case of expectation versus reality. I think that anytime you're entering the dating world, there's always potential for one person to feel more strongly or one person to get more attached.
Or again, in the case of one person being married and the other person not being married, um, again, things may be going sideways. I think, again, at the end of the day, the reason that Ashley Madison sort of was created was to have this idea.
And I know people, when you say like, you know, we wanted to create an honest dating site, but it's an infidelity website people sort of can't um kind of understand how those two are connected but really I think the idea was to create a space where people can be very directed up front but the fact that this is what they're looking for this is what you know what they want and the idea is almost having that um again like equal skin in the game what we talk what we call it mutually assured destruction. So you're married, I'm married.
We both have something here on the line and we're both looking really to get the same thing out of it. So I think that's why a site like Ashley Madison is, I think why we are so popular.
And I think why some people still do come to us. But again, obviously, again, in online dating, there's always going to be people that aren't, don't have good intentions.
I don't think that's at all unique to Ashley Madison. No, no, I agree.
I'm just saying in your case, because, you know, the guys that are married and they might go out with girls that, you know, there the woman yeah the guys and the women but you know there's always the person that says oh i'm gonna make him and leave the wife for me you know that famous stories oh yeah yeah no oh he's gonna leave the wife because of me and you know and that usually doesn't work that way yeah and I do agree that you're right and I think another thing so no I haven't seen that but I know what you mean I think like even the fact that you brought up a movie like such a well-known Hollywood classic movie that so many people like again so many of your listeners will know that reference right away I think it sort of informs where we get a lot of these ideas around cheating and infidelity and marriage it's what we see on tv it's what we see in a movie but it's not reality most of the time you're saying it works out like from your experience most of the time it's smooth sailing um when it works out in the sense that do people meet on ashley madison have a fairy tale to mean not like they're happy with the results yeah so what we consider to be a successful affair is an undiscovered affair so I think again that that is how we we look at um sort of what a successful affair looks like but mind you we have had people, I was sort of being cheeky before, but we actually have had people come to Ashley Madison and meet, fall in love and get married. We actually had a couple that were both married.
And this is, I would say this is the exception more so than the rule, but we had a couple, people joined both in relationships. They met in Ashley Madison.
They left their respective partners for partners for each other they got married and then I believe it was six years into their marriage they decided they wanted to open up their relationship because they wanted to stay together and they knew that both of them were sort of getting that itch again and so then they joined Ashley Madison together wow there you go I guess it's all about communicating I don don't know. Just saying, I think the more you communicate with your partner and go on adventures with your partner, less are the chance that they're going to go and cheat without you.
That's just like my outtake on it. I don't know, but I agree with you.
Most people are never going to do that. They're not comfortable doing that.
Now, really quickly, because we're almost almost running out of time yeah i know i think a long ways back at maybe in the beginning of ashley madison you guys had a big problem in terms of fake profiles um do you have any kind of filter do you have any kind of control that you know these people are real or do you control fake profiles at all? Yeah. So like, again, like with online dating sites in general, we have a, you know, we have a rigorous system in place to release screen.
So obviously we have like, you know, a BI team, we have a customer service team and they're really in place to screen for all of that um again we we never want anyone with um sort of bad intentions on the platform so we have those processes put in a place to really um screen those out okay so you think most of your profiles are real people like real not people that want to yes absolutely and again i talked to them every day and i mean we surveyed them we talked to them when we get their you know we really want to bring their experience a big part of what i do is i want to bring their stories and their experiences to life into the forefront and i i think why i think what you're doing is so important is i think you're fostering conversation and you're removing shame and you're removing the sort of the taboo and the stigma and you're just creating a platform where people can really, you know, be upfront. And I think for our members, at least the ones I speak to, like, you know, they want to share those stories.
They want to create these conversations because I think the more we do that, I think slowly people, you know, maybe again, monogamy works for a lot of people. I think it's, you know, something that people are very successful in, but it doesn't work for everyone.
And it shouldn't necessarily be the only way to look at a successful relationship. And so I think that the more we have these conversations, I think the more people will start.
Yeah, I know. I completely agree with you.
I think it's all about opening up conversations, which is what we try to do here and educate ourselves. Because me, I didn't know as much about Ashley Madison.
I think it's very interesting. I definitely agree with you.
It's something that happens. People cheat, period.
You can make believe they don't. or like a lot of married couples, they make believe they don't, but they do.
You can decide to communicate with your partner and do it together, or you can go to a place like Ashley Madison and, like you said, have an undisclosed affair and go back to your life. I think it's a personal choice, and this is why I say I don't judge anybody.
I think you got to figure out what works for you and what works for your relationship and what works for your marriage because we're all evolving there's not I think most of it honestly it's the way we grow up we think about marriage we think about relationships like in a square and if you do especially women like you said like even me like I never cheated on anybody in my life but I get called a whore every day because I do the sex podcast people think like I'm having sex with multiple men every night it's not the case but you know what if it was the case we have every right to do that so I think it's really important to bring to open up these conversations because I think people should have the right to do whatever makes them happy because life is very short, in my opinion. I think that's great.
I think what you're doing is fantastic. And I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to come and chat with you today.
Yes, I am too. And last but not least, before I let you go, I have to ask you this tough one in terms of like the ethical part of it or, you know, how do you feel bad about it? Do you, you know, have it resolved in your mind as a senior executive of this company or does the company say anything about that? And it's a great question.
It's obviously one that I've got many times before. I'm the first.
So I'm, I mean, when I decided to work at the company, it was something that, again, like, I didn't know a lot about this world. I had my own preconceived opinions about infidelity.
So by no means did I feel like this, you know, was something that I understood overnight. You know what I mean? Like I think in a lot of ways,

I still feel as much as I work for this company,

I'm still learning so much about the topic

of monogamy and infidelity.

I think that's why I love my job so much

because it feels like I'm learning every day.

So in terms of the ethical piece,

I'm a very open-minded person and I thought I was a very open-minded person. But since working here, I think I've become even more so open-minded to sort of how, you know, people want to live their life.
And I think that I always just say, if we can replace judgment with curiosity, I think we, you know, can learn a lot from each other. And again, I certainly learn a lot from the members that use our site every day, but I also get to work with a lot of experts in their field, right? I get to work with sex therapists.
I get to work with academics, sociologists, you know, psychologists, and I learn about human behavior. And so for me, it really, I don't look at it as good, bad, right, wrong.
I look at it as we're all having a human experience. I look at it as realizations.
Our work and they're hard and they're not, they're not simple and you don't really know until you walk in someone else's shoes. So for me, I just think I have one of the coolest jobs ever it must be very interesting for sure and it was i and i agree with you he said i don't judge anyone i think each person needs to to figure out what's best for them this is just an option out there so i'm not condoned because i know i know i'm gonna get bombarded I'm not condoning cheating I'm not

saying cheat don't cheat have an open marriage I think each person needs to decide what's best

for them but I am so grateful and happy that you came here to educate us about Ashley Madison and

it was a huge pleasure having you thank you so much thank you so much I really appreciate it

guys be safe out there no matter what you do self-love first and I'll see you soon