Opinion Piece

Considering the fact that I am a uni student, this blog is very much lacking in the writing department. So, here an opinion piece I wrote for my Fashion Media class. Enjoy.

The Birth Of The Infidelity Site =The Death Of Monogamy?

How Noel Biderman’s website threatens to strike being faithful out of the marriage equation

I am a very liberal person, except when it comes to one thing: marital cheating. Call me old-fashioned and naive, but I actually like the idea of committing to someone and knowing that they will commit to me. 

Imagine my disgust when flicking through my Evening Standard two weeks ago. Why Cheating Is Better Than Divorce was staring back at me as the title of an article about the UK’s largest infidelity site launching soon. You might as well all throw your wedding ring in the loo if Noel Biderman, the creator of the online cheating platform Ashley Madison, has his way. The website gains a new member every 11 seconds. Faster affair finding with less  guilt. What has the ideal of marital trust coming to I wonder.

Biderman, who proclaims that “monogamy is dead”, calls affairs “a wake up call” for married couples. I call it burning bridges built up over the years. If you need an affair to prove the importance of a significant other in your life, then maybe you should rethink the relationship in general. A decade ago, online affairs already accounted for one third of all marriage annulments, when the Internet was only a fraction as involved in our daily lives as it is today. 

Divorce rates may be at an all time low in the UK with 11.5 per 1000 people divorcing, but this is due to the financial woes and fewer numbers of people getting married rather than effective marital problem solving. In an increasing world of pre-nuptial contracts and with the average divorce costing £13 000, it’s no wonder that people are hesitant to walk down the aisle or free their ties from an unsatisfying marriage.

Sigmund Freud’s theory that repression of the sexual instinct is detrimental to one’s psychological well-being could justify looking for your thrills elsewhere when your spouse isn’t packing the punch and experts say our generation is having increasing difficulties with staying faithful due to the habit of having multiple sex partners before marriage. Howeverm anthropologists argue that even though our ancestors were mostly polyamorous, long-term monogamy is difficult, but not impossible.

I will admit that the m-word’s future isn’t exactly rosy, with statistics showing that 30 to 60 percent of married individuals will engage in infidelity at some point during their marriage, but that doesn’t mean we should encourage it. I am not denying that every human has faults, and that affairs don’t happen, but if you are wired in a polyamorous way, why not be in an open relationship instead? It makes no sense to try and fit yourself into the constraints of marriage. You can’t have your wedding cake and eat it too. 

Noel Biderman may say that “it’s 2010, time to redefine morality.” But a website with the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair” isn’t redefining our morals, it’s destroying them. Life is short, so don’t stay in a marriage that doesn’t have a solution to its problem or that is suffocating you. Just remember that that ring is a symbol of commitment. Honour it or get out. But don’t play both sides of the field.