Cheating is a destructive event that can happen within any relationship. It is important to be aware that people have different definitions on what cheating means to them. Why Cheat? For example, some people believe flirting is an innocent act whilst other people may feel that it is a sign of much more.
Types of Cheating
There are different types of cheating.
Physical Cheating
When a person within a relationship engages in a sexual activity with another person outside of the relationship. It could include engaging in physical activities like hugging, kissing, foreplay, dry humping, oral sex and penetrative sex.
Emotional Cheating
Can begin harmlessly. It may start off with someone intimately talking about problems within their lifestyle to another person outside of the relationship. These two people can begin to form a strong bond that develops into a sexually charged emotional connection.
Sexting
When two people sexually flirt via the text messaging system on their mobiles, it can include sending nude photos to each other and dirty talking.
Cyber Cheating
Happens when two people develop a passionate relationship online through social networking services. It could include the use of Facebook and dating websites like eharmony. Interactions may at first be flirty but can quickly lead to an intimate development.
How Do You Know If You Are Cheating and Why Cheat?
A good way to know whether you have cheated is to understand whether you would tell your partner about the interaction you had with another person.
Clinical psychologist, Alicia H. Clark stated.
“Secrecy is a good litmus test. If you wouldn’t tell your partner about the interaction, no matter how ‘innocent’ you think it is, you’re having an affair.”
Why Cheat?
Everyone already understands that cheating is wrong, so why do people cheat?
Not committed to the relationship
People are placed in situations where people may flirt with them, which may have never happened to them before. Some people are given the opportunity to cheat. Within that moment they are not afraid of the consequences. Feeling of the chase may be more captivating then maintaining a relationship.
Alicia H. Clark stated.
“Novelty is a big player in attraction, and anonymity offers opportunity. Maybe you meet some guy on a plane, and he flirts with you, flatters you. And gives you something you’re not getting in your primary relationship. If you engage in a way that helps you fill whatever void you have in your primary relationship, you’re entering emotional infidelity territory.”
People use cheating as an excuse to end the relationship
A person or spouse within the relationship may fall out of love. That person looking to leave the relationship may become a cheating wife so the relationship ends.
Relationship needs are not met
People have different needs within their sex life that only their partner can fulfil.
These needs include passion, romance, affection, attention, love, sex and feelings of appreciation. If the needs are not met it can bring on feelings of being taken for granted, loneliness, tension, and neglect. In some cases, they may have asked their partner to try something new to spice their relationship up but the request was ignored.
Feelings of sexual exploration, motivation and curiosity can outweigh a boring sex life which can make two people grow apart. Eventually, a person may begin to find another way to get their needs met.
Couple does not spend time maintaining the relationship
There are a lot of responsibilities that can get in the way of maintaining a personal relationship. Some things include work, cooking, cleaning and children.
Maintaining a relationship is just as important as all of the other responsibilities in our life. People just need to set aside time to spend with each other.
Lack of expression and communication within a relationship
People often forgot to tell each other how much they mean to each other or forget to discuss important aspects of their relationship. Lack of communication can mean there was no way for their relationship to grow.
A need for self-exploration
When two people spend all their time together, things can grow boring. People need personal space to separate themselves from their relationship. Some people look to someone else to help build their own personal identity.
Insecurities
Some people are insecure and feel like their partner will cheat on them or their relationship won’t last. An insecure person cheats first before they get hurt. Because cheating is easier than feeling emotional pain.
A Look Into Ashley Madison’s Hack
Ashley Madison is a website that was created as an online dating service. It socially networks people who are in long term relationships that want to have affairs whilst keeping their identities a secret.
Ashley Madison claims they have over 51,670,000 users from over 45 countries that had joined the website since 2002. Every 20 seconds someone joins their website. Considering there are 7 billion people in the world, these statistics are quite alarming.
Some people who use websites like Ashley Madison are looking for sexual relationships or are trying to find a new way to build emotionally connected relationships. But they do not want to leave their current relationship.
Journal of Couple and Relationship Therapy claims that 50% of women and 60% of men in a marriage may cheat on their partner.
Ashley Madison was hacked on the 15th of July in 2015
By a group of people called “The Impact Team” who wanted their website taken down. They did not just hack the companies user accounts, they also gained access to company emails.
Before the details were released publicly, people received threats that if they did not give $300 worth of bitcoin to them, their cheating chronicles would be shared with their family members.
Data released was 9.7 gigabytes in size. It included account details, names, home addresses, mobiles, photos, sexual interests and payment details of all Ashley Madison users. Although some of the information was falsified the user’s payment details displayed their real names. There were also email addresses used from government websites.
Ashley Madison released a Statement on the Hack
“This event is not an act of hacktivism, it is an act of criminality. It is an illegal action against the individual members of AshleyMadison.com. As well as any freethinking people who choose to engage in fully lawful online activities.
Criminal, or criminals, involved in this act have appointed themselves as the moral judge, juror, and executioner, seeing fit to impose a personal notion of virtue on all of society. We will not sit idly by and allow these thieves to force their personal ideology on citizens around the world.”
After the Hack
Details were released countless newspaper articles were written to help people find out whether their partner had cheated. For example, Wired wrote “How to Check if You or a Loved One Were Exposed in the Ashley Madison Hack”.
There were even companies like “Trustify” created dedicated to find out whether your spouse had cheated that used an email address search to find the details. They were used by both the cheaters and people who were looking for information.
Danny Boice from Trustify stated
“Trustify is in the business of finding the truth and we do this in an objective and un-biased way. We don’t intervene in how or why people want the truth or answers, we simply use our investigative pool to provide them.”
In an effort to re-brand themselves Ashley Madison changed their company motto.
“Ashley Madison – Life is short. Have an affair”
to
“Ashley Madison – Find your moment”
They made profit from men that would pay money to send messages for each new person they would talk to. Their live chat was also paid per amount of time a user would stay on it.
A controversy with their payment scheme was that Annalee Newitz from Gizmodo claimed that there were 70,000 bots would interact with people. And only 12,000 out of the 5,500,000 women were regular users. It is said that these statistics appear to have no factual evidence.
But there is a terms of service clause that says that there are non human accounts made on the website that are used purely for amusement purposes only.
After the hack, Ashley Madison removed all of their bots.
Although the people’s intentions were to cheat they were actually suckered out into spending their money.
Another way Ashley Madison had made money from people who used their website was to offer them a $19 fee to permanently delete their profile. And all private information that was collected through the use of the website.
Even if someone has set up a fake account under your name, you still had to pay the $19 fee. Hack had shown all of the users “permanently deleted” accounts were all recalled.
About the Parent Company
Ashley Madison was original ran by a parent company named “Avid Life” which was rebranded as Ruby Life Corp.
They ran a network of dating websites that appeared to be in competition with each other. But they were made to take on all areas of dating real estate online. They had developed many websites for specific kinks, ages, weight, race and genders.
Their most famous website’s include Cougar Life, Established Men and Arrangement Finders. They had spent a lot of time on building up sugar daddy dating websites.
Netflix released a documentary named “Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies and Cyber Attacks” detailing the events of the hack.
Meet Rick, Adultsmart’s owner with 35+ years in the adult industry. A sex blogger, advocate for gender and sexuality equality, offering a diverse product range.
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