I was sitting on my back porch Saturday morning catching up on my Facebook feed when I thought, “Who is this Ashley woman from Madison and why is everybody so concerned about her?”
I soon learned that Ashley Madison is a website dedicated to adultery. Its 38 million subscribers had just been exposed by a hacker, including 4,000 Mississippians.
Here’s the good news: Based on the percentage of Ashley Madison users, Mississippi ranks 49th in the nation for adultery, better than any state except West Virginia. The bad news: There are 4,000 Mississippians from all walks of life on the list, including several of my friends and acquaintances.
Austin, Texas, leads the nation in adultery. Six percent of the entire Austin population signed up for Ashley Madison. That’s a big chunk of the married men.
As it turns out, Ashley Madison was just one big scam. Research of the hacked data shows almost all the female profiles were fakes. Any real women on the site were probably suspicious wives checking on their spouses.
The Web site Gizmodo found 20,292,265 men who checked their Ashley Madison messages compared to 1,492 women. That’s a ratio of 20,000 to one. Ashley Madison was not real. It was a fantasy.
One thing is clear: The “dollars spent” data is wrong. Women were allowed on the site completely free yet the Mississippi list shows hundreds of women paying thousands of dollars. Hacked data is not very reliable.
How many men accessed the Web site out of curiosity versus true intent? Impossible to know. But hardly any real affairs resulted. It’s impossible to consummate a relationship with a computer-generated illusion.
People know the Web is not private, but this is the first time the secret surfing lives of millions of private citizens have been exposed. It’s a game changer.
The Ashley Madison hack has led some bloggers to predict more privacy intrusions in the future. There are numerous ways to track Internet surfing. Big advertising tech firms have all this data, but don’t associate it with individual names. If one of these companies was hacked, it’s possible that your browsing history could be revealed.
Over the years, I have gotten the occasional computer pop-up ad like: “A woman you know wants to secretly chat with you.” My journalistic skepticism and Scottish thriftiness managed to keep my curiosity in check to such come-ons. The legal term is entrapment.
As one friend of mine confessed, “I was just one stiff bourbon away from clicking that link.” This man has a great marriage. He wasn’t going to have an affair. He just couldn’t resist checking it out. Just because you flirt with a woman at a singles bar doesn’t mean you are going to follow through.
The Pharisees accused Jesus of being soft on sin. He wouldn’t stone the prostitute. He hung out with sinners.
Jesus was not soft on sin. He was tougher than the Pharisees could ever imagine. The Pharisees said murder was a sin. Jesus went infinitely further, proclaiming personal grudges to be the spiritual equivalent of physical murder.
The Pharisees said adultery was a sin. Jesus said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘you shall not commit adultery,’ but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”
Jesus’ point to the self-righteous Pharisees: You are as guilty as those you condemn. “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
So I ask, who among us would like to see our worst secrets made public?
The Catholics maintain there are seven deadly sins. The first six are lust, gluttony, sloth, greed, anger and envy. If you think you’re clear on those six, then you are guilty of the seventh – pride. Nobody escapes sin. Some are just better at hiding it.
I learned years ago not to click on things out of curiosity. I was sitting at home checking my e-mail on the computer waiting for Ginny to put dinner on the table. “Check out these amazing pics” the e-mail taunted. I clicked.
Instantly, my computer started flashing the vilest porn. The speakers blared disgusting profanities. My six-year-old son’s eyes got as round as saucers as I frantically jerked the entire computer from the wall. “What was that?” John innocently asked. Lesson learned. This past week 38 million people learned a big lesson.
As a society we are going through a learning curve. Never before has temptation been so easily led. It’s all out there and it seems hidden from the world. But it’s not.
The Ashley Madison affair is a wake up call to all us sinners. Sin causes pain and spiritual death. Always has, always will. Technology doesn’t change that one bit.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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