Aspects of this evolution in attitudes towards work had intriguing parallels in ideas about love. In this sphere, too, the eighteenth-century bourgeoisie yoked together what was pleasurable and what was necessary. They argued that there was no inherent conflict between sexual passion and the practical demands of raising children in a family unit, and that there could hence be romance within a marriage – just as there could be enjoyment within a paid job.Initiating developments of which we are still the heirs, the European bourgeoisie took the momentous steps of co-opting on behalf of both marriage and work the pleasures hitherto pessimistically – or perhaps realistically – confined, by the aristocrats, to the subsidiary realms of the love affair and the hobby.
Most of these marriages would be a hell of a lot better if the sexually unsatisfied partner had a discreet affair, but that puts the other partner in a socially untenable situation. “Open marriage” is something for dirty hippies or sleazy swingers, not an upstanding member of society.…If we want to do something about the high divorce rate, we might want to get real about making sexual satisfaction a precursor to marriage, and also about the role of a discreet, mutually agreed-upon affair as a safety valve. Of course, religion and social norms rule that out-of-bounds.
There’s a lone genius—possibly evil and certainly entrepreneurial—behind Ashley Madison. His name is Noel Biderman, and he’s the chief executive officer of Avid Life Media, based in Toronto. “Monogamy, in my opinion, is a failed experiment,” he declares. It’s unclear if Biderman actually believes this—he’s married and has two young kids—but like Hugh Hefner before him the business he has created pretty much requires that he say it. Behind his desk, in an office so lacking in embellishment it almost looks like a hastily assembled low-budget film set, is a large flat-screen monitor promoting his company’s flagship brand. It reads: “Life is short. Have an affair.”…Research suggests that 20 to 40 percent of heterosexual married men and 20 to 25 percent of heterosexual married women will have an affair during their lifetime. Moreover, men have an evolutionary prerogative to spread their genes as widely as possible, while women are driven to find a mate and try to gain access to the best genes out there by any means necessary.
It is my Buddha Nature to be omni-sexual. If you pluck one string on a well-tuned guitar the one next to it will vibrate because it’s the nature of sound waves. Well, my husband picks a certain chord. Then you, you hit this string and you over there, this string. You can’t hit her string. Your frequency is completely different. It’s not confusing to me. You can’t pluck my husband’s string and he can’t pluck yours.