I like to think I’m a ‘live and let live’ kind of person. I appreciate the fact that we live in a free country with freedom of speech and the right to choose our religious beliefs and sexual orientation. Outside of what is obviously evil and wrong, when it comes to moral issues I would also be careful to keep my own counsel. I believe that we all make choices and as adults are responsible for our actions and the resulting consequences. If the neighbours want to indulge in strange sexual practices as long as it’s between consenting adults and they keep the noise down, that’s fine with me.

Because I believed I possessed a liberal, love all attitude I shocked myself over the weekend when I felt a tangible negative reaction rise within me as I read about a new online adultery service that is proposing to launch here this summer. Ashleymadison.com is a dating agency for married men and women that says, it will spend €3 million on advertising its website in the republic. The mantra of Ashleymadison.com is, “Life is short. Have an affair”.

I’ve heard about dogging and swingers’ sites and have laughed. I know there are ‘sex for sale’ sites available online and I don’t care. There’s a place for every fetish imaginable and it doesn’t even register, but I find this adultery site horrible. According to the owners 6,000 would be adulterers from Ireland have already registered. They believe that because of the recession Ireland is ripe because the under pressured married people are looking for ‘fun’.

I suddenly realised why this is concerning. It is a website totally dedicated to people who are consciously choosing to cheat. Cheating, no matter what way you turn it is unacceptable. There is a universal distaste for card cheats and yet cheating on other human beings is suddenly not only acceptable but a good business model! Maybe if it was an unpaid hobby for some serial adulterer it wouldn’t even be so awful.

The site, which started in Toronto in 2001 came up against opposition last November when Sean O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston condemned the dating service and called on media outlets in the city to refuse its advertisements. Another group in the states christened it Home Wreckers Inc. Noel Biderman, the owner of the site, is reported to have said it was, “inevitable” that his business will face opposition from the Catholic church in Ireland but added, “My response will be, as it was in Boston, that I understand their doctrines but they need to understand that not everyone adheres to their way of life.”

Forgive me Mr Biderman, but last time I checked infidelity has little to do with Catholic doctrine; it’s about people, real people and sometimes families with a high risk of being hurt! It’s first and foremost about cheating not religion. It is about betrayal and possible horrific consequences, some even violent. Even the word ‘affair’ sounds rather tame; ‘unfair’ should really be the term.

Most adulterers blame fate; we were thrown together at work/down the pub/in the park. Going to an adultery website on the other hand is pre-meditated; you are actively choosing to cheat. Personally I would rather see legalised prostitution and brothels on every street corner in every town in Ireland. There is something much more honest about it as a business. It’s a financial transaction for a physical act. Affairs are about emotional transactions; much more costly in the long run. In a recession I have no doubt that financial problems can put a strain on even the best of relationships. When the pressure comes on we all look for ways to escape; some permanently, some just for a while. The problem with an adultery site is that its existence means the temptation is very strong and the results are quick and easy. What could be considered a whim, a fantasy or an itch that will pass if you don’t scratch it, can suddenly be taken from thought to reality very quickly. It’s like keeping biscuits in the house when you are on a diet. While you might think about a biscuit, if there aren’t any available you’ll soon forget about it.

At the other end of the argument of course there is always the cry that adultery is the symptom not the disease. I find myself agreeing very much with such a statement. While serial adulterers exist, they are in the minority. Most people who have affairs just get caught in a moment or are experiencing some kind of difficulty in their relationship and certainly wouldn’t plan such a mess. We are all capable of making a mistake. Again this is why Ashleymadison.com is so cynical and sinister; it makes it easy and almost respectable. The slogan, “Life is short” even suggests that those of us who don’t subscribe to cheating are just boring, dull individuals wanting everyone else to be boring and dull too. It couldn’t be further from the truth. If you and your partner/wife/husband have had a conversation and have agreed to a polygamous relationship then it’s fine. I speak on behalf of all those souls out there who think they are in a monogamous arrangement and are about to be cheated on.

Isn’t it funny that words like ‘cheat’ and ‘cheater’ don’t feature in the blurb about Ashleymadison.com. It’s dressed up in terms of ‘adventure’, ‘living life to the full’, ‘having fun’! It saddens me deeply that websites like this could be seen as some kind of solution to any problem. For the small percentage that manage to do it and get away unscathed, for most, affairs are beyond destructive. No matter how they start, affairs mean lies, deceit and a whole lot of energy. I would imagine it really is hard work.

In a recession advertisers will hardly turn down legitimate advertising from a client even if it is an adultery website and who could blame them. It’s just tragic that we live in a world where we delude ourselves into thinking that something so sinister is just harmless fun; a world where we openly and wantonly sign up and pay cash to betray others. Worst of all we are paying to betray those we once publicly claimed to love! Shame on us as a society.