New York Metro via Jezebel / Today
Expecting shame from Ashley Madison is like inviting the Devil to your dinner party and waiting for him to apologize after he urinates on the apéritifs.
So it's with disgust, but not surprise, that we find the adultery website's Tuesday update (pictured above) of its original post-Halloween body-shaming campaign. It arrived as a full-page ad in the New York Metro — the free magazine that often serves as a sanitary barrier between Gotham's commuters and what we're expected to sit on.
"Did your wife SCARE you last night?" read the original ad which also featured the same image of someone who's known in the modeling industry as a BBW — big, beautiful woman — scantily clad in a come-hither pose.
"The message: your wife, though she's clearly gone to some effort to look sexy and seduce you, is too fat. Solution: adultery," decrypted feminist blog Jezebel in its first post about the offensive ad.
The overweight model Ashley Madison used to represent any husband's excuse to cheat isn't happy about the use of her image either, and says so in a follow-up post for Jezebel. "I am mortified that my image and likeness would be used as advertisement for two things I am so vehemently against: namely cheating and, to an even greater extent, body shaming," writes "Jacqueline," the owner and model of the BBW porn website Juicy Jackie.
The market for the many very adults-only websites such as Juicy Jackie — "tailored to the tastes of those that love big women, their curves, rolls and all the plush softness that comes with being fat" — pretty much disproves Ashley Madison's assumption that women such as Jacqueline are unacceptable.
As for Ashley Madison, Jacqueline told Jezebel readers, "I find the very idea that there exists a business based solely around the facilitation of infidelity appalling. The fact that they are now suggesting that a person's partner not fitting their ideal body size/shape, entitles that person to 'shop around' is disgusting."
Notably, this new Ashley Madison campaign differs greatly from Ashley Madison CEO Noel Biderman's early pitch for his "marriage saver" business, whose existence he justified to Bloomberg Business by saying:
If I woke up and found my partner wasn't interested in being with me sexually and I tried to do everything I could but sex was now off her radar...Well, sex is important in my marriage — it is — but it's not No. 1 and it's not No. 2. So I would stray before I would just leave, because maybe that would give me enough of what I need to stay within my marriage to do all the other things that are critical to me.
Meanwhile, Biderman responded to Jezebel's spot-on criticism much like anyone best described as an antiquated feminine hygiene product — by blaming and shaming his accusers:
The best thing that could've happened to this woman is that we used her in our ad. Despite what she may want you to think, she is reaping the press for her own pornography website. She took these pictures and signed the release knowing that they were not just for 'personal use.' However, if she can get great publicity from this, all the power to her.
Potential adulterers take note: You don't need to hate your wife, hate women, encourage fat shaming or even cheat on your spouse to mess around outside of marriage. What's more, OKCupid — which doesn't actively encourage any of the above behavior — has many polyamorous friendly members. And unlike Ashley Madison, OKCupid doesn't make you pay.
More on the annoying way we live now:
- Tumblr infected with Justin Bieber-fueled rage
- Failed Facebook party leads to unfriending, arson
- Can't 'Occupy Wall Street?' Viral video says 'occupy the mail'
Helen A.S. Popkin goes blah blah blah about the Internet. Tell her to get a real job on Twitter and/or Facebook. Also, Google+.