Ashley Madison... hacked

Carnal_Flower said:

I'm really quite surprised at all the quick to judge viewpoints on "cheating" expressed by erotic writers here.

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Again, I think you are just conveniently sliding by what others are actually posting here.

Carnal_Flower said:

I'm really quite surprised at all the quick to judge viewpoints on "cheating" expressed by erotic writers here.

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What on earth does being an erotic writer have to do with anyone's beliefs about honesty and promise-keeping? I write sexy fiction so I can't believe in the value of kept promises? Really?

You never know. You don't have a clue what is going on in two people's marriage, or minds. Sometimes, sure, you've got a lyin' cheatin' scumbag who is betraying someone else's trust. But that's hardly a given. So many marriages are such empty, fake crapola, such lip service, its ridiculous that they DON'T step out.

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In which case there's divorce.

Sorry - marriage is a Forsaking All Others deal. If the marriage doesn't work, bringing it to a public end is the only ethical move. Everything else is betrayal, of the spouse, the children, and often of your chosen playmates. I'm sorry, but any other argument is total bullshit. A marriage is a promise. If you never intended to keep that promise, the very nicest thing you can be called is treacherous. If you realised after the fact that you cannot keep your word, then man up and publically recant the promise. Adding dishonesty to a broken oath doesn't improve anything for anyone.

Don't want to get a divorce because of the kids? Bullshit argument. Better you should honestly separate than the kids should figure out why mommy or daddy is out late and comes home smelling of the wrong aftershave or perfume. If you care about the kids so much, be a role mode, not a bad example.

Don't want to give up the spouse's paycheck? Bullshit argument. At least a whore provides service for her paycheck; you don't even want to do that?

Don't want the public shame of a failed relationship? Total bullshit argument. Most affairs get discovered in the end. Divorce is barely even a stigma anymore; cheating always will be.

Your spouse cheated first, abused, etc? Divorce is trivially available in these cases. You have a *responsibility* to get free of it, taking kids with you as needed. Your only other option is to forgive.

There's no excuse. Repair the marriage or end it.

I'm really sick of this responsibility-free, me-first-you-nowhere, everyone-does-it-so_i_can-too culture.

It has a lot more to do with it than being a preacher.

Ever read The Scarlet Letter?

As if writers haven't been exploring the COMPLEXITIES of betrayal and adultery since the dawn of time, with nuance and sensitivity. An erotic writer specializing in desire should be even more sensitive to it.

You'd be one of the mob stoning the fallen woman from the sound of it.

HandsInTheDark said:

What on earth does being an erotic writer have to do with anyone's beliefs about honesty and promise-keeping? I write sexy fiction so I can't believe in the value of kept promises? Really?



In which case there's divorce.

Sorry - marriage is a Forsaking All Others deal. If the marriage doesn't work, bringing it to a public end is the only ethical move. Everything else is betrayal, of the spouse, the children, and often of your chosen playmates. I'm sorry, but any other argument is total bullshit. A marriage is a promise. If you never intended to keep that promise, the very nicest thing you can be called is treacherous. If you realised after the fact that you cannot keep your word, then man up and publically recant the promise. Adding dishonesty to a broken oath doesn't improve anything for anyone.

Don't want to get a divorce because of the kids? Bullshit argument. Better you should honestly separate than the kids should figure out why mommy or daddy is out late and comes home smelling of the wrong aftershave or perfume. If you care about the kids so much, be a role mode, not a bad example.

Don't want to give up the spouse's paycheck? Bullshit argument. At least a whore provides service for her paycheck; you don't even want to do that?

Don't want the public shame of a failed relationship? Total bullshit argument. Most affairs get discovered in the end. Divorce is barely even a stigma anymore; cheating always will be.

Your spouse cheated first, abused, etc? Divorce is trivially available in these cases. You have a *responsibility* to get free of it, taking kids with you as needed. Your only other option is to forgive.

There's no excuse. Repair the marriage or end it.

I'm really sick of this responsibility-free, me-first-you-nowhere, everyone-does-it-so_i_can-too culture.

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Carnal_Flower said:

You'd be one of the mob stoning the fallen woman from the sound of it.

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All right, no one is to stone anyone until I blow this whistle. Even if -- and I want to make this absolutely clear -- even if they do say "Jehovah. "

Once again, there's a big difference in not sympathizing with someone who cheats on commitments he/she willingly made and stoning them. Some folks here are trying to demonize the lack of sympathy--and ignore the part about being dumb to think your private information, freely doled out, really will be effectively protected by a sex Web site--to, I don't know, make themselves feel justified in their selfishness and bad judgment? Thinking them selfish fools isn't even close to going after them with stones.

Carnal_Flower said:

I'm really quite surprised at all the quick to judge viewpoints on "cheating" expressed by erotic writers here. You never know. You don't have a clue what is going on in two people's marriage, or minds. Sometimes, sure, you've got a lyin' cheatin' scumbag who is betraying someone else's trust. But that's hardly a given. So many marriages are such empty, fake crapola, such lip service, its ridiculous that they DON'T step out. So many reasons and motives why people do what they do. I don't judge until I know more.

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Well said. I'm not going to celebrate the hack of personal data because I think I live in a more virtuous way than the victims of said hack. I think that people have every right to cheat as much as they like, it isn't illegal. We have always been animals and our bodies haven't changed much in 200,000 years. Marriage is arguably 10,000 years old and most of those years it was about business, not monogamy. We are made to fuck and fuck we shall!

CyranoJ said:

Pretty much in order to have an affair, you're betraying a trust by definition; I can't think of many marriages where fidelity isn't supposed to be a core and explicit part of the deal. Now, whether the person's trust you're betraying is an abusive asshole who arguably deserves it or a largely indifferent virtual-stranger in a sham marriage or an innocent and loving dupe who you're going to Hell for stepping out on is of course a whole other question.

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I'm a strong believer in honesty and negotiated relationships, but sometimes life gets complex.

I know couples who are compatible in every way except sexually, who've talked about it and agreed that waiving sexual fidelity is a reasonable way to meet those needs. It works for them.

I suspect I know a lot of other couples who are pretty much like that, except minus the ability to talk to one another about this stuff. Talking is HARD, especially when both parties are reluctant to start the conversation because they're afraid the other one is going to freak out. Obviously the ideal solution is for them to develop better communication skills, but working from the position that most people are crap at this sort of communication and unlikely to change any time soon, sometimes cheating might be the least-bad option on the table.

And then there are situations where it's no longer possible to have that conversation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/10/AR2007121000503.html

I doubt many people even consider that sort of scenario when they commit to a long-term relationship, let alone negotiate the rules for it ahead of time. When something like that comes along, people have to muddle their way through as best they can. Would anybody judge SDOC harshly if she'd found a new lover herself in that situation?

HandsInTheDark said:

Most affairs get discovered in the end.

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How would you know that?

Undiscovered affairs are undiscovered, so it's kinda hard to gauge how common they are.

masterandmargarita said:

Well said. I'm not going to celebrate the hack of personal data because I think I live in a more virtuous way than the victims of said hack. I think that people have every right to cheat as much as they like, it isn't illegal. We have always been animals and our bodies haven't changed much in 200,000 years. Marriage is arguably 10,000 years old and most of those years it was about business, not monogamy. We are made to fuck and fuck we shall!

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Wow. It's a good thing I'm not an argumentative person, because there's so much wrong here it'd be hard to know where to start. But for grins...

1. Last I checked, adultery was still illegal in 23 states. (That was 2011, and some laws might have changed. It's not very illegal in some places; I've seen one cite of a fine as low as ten dollars, in another state it's possible to be sent away for life. Lack of enforcement isn't the same thing as legal.)

2. "We've always been animals" used as a rationale for any behaviour, implies we can act as animals do with impunity. Wolverines kill for fun; baboons lie, cheat and steal; some birds kill the young of other birds to make room for their own offspring. This is understood to be ok behavior because they are ONLY animals, but we don't put up with it in humans because humans are supposed to follow a higher standard of behaviour. Your implied philosophy on life reeks of logical positivism and a sizable dose of anarchy; but I'm willing to guess you get pissed off when someone lies to you or rips you off, so drop the logical positivism. And please don't move in next to me; I shoot anarchists on sight.(*)

3. Marriage is a universal construct; it exists in pretty much every known society. In *all* of them it's culturally described as monogamous (here defining monogamy as a small fixed group that doesn't swap members in and out), even if everyone acknowledges that's more of an ideal than a practice. In fact in many cultures, not just the judeo christian ones, it was tied to religious practice, meaning the promises being made were considered so essential they were a matter for gods, not lawyers. Though lawyers generally got invoked too, which is why adultery is illegal in the majority of the world.

4. Marriage has historically been about procreation; people wanted to know which kids were actually their own. There were other factors - protecting or enslaving women, establishing property rights and inheritance, expressing love, etc. But claiming it was ONLY an economic arrangement only works if you claim everything is an economic arrangement. Now you're channeling Karl Marx here, on top of Bertrand Russell.

We're made to fuck, definitely. We wouldn't be here without it. We're also made to make promises and act cooperatively - humans are VERY tribal - love, live ethically (no other species even has the concept), and care for offspring (in one informal study, human females were ranked second in protectiveness towards their young, right behind grizzly bears). In other words a whole lot of what makes us human forms the basis of marriage, which is why the concept is so universal and why most people despise an adulterer.

In summary, the only people who think it's all about their dicks - are dicks.


(*) For people not paying attention, this sentence is intended as ironic humor. Thank you.

I'm so glad there are such moral and upstanding citizens here on Lit.

I wish people would keep their noses out of other relationships between consenting adults. Especially relationships that we know nothing about.

And what's with all the support of hackers? Last I checked, that was actually a crime - releasing credit card information, names, etc. Why would anyone support that?

What "all the support of hackers"? Please quote someone actually supporting the hackers (NB: opposing or deriding adultery isn't the same thing) if you're going to say people are doing so.

CyranoJ said:

What "all the support of hackers"? Please quote someone actually supporting the hackers (NB: opposing or deriding adultery isn't the same thing) if you're going to say people are doing so.

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I was specifically referring to the comments on so many of the articles linked to here. But, I don't like the the attitude toward privacy I see in some comments here on this thread. Lots of "you should know better" and "you get what you deserve" type stances.

eg:

voluptuary_manque said:

I think this is one of the funnier hacks around. I mean, what did people expect? Join a public adultery site and expect that with all the hackers and jealous spouses in the world that they'd remain 'secret' forever? Gimme a break!

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HandsInTheDark said:

Glad they went down. Obnoxious ads, obnoxious business model. I hope they are permanently ruined, though that's far too much to ask.

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voluptuary_manque said:

Hatred has nothing to do with it. Schadenfreude? Oh, yes. It's the same sort of thing that makes the Darwin Awards so entertaining. The unending foolishness of the species is great comedy.

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sr71plt said:

... My guess is that most of those who joined were just cruising the Internet for titillation. And now they will have gotten an education on risk taking and naive trusting on the Internet. And it's really no one's fault but their own. We're seeing examples of Internet security failures all around us. It's hard to miss...

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The Soulful Bard said:

AM should've stuck a huuuuuge banner -- "JOIN AT YOUR OWN RISK"

Seriously, how stupid can people actually be to give out personal info online for stuffs like these? Nothing is safe online. Especially on such websites.

I don't care what happens to such people. They did it knowingly, they better clean it up themselves as best as they can. Anyone pleading sympathy from me will get a swift kick in their asses.

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^ Okay, I see what you're talking about. Yeah, indifference to the hacking itself doesn't seem a good idea to me either.

Bramblethorn said:

I'm a strong believer in honesty and negotiated relationships, but sometimes life gets complex.

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I'd say the first and last examples on your list seem perfectly fine to me. Whether they're likely to comprise any very significant number of adulterous relationships is another question, though; the first one is basically describing an open marriage, which, you'd think going through anything other than a normal dating or hook-up website would be needless at that point.

As for this, though:

I suspect I know a lot of other couples who are pretty much like that, except minus the ability to talk to one another about this stuff. Talking is HARD, especially when both parties are reluctant to start the conversation because they're afraid the other one is going to freak out.

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Yeah, the reasons for that sort of circumstance are comprehensible, but a reason isn't necessarily an excuse and I can see why a lot of people just have no time for this.

No support of hackers here, though it doesn't break my heart that AM got hit.

However, before anyone wrings their hands for corporations getting hit by these malicious evil hackers, I will say this. Any corporation that gets hacked is 100% at fault for allowing it to happen, and should be held utterly liable for their vulnerabilities. It's perfectly possible to make a hack-proof website - it's simply very expensive, and no company wants to pay that kind of money. It's cheaper for them to let people get screwed and pay occasional damages than it is to do the right thing and actually be responsible for every line of code they put on their own systems.

Unfortunately, unless laws change, this won't get fixed. I think if companies had to pay a nice round thousand dollars, plus any damages, to each and every person whose information they let leak... you'd see some serious reprioritization happening. But such a law will never exist.

What blows me away is people here who are apparently in favor of outright adultery. I guess for some folk, LW is the non-fiction section. Which has terrifying implications for the Incest category.

HandsInTheDark said:

What blows me away is people here who are apparently in favor of outright adultery. I guess for some folk, LW is the non-fiction section. Which has terrifying implications for the Incest category.

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Tell me where people are IN FAVOR of adultery? What I have read here are people saying they don't think it's any of your business what people do in their bedrooms with consenting adults.

I don't see how that becomes full support.

SweetSam42 said:

And what's with all the support of hackers? Last I checked, that was actually a crime - releasing credit card information, names, etc. Why would anyone support that?

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I'm game. Who on this thread has stated support for the hackers? That's different from not having sympathy for those caught--for multiple reasons, not all having to do with any moral issues other than not having sympathy for folks who won't take responsibility for themselves and their own actions (starting with the gullibility of giving personal information, including credit card information, to a sex site on the Internet).

Maybe it's time for you and others to grow up and look around you. You don't see personal information being hacked on the Internet left and right?

You folks are really working hard to purposely misrepresent and demonize what others are posting on this to justify your "it's all about me" views.

sr71plt said:

I'm game. Who on this thread has stated support for the hackers? That's different from not having sympathy for those caught--for multiple reasons, not all having to do with any moral issues other than not having sympathy for folks who won't take responsibility for themselves and their own actions (starting with the gullibility of giving personal information, including credit card information, to a sex site on the Internet).

Maybe it's time for you and others to grow up and look around you. You don't see personal information being hacked on the Internet left and right?

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Sorry, maybe you didn't see my explanation of my comment above?

SweetSam42 said:

I was specifically referring to the comments on so many of the articles linked to here. But, I don't like the the attitude toward privacy I see in some comments here on this thread. Lots of "you should know better" and "you get what you deserve" type stances.

eg:

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Yep, you should learn to know better--especially since you seem to think you're the only one anyone should thinking about.

SweetSam42 said:

Sorry, maybe you didn't see my explanation of my comment above?

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Yep, which changed what your charge was. You clearly stated that posters to this thread supported hacking. And now you said it was articles someone linked to. You don't see the difference? You're just doing anything you can to justify your "it's all about me" position.

Hey, the Chinese just hacked into my classified spy background on a U.S. government site that I had no choice about the information being there to be hacked. Now tell me to cry over some marriage cheater having his/her credit card information and answers to questions about her/his sexual kinks on a sex site being hacked that he/she voluntarily gave to the Web site. Nope, sorry, I can hate hackers and still shed no tears for folks who voluntarily walk into danger that way.

HandsInTheDark said:

Wow. It's a good thing I'm not an argumentative person, because there's so much wrong here it'd be hard to know where to start. But for grins...

1. Last I checked, adultery was still illegal in 23 states. (That was 2011, and some laws might have changed. It's not very illegal in some places; I've seen one cite of a fine as low as ten dollars, in another state it's possible to be sent away for life. Lack of enforcement isn't the same thing as legal.)

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CO and NH have abolished it since then. While it's still on the books in 21 other states, I don't think anybody's yet tested whether those laws would hold up to a challenge under the right to sexual privacy established under Lawrence v. Texas; it'd be interesting to see how that might play out.

2. "We've always been animals" used as a rationale for any behaviour, implies we can act as animals do with impunity. Wolverines kill for fun; baboons lie, cheat and steal; some birds kill the young of other birds to make room for their own offspring. This is understood to be ok behavior because they are ONLY animals, but we don't put up with it in humans because humans are supposed to follow a higher standard of behaviour.

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I agree with you that "argument from nature" is a bad idea, but the "kill for fun" bit might be a bad example; recreational hunting/fishing is still very popular and widely accepted.

3. Marriage is a universal construct; it exists in pretty much every known society. In *all* of them it's culturally described as monogamous (here defining monogamy as a small fixed group that doesn't swap members in and out),

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Terminology nitpick: Monogamy specifically means having one mate (mono-gamy), not just a "small group". There are plenty of non-monogamous societies through history, along with a lot of non-monogamy in ostensibly monogamous societies.

I think what you're talking about here is more "closed relationship", monogamous or otherwise.

We're made to fuck, definitely. We wouldn't be here without it. We're also made to make promises and act cooperatively - humans are VERY tribal - love, live ethically (no other species even has the concept),

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Depends what you mean by "ethically". Several nonhuman species seem to have a concept of fairness; see e.g. here/.

and care for offspring (in one informal study, human females were ranked second in protectiveness towards their young, right behind grizzly bears).

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I'd be interested to see that study, if you've got a link; it seems like something that would be very hard to quantify when child-rearing modes vary so much. How do we rank a woman who insists on driving her daughter to school, vs an octopus who wastes away watching over her eggs, vs crab spiders who allow their young to eat them?

sr71plt said:

Yep, you should learn to know better--especially since you seem to think you're the only one anyone should thinking about.

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I don't understand what you're saying. What did I say that gave you that impression?

sr71plt said:

Yep, which changed what your charge was. You clearly stated that posters to this thread supported hacking. And now you said it was articles someone linked to. You don't see the difference? You're just doing anything you can to justify your "it's all about me" position.

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Actually, it wasn't clear, which is why I elaborated when asked about it. If you go back to my post, you'll see that I said a fairly general statement, which I should have been more clear on.

I'm not sure why you're attacking me. I actually thought we were all having a rather interesting discussion about privacy and morality.

Must have had something to do with your repeated misrepresentation of what other posters were posting.

HandsInTheDark said:

What blows me away is people here who are apparently in favor of outright adultery.

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Yes. In favor.

Adultery isn't for everyone. Just for some. This seems to be the main disagreement (the other disagreements seem a bit silly: legality, history of marriage, Karl Marx etc.) so maybe we can just amicably take a side: for or against adultery. I'm for, you're against. I can respect that.

This has been the liveliest debate I've ever contributed to on these forums and I really appreciate what CyranoJ and sr71plt have done in terms of keeping people honest and reasonable, myself included. Cooler heads prevail.

Help yourselves to a free story concept: an icecube-in-the-mouth blowbang or Alaskan winter gangbang titled "Cooler Heads Prevail."

HandsInTheDark said:

No support of hackers here, though it doesn't break my heart that AM got hit.

However, before anyone wrings their hands for corporations getting hit by these malicious evil hackers, I will say this. Any corporation that gets hacked is 100% at fault for allowing it to happen, and should be held utterly liable for their vulnerabilities. It's perfectly possible to make a hack-proof website - it's simply very expensive, and no company wants to pay that kind of money. It's cheaper for them to let people get screwed and pay occasional damages than it is to do the right thing and actually be responsible for every line of code they put on their own systems.

Unfortunately, unless laws change, this won't get fixed. I think if companies had to pay a nice round thousand dollars, plus any damages, to each and every person whose information they let leak... you'd see some serious reprioritization happening. But such a law will never exist.

What blows me away is people here who are apparently in favor of outright adultery. I guess for some folk, LW is the non-fiction section. Which has terrifying implications for the Incest category.

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Hmmm well any corporation that gets hacked isn't always 100% to blame, there are always security holes, and people can get in every now and then. and it just might be the place where your naked photos/chats with your brothers wife are stored. Expecting 100% security is unrealistic.

Having looked at similar sites for a friend who is a TV journalist (not the specific one mentioned that has been hacked) they don't tend to be the most reliable, I've looked at ones that were running banks of fake female characters chatting with men to keep the cash flowing in with the monthly subscriptions from men. Ones that were farming peoples accounts out across multiple almost duplicate sites so you could find your profile on sites that were dating sites for people in uniform and sites for affairs, and sites for over 50's when you'd only signed up to a site that supposedly catered for something like redheads. Borderline fraud in many cases but relying on people not wanting their private lives to come out so being unwilling to complain in public.