Ashley Madison Blog, January 2012

Did you hear the one about the politician who criticized a President for infidelity while he was cheating on his own wife, and then decided to run for President himself? No, it’s not a joke. It’s Newt Gingrich.

See, back when Bill Clinton was President, and the Monica Lewinsky affair became public knowledge, Newt Gingrich was one of Clinton’s most vocal critics. Turns out, he was having an affair of his own at the time. But it’s totally okay because Newt didn’t criticize Clinton for his affair. Oh, no! That would be too easy, too obvious, and yes, too hypocritical. No, what Newt got down on Bill for was the lying. That’s why Newt had to lead the charge for impeachment.

But even then, it wasn’t just because Bill Clinton lied about not having “sexual relations with that woman.” It was because he was an elected official, and lied about not having “sexual relations with that woman.” And not just any elected official—the President, no less! Well, Newt just couldn’t stand for that.

A funny little story on my way to writing this post:

Someone said to me ‘Only losers cheat on people they are supposed to love!”

I wanted to say, ‘honey, you have no idea what you’re talking about’ and yet I didn’t. I let this nice woman go on and on and on about cheaters and how they are ruining society.

Let me tell you what is ruining society:  Being dishonest about just how much we value passionate, connected sex. Yes, that’s right. It’s not the debt ceiling debacle or the fact that no two people can decide on who is wealthy. It’s telling ourselves that sex isn’t really that important in a relationship. Until we look across the dinner table and realize that our partner is more focused on the Tuesday (not that hard) NY Times Crossword puzzle and less interested in the fact that we wanted to be a biologist when we were kids. The passion you told yourself wasn’t so important because you were marrying someone who would be a great parent, manager of a household, tax preparer is now the one thing you can’t get out of your mind.

You. Need. Passion.

Racy, vulgar texts hurt Justice Department’s largest sting operation targeting foreign bribery

By Del Quentin Wilber, Published: February 13 via The Washington Post

In text message after text message, FBI agents and their key informant joked about sex, booty calls, prostitutes, cigars, the Village People, the informant’s wives and an agent’s girlfriend. They even pondered who might play their roles in a movie based on their sting.

When arrests were announced by the Justice Department, the agents and informant basked in positive press. “It’s like an atomic mushroom cloud,” the informant gloated in a text to his FBI handler.

The Dubious Science of Online Dating

By ELI J. FINKEL AND BENJAMIN R. KARNEY

February 11, 2012

HOW scientific are the “matching algorithms” of online-dating Web sites?

For a fee, many dating sites will collect data about you, crunch the numbers and match you with someone who, as eHarmony puts it, has been “prescreened for deep compatibility with you across 29 dimensions.” Sites like Chemistry, PerfectMatch and GenePartner make similar scientific-sounding claims.

But can a mathematical formula really identify pairs of singles who are especially likely to have a successful romantic relationship?