AshleyMadison.com: Redbook Magazine Investigates
by Ashley Reich (First published 29 March 2011) (edited)
This month’s issue of Redbook magazine, on newsstands now, features a story about two reporters-one male, one female-who went undercover on AshleyMadison.com, the dating website for wannabe adulterers.
Redbook editor-in-chief Jill Herzig stopped by the Today Show Tuesday with psychologist Dr. Jeff Gardere to talk about the magazine’s take on Noel Biderman’s controversial website, which has 8 million members.
Herzig said that the most surprising finding from the undercover investigation was that many men on the site craved an emotional connection, not just a physical one.
“We certainly expected the dirty stuff to come to the surface. The pornographic pictures that our reporter was sent and the straightforward sex come-ons,” she said. “But it was the men looking for an emotional connection. They wanted the thrill of that new, sort of passing notes in the school stage of the relationship.”
NBC’s Kevin Tibbles spoke with two unidentified married women who claim that infidelity through Ashleymadison.com has improved their marriages and made them better wives, though Dr. Gardere said that they are “in denial.”
“It’s a self delusion into thinking that you can lay down with your husband, lay down with other people…it makes you a cheating wife, not a better wife,” he said.
Herzig encourages readers to talk openly with their spouses about the site, and to deal with their marital problems directly rather than cheating.
“Talk to your husband about the fact that this site exists and try to surface the issues in your marriage and try to deal with them in an upfront way, don’t bury your head in the sand,” she said.
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