I don't know him enough to know how that happens. What I get is a lot of people who come back to me and say, ‘Listen, this has made me a better partner.' They were angry and taking things out on their family. The sexual frustration they were feeling, they start having the affair and all of a sudden, that stress is removed. It's very cathartic for those people. If you come home and you've had an affair earlier in the day, it might be easier not to be frustrated with your partner. The conversation could take a different directional tone and that can lead to intimacy.
That's a one-sided dynamic.
I disagree. That's making the assumption again that someone who's cheating is in the wrong.
Why not just divorce, which people do anyway?
That's again saying that sex is more important than everything else. That's saying, ‘My sex life doesn't work, so let's get a divorce, I'm putting that ahead of my kids and raising them in the best possible way,' which we all know is a dual-parent household. That's a supremely selfish act. I think that's the destruction of society going on. If you look over at countries like France and Japan, it doesn't happen that way. They have really high infidelity rates and much lower divorce rates because for the most part, affairs are understood – tolerated. People don't walk away from their families on the same level we do here.
Do your members end up staying with their spouses?
The vast majority of our members stay with their wives. Their infidelity never gets discovered. People use a service like mine or have an office romance or go to a singles' site or visit a prostitute or a massage parlour, and it tends to keep them in their relationship longer. If they couldn't do those things, they would surely leave their marriages.
Does that not create huge issues around trust?
I think people lie for real reasons: They were lying because they were trying not to hurt their partner. People are unhappy. They're trying to make themselves happy and in so doing they sometimes complicate their lives and they sometimes alleviate problems.
Does your site give people opportunities they otherwise might not have had?
I'm not going to be naive enough to say that I haven't created this service. I still maintain I'm not going to convince anyone to have an affair with my commercials. They're going to have an affair because their life isn't working for them. It's not so much about me.
What's the gender split between your members?
It's about 70 per cent men, 30 per cent women. The men are almost all attached, but there are some single men on the service. On the female side, probably about 30 per cent are single women, that quintessential mistress.
Who is Ashley Madison?
I was confident that this service would attract men. I was less sure that women were going to behave in that fashion. From day one, I wanted to design a service that had a look and feel that made women feel comfortable. In 2000, the most popular girls' names were Ashley and Madison. I thought if women were naming their children that, they'd have some affinity for that branding. It's a fictitious individual. I suppose I could have called the site “Cheat on Your Partner.” That didn't feel right to me.
You'd think you wouldn't put children and cheating together.
No, it's not about children – it's a subconscious thing. Ashley Madison is just a persona that women feel comfortable with: ‘Oh that's a pretty name, that's a nice name.' That's what I was attempting to accomplish. It had nothing to do with children.
Are you married?
I am happily married, yes, for seven years.
Do you cheat?
