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fidelity
This page considers debate about online matchmaking as
a mechanism for the destruction of the family and happiness.
It covers -
 introduction
Online dating services - along with online adult content
services - have served as a screen onto which enthusiasts
have projected anxieties about contemporary morals or
equally problematical assertions that digital technologies
are necessarily beneficent and should thus not be restricted.
Concerns about new media as mechanisms for the erosion
of the family, proper social ordering and individual virtue
are not new. As noted elsewhere on this site the telegraph
was denounced for facilitating promiscuous mingling of
classes, genders and races. The early motion picture industry
had to deal with claims that young women were led astray
(or simply received ideas above their station) by what
they saw on screen and were placed in danger by frequenting
cinemas which - like the theatres of old - were places
of ill-repute. Men were similarly exposed to peril by
meeting women - especially women of uncertain or easy
virtue - outside a framework in which their peers would
exert a steadying influence.
Threats to family virtues might of course be independent
of the media, electronic or otherwise, with critics variously
assailing racecourses (haunted by brazen hussies and spivs),
pubs and public toilets (luring the paterfamilias into
forbidden same-sex activity). If you are anxious there
is danger everywhere.
cheating
hearts
Critics on occasion have relied on notions that online
interaction is peculiarly addictive.
Some baldly claim that 'social presence' online weakens
inhibitions. Others have offered a syllogism in which
access to online erotica leads to unrewarding promiscuity
and thence to more online adult content in a spiral of
misery and compulsivity.
Works such as Infidelity on the Internet: Virtual
Relationships & Real Betrayal (Naperville: Sourcebooks
2001) by Marlene Maheu & Rona Subotnik and hyperbole
by Mary Anne Layden - noted for extravagant claims regarding
"a sexual holocaust" or net-induced "soaring
demand" for prostitution - have accordingly criticised
the net as both a cause of and mechanism for infidelity.
Discussion elsewhere on this site notes
much-publicised and problematical assertions
that "the internet will soon become the most common
form of infidelity, if it wasn't already".
Alvin
Cooper gained attention by labelling the net "the
crack cocaine of sexual compulsivity". One in 10
of his (alas, self-selected) respondents claimed that
they are "addicted to sex and the Internet"
- a figure that this site elsewhere suggest is somewhat
lower than those who would report an "addiction"
to the telephone or television.
Cooper's image has been embraced by other polemicists,
with one site for example breathlessly warning that 'cybersex'
is "as addictive as crack cocaine" and that
-
- one-third
of divorce litigation is caused by online affairs
- only
46% of men believe that online affairs are adultery
- 8-10%
of Internet users become hooked on cybersex.
- respondents
devote three hours each week to online sexual exploits
- approximately
70% of time on-line is spent in chatrooms or sending
email; of these
interactions, the vast majority are romantic in nature.
Another pundit fretted that online dating may lead to
cyber-addiction, commenting that
people
who over rely on online dating might be at risk for
developing Internet compulsivity. In fact, the motivations
that seem people have for engaging in online dating
parallel the underlying reasons for Internet addiction.
For example, men tend to seek out dominance and sexual
fantasy online, while women seek out close friendships,
romantic partners, and prefer anonymous communication
in which to hide their appearance. Men are more likely
to become addicted to online games, cyberporn, and online
gambling, while women are more likely to become addicted
to chatting, instant messaging, eBay, and online shopping.
Nothing
like taking assumptions about gender out for a walk.
Clearly some people are provoked to question their relationships
(or the desirability of their partners) through online
chat or scrutiny of the bodies who appear on screen. The
same people may, however, be provoked by what appears
on television, in magazines or even in passing traffic
as they sit at a cafe or their desk. Unhappiness perhaps
starts in the heart, rather than peculiarly through http.
Claims regarding the pernicious effects of life online
include 'Bargains With Chaos: Sex Addicts and Addiction
Interaction Disorder' by Patrick Carnes, Robert Murray
& Louis Charpentier in 12 Sexual Addiction &
Compulsivity (2005) 79-120. Carnes collaborated with
Patrick Carnes, David Delmonico & Elizabeth Griffin
on In the Shadows of the Net: Breaking Free of Compulsive
Online Sexual Behavior (Center City: Hazelden 2004).
A similar view of what is wrong and where to get help
is provided in Kimberly Young's Caught in the Net:
How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction and A
Winning Strategy for Recovery (New York: Wiley 1998).
Figures for the percentage of married people - or those
with some expectation of fidelity - covertly using online
dating services are at best problematical. There is no
reliable information about the percentage who go from
flirting or "checking out what's available"
to establishing a lasting relationship or having a 'one
night stand'.
That has not deterred pundits from claiming that married
people (in particular married men, who are often portrayed
as the villains) overwhelmingly prefer free online dating
sites ... presumably because their partner does not encounter
a telltale credit card entry.
Folk wisdom for spotting a married man on a dating site
includes such gems as -
-
He chooses not to post a picture of himself or posts
one that doesn't identify him (eg because it is dark
or shows him in a crowd)
-
He will probably be the one to initiate the first contact.
-
He may be very irregular or erratic about his responses
- He
requests your phone number, but will not give you his
number.
-
His calls to you are very irregular, or are at set times.
- He
will give you only his mobile number
- You
have his mobile number, but constantly are forced to
leave a message
- He
won’t share his last name with you.
-
He is very secretive about where he lives.
-
He does not divulge much info about himself or his family
and upbringing.
- You
never get the chance to meet his friends or family.
counter-claims
Hyperbole about dating sites as "a social cancer"
or venue for the expression of "sexual compulsivity"
have unsurprisingly provoked several counter claims.
One is simply that many users of those sites are adults,
free in liberal democratic states to choose their own
partners and expected to take responsibility for their
actions.
Another response is that people who are inclined to "misbehave"
will find opportunities to do so without the aid of a
muse-click and a web browser, for example through illicit
dalliance at work. One reader of this site noted that
many people spend more time at work than at home (including
time that isn't comatose in front of a television screen)
and that the modern workplace has often been a venue for
romance or merely for the expression of lust and power
through sexual bullying.
A third response is that 'adultery sites' strengthen rather
than erode partnerships. UK journalist Lucy Kellawayreported
on her experience at "Illicit Encounters, the most
upmarket of extra-marital websites"
I was hooked. Four weeks later, I have emerged, feeling
slightly soiled and more than slightly cross at the
way that real life is so much more exciting than the
novel I’m writing.
Illicit Encounters is a Turkish bath of a place in which
230,000 mainly professional, married people leer at
each other through virtual steam searching for anyone
who might be a suitable lover.
While I was on the site, I noticed business seemed particularly
brisk among those citing financial services as their
occupation. Over and over again, I was approached by
men using names such as “Alpha123”, or “Civilised1”
or “CityGent”, each telling the same story:
I’m a successful banker, now with time on my hands,
looking for excitement/love/romance/casual sex, etc.
Curiosity aroused, I contacted the site’s owners
to find out what was going on. They told me that, since
September, the number of London-based males in the financial
sector registering had risen by nearly 300 per cent.
It seems the colder the market for jobs, the hotter
the market for adultery.
If the sheer numbers surprised me, the men themselves
surprised me even more. The ones I talked to weren’t
lotharios, and didn’t seem sleazy either. They
were often adulterers for the first time and more the
balding-banker-next-door type than anything more alluring.
For those readers who don’t already know from
personal experience, I should perhaps explain a little
about how the site works. To maintain secrecy, everyone
uses false names and members release their pictures
only to other members they like the sound of.
Kellaway
noted that the site's operators argue that "by providing
a well-behaved marketplace for adultery, they are actually
creating domestic stability", with 70% of its clientele
supposedly claiming to be "attracted to adultery
as an alternative to divorce, not as a precursor to it".
More men are supposedly interested in online adultery
than women, with the site accordingly charging men £119
a month but not charging female participants.
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