How Many Men Actually used AM?
For completeness, could we have the stats on how many male profiles were similarly never used?
The most tragic thing about the Ashley Madison hack? It was really 1% actual women
When the Ashley Madison databases were splashed all over the internet by hackers, it emerged that about 31 million accounts on the Tinder-for-affairs website were created by men. And about 5 million by women. Not great odds if you're a straight fella looking to cheat on your spouse. It turns out the odds were even worse: very …
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 13:53 GMT Jim 59
Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?
Having used Internet dating sites, I have always suspected that the number of men dwarfes the number of women. I have no proof, but the user experience suggests it.
Having far more men than women is the norm IMO, which is why they don't function anything like portrayed in TV adverts etc. It does not work well for either sex. Somebody should start a site that admits only the same number of men as women, and use that as a selling point. Big bucks await.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 19:04 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: How Many Men Actually used AM?
I wouldn't be surprised if these stats mirror those on Match.com and other such sites
I will note, purely anecdotally, that I personally know several women who say they've used Match, and a few who've mentioned using other sites such as OK Cupid.1 I suspect, but have no sound evidence to support, that some sites - particularly Match, which has a massive PR and advertising campaign in the US2 - are somewhat more appealing to women and thus have somewhat less lopsided ratios.
If it's possible to get hold of reliable data, no doubt someone's done a study. But that's a big "if".
1Am I the only one who finds it nearly impossible not to refer to that site as "OK, Stupid"? Maybe it's just me.
2Certainly no other site matches their TV advertising spend in these parts. I've seen a few adds for Chemistry.com, which were based around a clever campaign explaining they were the site for people rejected by Match.com. Tempting!
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 05:07 GMT Roq D. Kasba
Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015
It does show how absolutely bullshit the claim that millions of married men were having relationships though AM is though. The site was never a risk to public morality any more than ElReg readers dating, despite pretending to be.
If you discount the percentage of profiles set up by admins, men pretending to be women, and worried spouses, that 1% looks a lot closer to 0% active 'women'
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 10:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015
"It does show how absolutely bullshit the claim that millions of married men were having relationships though AM is though."
I think you distort the facts to suit your point. I don't believe any one claimed that "millions of married men were having relationships". Merely, that milions of men were unfaithful, willingly subscribing to an idea that "life's too short, have an affair", seeking (seldom finding) that shag on the side.
Unless, of course, the opposite is the case, i.e. those milions, with exception of a few bad apples, were busybodies doing research in the name of advancing the science of extra-marital relationships, or they were unknowingly entered into the database by the miscreants who, in the random act of good nature, also paid for their accounts. Yeah, it must have been like that.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 16:36 GMT DavCrav
Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015
"Merely, that milions of men were unfaithful, willingly subscribing to an idea that "life's too short, have an affair", seeking (seldom finding) that shag on the side."
Of course, this is using the less traditional definition of unfaithful, which is "does not succeed in having an affair".
More seriously, since there were essentially no women on AM, does that mean that use of AM cannot be used in court as grounds for divorce, since it's way below the threshold for even suspicion of having an affair, never mind proof?
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 19:12 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: No Dick Left Behind Act of 2015
does that mean that use of AM cannot be used in court as grounds for divorce, since it's way below the threshold for even suspicion of having an affair, never mind proof?
Obviously this would depend on jurisdiction. No-fault divorce is now available throughout the US and in many other countries, so you don't need a reason - but in some jurisdictions (not sure about whether this is still true of any US states) that's only if both parties agree to dissolution.
Prior to no-fault divorce, I expect that demonstrating a concrete attempt to commit adultery could have been argued as equivalent to successfully committing it. But who knows? Maybe one of our friendly legal bloggers will look into the matter.
-
-
-
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 12:05 GMT ffeog
Re: So the crackers were correct - it was a scam
The appearance of a two-sided market in order to bilk the one side that actually comes to market (which is then technically, not a market.) Not much sympathy for the clients of AM, but its a pretty common dodgy business practice for intermediary market 'makers', e.g. certain freelance job sites, don't really have any appreciable buy-side clients, but want to charge job applicants for 'access' to 'them' ?!
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 05:03 GMT JohnMurray
What's new.
All women have to do to click is walk into a bar wearing very little.
Why waste time enlisting onto a website when you can get what you want elsewhere....
Most sex-sites are of a similar ratio....except that sometimes it is not evident from a quick glance that many of the women are just men dressed-to-impress.
Many of the women are, apparently, asking for "donations" to pay for the travel costs........
Whatever....................
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 05:15 GMT 45RPM
So nearly all the names in the Ashley Madison data dump belonged to men who were faithful in deed, even if not in thought. It's evidence not that they were having an affair but that they are too tragic to be able to pick up a partner in a bar (or insert name of real meatspace venue here) and so have to resort to doing it online.
Eeenteresting.
-
-
Friday 28th August 2015 06:46 GMT lotus49
Re: Paying money to cheat on your wife
Men signed up and paid money in the hope of cheating on their wives. At least at a knocking shop men actually got what they paid for. Ashley Madison appears to be no more than a fraud perpetrated against men who were too sad and unattractive even to have an a successful relationship with their wives much less another woman.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 07:37 GMT Turtle
Re: "Women can use the site for free"
"What a failure."
That depends on your definitions.
Perhaps it was a success in that it enlivened the lives of some men with an apparently-plausible fantasy. This really needs to be taken into account, I am sorry to have to say.
One might well think that for at least some of the men using the site, this was about as close as they're going to get to a real woman and they were certainly under the impression that there were many desirable women on the site - because that's what the internet is; and that's what human imagination does.
(Example: note that for all the stories on this site, the pictures which accompanied the stories were all of young, well-maintained people - as opposed, for example and contrast, to grossly overweight people with questionable hygiene. Which do you think would be closer to the underlying reality?)
Or one might think that the website was a success - for the people who ran it - in that it made quite a bit of money: even the paid deletions earned them a good $4 million (rounding off to 200,000 deletions at $20 per.). It would appear that the website was a goldmine, but that might change depending on the legal fallout.
(In spite of the T&C's stating that some of the profiles were "created for amusement" I think that the fact that nearly all of the supposed women were non-existent goes far far beyond what such a disclaimer should allow them to get away with. Hopefully they will be made to disgorge, at the very least. This is a separate question from their culpability for letting the user data end up plastered all over the internet - such cases need to be punishable by imprisonment.)
Depending on one's point of view and definitions, the site might or might not have been a "success" but it certainly was a fraud. Even for me, having a very low opinion of the internet, the reality was astonishing.
As someone once put it: No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 08:38 GMT Jediben
If women can use the site for free, wouldn't it follow that a free 'woman' would be created first so that paying users could 'test the waters' to see who/what is actually available on the service? It would be very telling if we knew how many 'female' accounts were men just looking to see if the site was worth using.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 08:51 GMT Ken Hagan
Well f*ck me! (or not, it would appear)
So we have a service whereby you can add some woman's email address to a big list of adulterers and it doesn't cost you anything, but obviously *she* will get the "welcome" email and it will go straight in her spam folder and there's no way for the original perpetrator to ever use the account so it lies idle.
I am not in the least bit surprised that this happened several million times. Nor am I surprised that AM made no attempt to remove these accounts from their membership statistics.
I am, however, puzzled that anyone ever thought this was a suitable website to give their credit card details to.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 08:59 GMT Anonymous Coward
and they say the sex industry is bad for women
... when in fact the sex industry as a whole is excellent at parting men with cash for satisfying (or not) their particular fantasy.
On a separate note, i find it particularly self-demeaning for men to pay tokens to 'chat hosts'... like throwing fish at a seal in sea world... "here's a few dollars, now jump up and down and eat a banana"..
Fortunately for society, most men just shrug and say "Meh" when they realise they have spanked (pun intended) too much money on basically nothing a trip to the "wank bank"* couldn't have solved.
* the bank of memories savoured by any man for that time when they need to relieve themselves using only their memories and imagination.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 10:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: and they say the sex industry is bad for women
i find it particularly self-demeaning for men to pay tokens to 'chat hosts'... like throwing fish at a seal in sea world... "here's a few dollars, now jump up and down and eat a banana"
I doubt that was what they asked them to do with a banana.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 09:29 GMT Archivist
Why the percentage shock?
You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate as many women as possible, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around.
Civilisation has glossed over those drives, but they they are still in our heads and bodies.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 11:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why the percentage shock?
You might want to do some reading on the theories surrounding the purpose of the female orgasm. You may be shocked at what you may find; I know I was!
At least one theory suggested that the big Female O was about attracting additional males *immediately* during procreation to ensure that competition was fierce amongst them. Such conflict ensured good genetic stock.
Going anon because my wife reads el reg. and I don't want her getting any ideas. :D
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 11:13 GMT John H Woods
Re: Why the percentage shock?
"while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around." -- Archivist
Speaking as an erstwhile geneticist, that's not strictly true. There's a considerable advantage to women to play it both ways, and significant evidence that they do. The optimum mating strategy for a women is to become impregnated by an extremely attractive (and likely promiscuous) male and then have her family provided for by some dependable saddo with material resources who is unlikely to cheat.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 14:52 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why the percentage shock?
The optimum mating strategy for a women is to become impregnated by an extremely attractive (and likely promiscuous) male and then have her family provided for by some dependable saddo with material resources who is unlikely to cheat.
And that's why "Trust, but Verify" is so important. ;)
(in lots of things really)
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 12:27 GMT Potemkine
Re: Why the percentage shock?
You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate as many women as possible, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around.
So time travel does indeed exist! This post coming directly from the 19th century is the proof!
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 19:21 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: Why the percentage shock?
This post coming directly from the 19th century is the proof!
Alas, sociobology is alive and well. It's a convenient refuge for a particular type of sophomoric thinker who wants to ascribe simple, foundational causes to human behavior and sweep both complexity and ethical responsibility under the rug. Now that scientific racism is a harder sell,1 sociobiology is a great way to put a pseudoscientific gloss on your own bad behavior (or the bad behavior you aspire to).
1Though by no means dead. It has yet to regain the limelight it briefly enjoyed with Herrnstein and Murray's The Bell Curve, much less its dominance of the days of naive Darwinist imperialism, but there's no shortage of tiresome small-minded bullies still promoting it.
-
Saturday 29th August 2015 07:23 GMT Turtle
@Michael Wojcik
"Alas, sociobiology is alive and well. It's a convenient refuge for a particular type of sophomoric thinker who wants to ascribe simple, foundational causes to human behavior and sweep both complexity and ethical responsibility under the rug."
Your caricature of sociobiology (and, more than likely, evolutionary psychology) is also an example of "sophomoric thinking" - the kind that can not tolerate the idea that there might be any impediments to achievement of human perfection by political means. Because how could anything be true if Michael Wojcik (or Gould, or Lewontin, or anyone else) doesn't like its political implications and if it might prevent his preferred version of Utopia from becoming a reality?
Moreover your strident denial of the influence of genetically-programmed behavioral predispositions and its corollary that human behavior is freely manipulable forms the basis for the excesses of Communist Russia, Mao's China, Khmer Rouge - these being not unique but merely among the most excessive of many efforts by many governments (of many ostensible political tendencies) to regulate too many facets of individual and societal life.
And in the way that it posits an extreme hiatus between human beings and all other animal life, it's on a level with creationism.
-
Friday 4th September 2015 00:22 GMT Michael Wojcik
Re: @Michael Wojcik
Your caricature of sociobiology (and, more than likely, evolutionary psychology) is also an example of "sophomoric thinking" - the kind that can not tolerate the idea that there might be any impediments to achievement of human perfection by political means.... Moreover your strident denial of the influence of genetically-programmed behavioral predispositions...
What a fascinating reading of my post. A strenuous one, to be sure, since I wrote nothing even vaguely related to what you claim; but a fascinating one none the less.
But don't let me stop you. Clearly that axe of yours needs a lot of grinding.
-
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 13:21 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Why the percentage shock?
"You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate as many women as possible, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around."
You can't get away from the biological facts that men are programmed to impregnate SOMEONE, while women are programmed to choose a dependable partner who sticks around.
FTFY.
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 09:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Billion dollar business?
And if the hack had not happened some investment bankers would this year or next have floated the business as the next big thing and persuaded investors (pension funds and mug punters) that the whole shebang was worth a billion dollars. Shares would probably have been bought by many of the 20 million dupes who had convinced themselves this was a good business.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 10:29 GMT Cuddles
Source?
Is there a source for the figures in the article? Because according to this gizmodo - http://gizmodo.com/almost-none-of-the-women-in-the-ashley-madison-database-1725558944 - the numbers are far, far lower than this. Not 500,000 women checking their accounts, but under 1,500 (compared to 20 million men who did so).
The difference is rather important, since 500k women would indicate a real site that just happens to have a serious problem attracting female users. 1,500 women plus significantly more fake ones created by the company itself (again, see Gizmodo article) means it's an outright scam and would leave them open to significantly more legal action.
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 16:43 GMT DavCrav
Re: Source?
"There are some confusing stats in that article though, e.g.: "Roughly 11 million men had engaged in chat, but only 2400 women had"
So most of the 11m men were chatting amongst themselves while seeking women? Or the few women on there were really, really busy....?"
Two factors might help clear up the confusion:
1) Fake profiles staffed by paid AM employees to continue the scam?
2) 11m men engaged in chat. Were they engaged back?
-
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 11:14 GMT Anonymous Coward
Wow. Imagine if they'd managed to IPO.
More than for the company, who were doomed to bankruptcy anyway this is a disaster for the many competitors who I presume sprung up and have been proudly touting their greater security credentials but who've just had the entire business model discredited.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 12:04 GMT zhveurnq
On Internet Web Chat (tune trad.)
Tha's been a courting Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane
On Internet Web Room Chat.
Tha's been a courting Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane
On Internet Web Room Chat.
On Internet Web Chat! On Internet Web Chat!
On Internet Web Chat!
---
We've all been courting Mary-Jane, Mary-Jane
On Internet Web Room Chat. [etc.]
---
Mary-Jane is a man, is a man
On Internet Web Room Chat. [etc.]
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 12:57 GMT ravenviz
Dating sites
I did actually meet someone on a dating site and had a lasting relationship (which ran its course). It was a difficult road though, with most messages to prospective ladies ignored, initial conversations ended abruptly, and even meetings with no further communication, not even a thank you. So just like real life then (apart from the trolls).
What I will say is that I did set up a fake female ID 'to see what would happen', and within minutes of setting up the account, without a photo, the ID was bombarded by other men, the number of messages went into multiples of 10 within an hour. That certainly did not happen the other way 'round!
Message to myself was that I was proud to have actually managed to find someone and we got things underway, as is the supposed intention.
My message to everyone else, dating sites are a nightmare and I have a lot of sympathy for women who have the bravery to continue to actually use them. And a lot of respect for anyone who manages to actually find a partner within all the chaos.
More fundamentally: recognize a real life opportunity for what it is when it comes!
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 13:43 GMT Turtle
Re: Dating sites
"What I will say is that I did set up a fake female ID 'to see what would happen', and within minutes of setting up the account, without a photo, the ID was bombarded by other men, the number of messages went into multiples of 10 within an hour. That certainly did not happen the other way 'round!"
Reminds me of this: A guy in an irc channel I would sometimes go to, to told me he had changed his nick, logged on to a channel for lesbians, and was immediately inundated with private messages.
Sort of an interesting parallel.
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 14:07 GMT Jim 59
Re: Dating sites
the ID was bombarded by other men, the number of messages went into multiples of 10 within an hour. That certainly did not happen the other way 'round!
Yep. That's what happens when men outnumber women 50 to 1. Each man sends 25 witty messages and gets back one disinterested acknowledgement. Each woman is inundated and has no time to answer all messages, or even a small proportion.
Pretty terrible for both sexes. The men obviously waste their time. The women probably don't want to check their inboxes.
-
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 15:41 GMT Tikimon
Intent is EVERYTHING, no free passes for being duped
I happen to know of at least three cheating spouses who did in fact go online looking for playmates (don't know about AM specifically). As far as I know, they didn't successfully get laid through the online sites.
They DID however hang out in bars trolling for playmates, scope prospects at the health club, etc. sometimes successfully managing a hookup and shag. They engaged the services of prostitutes. All without permission from their ignored spouses (not frigid or ugly old hags) and in violation of the marriage agreement.
Let's stop whitewashing the ones who tried on AM and didn't succeed. Their intent was to cheat, and had AM been for real they most likely would have. They're lying scum, and deserve some hard scrutiny from their partner.
Married folks with permission to play around are called swingers, not cheaters. They're on the swing sites, not AM or its ilk. (I know some of them too)
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 16:00 GMT Anonymous Coward
Screwing With the 1%
I'm not sure how accurate this all is since I've never had a problem finding a good time on AM. Maybe .1 of that 1% live here.
On another topic, that dump has helped me identify which profiles were fake. They typically have an email address that's very long and contains (I think, I can't look at the moment) avlm in the address mixed with a bunch of numbers, etc.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
-
Thursday 27th August 2015 16:48 GMT Anonymous Coward
Scamming Bastards
1. Take a group of foolish men looking for free sex
2. Lie to them about having any prospect of finding a real woman
3. Charge them to join, search and be removed
4. Profit
Have you tried my new site: www.MenWantingSexAndPreparedToPayNotToGetAny.con
At least with a prostitute you get what you pay for.
-
Friday 28th August 2015 01:31 GMT John Sanders
I feel old
I miss the "meet a Russian bride" sites of old, at least you could see pictures of nice fake ladies for free...
I always wondered who was so stupid to get their real details in such a website, and somehow I suspected there were many more male people thinking that would work.
We men are a desperate bunch sometimes.
I have had some technical involvement with some dating websites over the years, my advice is: run, run far away from those sites, technically they are pure and utter S.H.I.T. all of them.
Can not say which ones for obvious reasons... but seriously never ever enter any real details on those type of sites.
-
This post has been deleted by its author
Biting the hand that feeds IT
