A while back I started getting a whole wash of spam with subject lines like “Lonely wifes looking for action” and “Cheating wifes” and things like that. (What is it with the misspelling of “wives”? Is that an attempt to get around spam filters? No matter, mine is catching them now anyway.)
When I started getting these, I figured that they were advertisements for ostensible online matchmaking clubs for people who were already married–in other words, adultery clubs. I say “figured” because I simply deleted the e-mails without opening them and I say “ostensible” because I didn’t really suppose that such clubs existed or, if they did, that they would be conducting massive spam campaigns.
I couldn’t imagine that people would really be interested in such clubs. Why would women want to sign up to be one of the “cheating wifes”? And what kind of total loser men would want to be patrons of such places? What would it say about such a person to be attracted to such a place? Notice that the appeal the advertisement is based on is not that you find the other person attractive. The idea is that cheating with somebody else’s wife is itself supposed to be an inducement. What kind of sick desires are wrapped up in that?
I couldn’t imagine that very many people would be interested in such clubs and that the e-mails were more likely a credit card scam designed to prey on the few lonely, gullible men who might actually respond.
Well it seems I am a little naive.
Turns out that there are such clubs. A reader sent me a link to this story about such clubs.
Now I’m thinking: How do we make these illegal or at least unprofitable? Alienation of affection class action lawsuits?
Didn’t Malcolm Muggeridge say that Original Sin was the only Christian dogma empirically provable simply by reading the daily newspapers? I guess today he could have mentioned the Internet instead.
I don’t think there’s any need for legal intervention here. As soon as enough men trolling these sites realize the “lonely housewives” are pot-bellied, bald, lonely, unemployed men on the wrong side of middle-age, the problem will take care of itself.
Ironic though, that this story is carried by a news network whose parent company’s television network has perhaps done more to trivialize marriage than any other.
I noticed some very suspicious sites saved in my ex-girlfriends browser that came back to sites like the ones you described. I did not believe that anyone would be interested in this crap, but here it was in my own house. I had no idea where to turn but I ended up contacting an investigator at http://www.cheatingspousepi.com and these guys see this stuff all the time and they helped me to get the truth and to get away from a very bad scene.
Well, I know my husband has been cheating on me for a while now. What should I do?