Sex is many things: it can be a drug, it can be a connector, it can be an escape, it can be a distraction.

In 2001, a dating website designed for married people, and named after two popular children’s names of that year, was launched.  The CEO, Neil Biderman, appeared on every TV and radio outlet explaining and promoting the site, while audience members accused him of being morally reprehensible.  It was a pretty sexy idea that people liked to argue about, but Biderman maintained that he was just creating a product to serve a need, that he was not creating a market of cheaters, and that he himself is married and monogamous.

Fourteen years later, on July 15, that website was hacked by a group called The Impact Team.  The hackers said that if the website was not shut down, they would leak the information of all 50 million people who had ever used the service, many of whom were told that their information had been scrubbed when they left.  The Impact Team claimed that the hack, potentially violating the privacy of millions of people, had “ethical intentions.”

Facebook and Twitter exploded in a sanctimonious “YAYYY” and “GLORIOUS” and “HA HAAA” as users posted articles on the hack, commenting that cheaters would pay and it was just desserts for participating in a website designed to help people cheat on their marriages with other married people.  But why do we think it’s our business?

Noel Biderman claims that infidelity can help a marriage: if you have a good partnership and a nice life together but the sex is missing, you can use extramarital sex as a supplement to keep your marriage going and keep you, as an individual, more fulfilled.

We certainly equate sex only with romantic love and relationships, but sex is many things: it can be a drug, it can be a connector, it can be an escape, it can be a distraction.  It plays many different roles in a marriage, from procreation to pair bonding to stress relief.