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Gauteng has the most cases of infidelity in the country, followed by the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.
And if you are going to have an affair, it will most likely be in the workplace.
These are some of the interesting facts that emerged from international infidelity service Ashley Madison.
According to their 2019 sign-ups, on a per capita basis, Gauteng is ranked at number one for Ashley Madison’s highest cases of infidelity.
Provinces ranked from the fourth highest on the list in order are Free State, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape, Eastern Cape, North West and lastly Limpopo.
The website’s chief commercial officer, Paul Keable, was in the country this week and told the Sunday Independent that women are taking ownership of their intimate needs and dominating the infidelity service. Among 50 countries where they operate, South Africa is its 12th biggest market, with a little over 3300 people signing up monthly.
Research done by the University of Missouri Kansas City’s Dr Alicia Walker showed that 80% of women who joined Ashley Madison were, in essence, living in either sexless or orgasm-less marriages.
Feedback from the website’s female users often highlights that they are a better mother, lover and wife because of their affairs.
There are also more women seeking infidelity than men. In South Africa, there are 1.8 active female accounts for everyone active paid male account, which globally comes down to almost 1.11 females to one male.
At the beginning of the intriguing service’s rise, married heterosexual couples would often seek men to have affairs within their own gender, said Keable.
Over the years, they’ve attracted diverse groups, including the LGBTQI (+).
“The community is diverse. We set it up so that you as a member can explore and find the affair or experience that you are looking for,” Keable explained.
Polyamory has become a hot news topic, but there is still a lot of judgement in society, he said. This is the act of engaging in multiple sexual relationships with the consent of everyone involved.
“They don’t want their families and workplaces to know about this part of their lives; they use our platform to continue to explore what’s important to them.”
Keable said 70% of their users are looking for traditional affairs and 30% include polyamory, open relationships, swingers and everything in between.
According to the Family Law website, 2017’s data indicates that more wives than husbands-initiated divorce proceedings.
“Divorce is really expensive and compromises a number of facts in your life. We try and offer these individuals a third pathway,” said Keable.
In 2015 a data dump worth 9.7 gigabytes leaked onto the dark web that included information on 32 million users of Ashley Madison, WIRED reported. Information leaked account details and log-ins among various personal information.
“We clearly let down our members. Before that incident happened, we signed up about 33000 people a day. During the worst of those times, we were signing up more than a 100000 people a day.”
The website spent two and a half years rebuilding some infrastructure and hired new security, among other things.
Although dating apps like Tinder and Grindr grew in popularity, Keable maintained that the real competition will always be the workplace.
“That is where affairs happen over the years. You’re looking across from that person spending far more time with them than your spouse. Our platform is a better alternative for what we would like to say is a successful affair.”
Weekend Argus
