How Do You Solve a Problem Like ‘Ashley Madison?’

“All the good ideas are taken…”

Complete nonsense, and I’ll prove it. Even in a crowded market, a dedicated entrepreneur can always find a market niche having untapped opportunity and immense profit potential.

“All the good ones are taken…”

That’s also demonstrably false. Even if someone’s married, you may still be able to arrange a sordid affair in a sleazy motel room using one of the dating sites for cheaters.

Bloomberg BusinessWeek recently wrote about Noel Biderman, founder of Ashley Madison. Their slogan: “Life is short. Have an affair.” With his discovery of profitable methods for exploiting the sexual arbitrage opportunities existing between the lines of the marriage contract, Biderman combines the spirit of the entrepreneur with the soul of a banker.

Biderman’s brilliant idea was that married people prefer to avoid dating sites geared to singles. Lying to your spouse is hard enough without also having to lie to your mistress who believes that she’s your girlfriend.

The typical would-be entrepreneur would probably grapple with ethical questions before starting such a business. Is it morally correct to facilitate these kinds of liaisons? Is it OK to profit from the frequent failure of the institution of marriage? Or is Ashley Madison serving a useful societal function by removing married individuals from the dating pool of singles, thus reducing the incidence of heartbreak that results from drawn-out deception? Fortunately, entrepreneurs can be extremely adept at rationalization. Our creative instincts flourish when it comes to finding ways to explain to ourselves why we’re right — even when that’s far from obvious to others.

Nevertheless, we should still harbor a sense of responsibility toward those people who may be harmed by our business plans.

In the case of Ashley Madison, I fear for the children — not only the innocent children who will most likely spend alternating Thanksgivings and Christmases with different family members, but also the collateral damage on children who just happen to have been given a popular name.

In my generation, “Jennifer” was the top name on the baby name chart for girls. The Jennifers I know have had to struggle with the popularity of their names for their entire lives, trying to decide whether to go with Jen, Jenny, Jenna, or Jenni. It’s inevitable that the Ashes and the Maddies of the world are going to have a similar identity crisis, compounded by the fact that potential mates are going to associate their name with a site for cheaters. This will pollute their dating pools with creepy divorced guys with addictions to ED pills.

Even worse, the negative association with the site may even sow distrust at the HR office. “Madison, eh? I caught my husband on that website. Is this the young lady he was seeing? I’ll be damned if I give her a job.” Maybe not in the conscious mind, but the subconscious holds a grudge for a long, long time. That’s why I feel bad for the eight-year-old Ashleys and Madisons whose names have been layered with unsavory meanings before they’ve ever had a chance to put forth their own celebrity screw-ups into the public eye. The Jennifers I know have been mature enough to survive the JWoww onslaught. But if they had grown up in a world where JWoww operated a media empire, who knows if they would have emerged from adolescence with their psyches intact?

Where did Biderman come up with the “Ashley Madison” brand, anyway? The Bloomberg BusinessWeek article tells the story: “Biderman founded Ashley Madison in 2002, naming the company after the two most popular names for baby girls that year.”

I can’t argue with success, but isn’t there something just a little distasteful about branding a website for extramarital affairs in a way that the target audience will most likely associate with their children’s classmates and playmates?

What’s the thinking here? “Wow, this website reminds me of my children,” the prospective adulterer might think. “Having the kids in our life has been a wonderful miracle, blah blah blah, but now my sex life is horrible and my husband/wife doesn’t look at me the same way. I miss the old days of sexual abandon, and maybe I can relive that with a random stranger. Life is short! Sign me up!”

I’m slightly more sympathetic to the branding strategy of Biderman’s other ventures, such as CougarLife.com. “Cougar” is not on the top 100 list for baby names, and so there’s no collateral damage involving minors. If your name is Cougar, you probably dance onstage wearing high heels and little else, and might welcome the association. (Apologies if your name is Cougar and you wear sensible flats.)

Initially a term of derision, the term “cougar” has now been recast by CougarLife as a badge of honor. This reminds me of how other embattled minorities have adopted slurs as badges of in-group identification. CougarLife traffics in this tension, encouraging women to embrace the “cougar” label, despite the indignity of being associated with a predatory feline, as long as it translates into greater access to sexual partners. Here, the collateral damage is suffered by those women who prefer to be viewed as human beings with a sexual dimension rather than as wild animals hunting for prey.

Despite any distaste you may have for the businesses involved, Biderman has plenty to teach the aspiring entrepreneur about how to identify niche markets and how to exploit societal trends. In fact, I’ve been inspired to start a pair of dating websites of my own. Biderman’s expansive empire hasn’t yet covered every niche market for fostering temporary social ties while channeling disease vectors within a controlled environment. There’s plenty more opportunity left in online dating, and I want a juicy piece of that action.

That’s why it gives me great pleasure to announce two new dating sites, currently under development:

Did you think for one second that the generation that brought us Playboy and the pill has any intention of letting the young whippersnappers have all the fun? For the active senior, introducing GladysEthel.