Illicit Encounters - your thoughts?

[MumtoMilo]

Hi all, yesterday morning I caught a few minutes of "this morning" and they were talking to the woman who runs this dating/marriage destroying website and a woman who was using it to cheat. Afterwards while baby was sleeping I thought I would take a look and see what all the fuss was about, I signed up so I could have a good old nose to see if anyone I knew was using it. Couldn't find anyone I knew but found plenty of people local to me were using it.

What really shocked me though was the amount of men who contacted me, I must have had about 25 emails when I went back to close my account later that day. I never for a second intended on using it to meet with anyone but I was so shocked to find so many people willing to stray.

Surely there's enough problems in people's lives that they shouldn't have to worry that their man is advertising themselves up for affairs. Last night I really felt sick to my stomach at all the women oblivious to this other side of their man, how can these websites exist it's just so wrong! :(

I've posted before about joining a "casual" site (not a "marrieds" site!) and being profoundly depressed by the literally hundreds of contacts from married men - and hundreds more with pics of their genitals as their profile (how can any married man who should know a bit about women think that women find that attractive by the way?). I even messaged with a couple to ask why they were risking their relationship,their full-time Dad status, financial hardship etc. for this. Several replied with a lot of arrogance and ignorance that their wife would never find out, they just needed some "fun" as things were stale.

As for the site in question, I worked with a spineless excuse for a man who used it when he didn't have the courage to tell his wife he wanted out. He met a woman in a similar situation to him. They are now together and have a child as well as both having children from their previous marriages. Don't know how the story will end as I no longer work with said person, I can't imagine it will end well though.

Is it wrong the site exists? I wouldn't be able to sleep at night making money from that myself but I don't think it would be right to ban it. As for SGB's interjection - it's hardly going for the agreed open marriage market is it? With the name "illicit" in the title?

Then you are going down the lines of not allowing websites to sell anything that some people find morally objectionable. The list cold go on...

*could

Gay40 - how is making a moral judgement about something remotely close to "not allowing it"?

Is this not the point of the debate? To debate it?

I didn't say it shouldn't be allowed or that it should be banned. I don't really agree with the state interfering too much in relationships at all but I am allowed, and do feel, that the morals of the people who set up the site and the site's reason for existence are pretty awful.

Not because people cheat, not because people should be forced into monogamy but because it is choosing to take an action which involves yourself in facilitating an abuse of someone else. Choosing to involve yourself entirely unnecessarily in other people's dubious behaviour in a way which allows it and also making money from it.

Is making money from it sorry...

Doesn't bother me TBH - if a man (or woman) wants to stray, they will find a way of doing it, be it at work, down the pub or on the internet. IMO you are either the type to be unfaithful or you're not, and banning every website promoting cheating won't make any difference.

And BTW - if anybody was really going to begin considering ethics as a reason not to earn money from something, you could find a reason to take a stand against every other job out there!

Moo moo- taking a job is different to setting up a business. I take your point and agree. I do however like to consider the ethics of my work and think more people should be able to choose to consider the ethics of their work too. I don't think you should be forced into taking any job for example no matter whether the company is a multinational retailer making money from child labour in the third world etc. It is sad that people are not really able to take a stand in withdrawing labour from companies that abuse human rights/avoid and evade tax etc

Did you actually put a photo on it?

I signed up to a site run by a friend once so i could see what she was up to ( it's a business) and was amazed too.

Most pics were not of people's faces either.

I've used Illicit Encounters (shock horror!!) to meet a guy with whom I'm having an affair. Contrary to popular belief, most of the people on the site are neither amoral or sex-mad. Just normal married people for whom home has become a barren loveless wasteland, but who for a variety of reasons do not want to divorce (kids, financial etc.). At least on sites like this one people are honest about their marital status and well matched with regard to expectations from any potential relationship, unlike on singles dating sites, where apparently up to 40% of people are married or in a relationship but lying about the fact. I can honestly say that finding a lover on Illicit Encounters has both made feel appreciated and wanted again but also perversely has saved my marriage!

There was a story the other day in the newspapers that said women cheat more than men nowadays.

Here it is: www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3324388/Women-more-likely-to-cheat-and-have-affair-than-men.html?OTC-RSS&ATTR=News

surely it must be a 50/50 split, unless there are more women playing with women, than men playing with men!!!!!(hmm)

Or a small amount of men playing with many women.

robf i think we would be dreaming again!!!!

NattyNat - your post effectively says honesty is very important when trying to arrange sex/relationships that you want but not important when honouring your commitments to other people i.e. Your husband. Why do you need honesty to arrange secret extra marital affairs properly and decently but not to arrange your marriage properly and decently?

Robf - not sure what your point is...

rob's point maybe it not men that are the biggest &age baddies!!!!

But what has that got to do with this thread? Did someone say men were the only ones who cheat or something?

Some of the early posts in the thread certainly implied that men were largely to blame.

"Well if those men (and some women) aren't into monogamy they probably shouldn't ge married."

To be fair, the lady on 'This Morning' said that 75% of the members on her website were men. Men had to pay to join, women could join for free. So, by my calculations, there are an awful lot of men showing their knobs to each other and paying for the priviledge

Women will find it easier to find men to have affairs with than vice versa though.

Robf - what do you mean?

On the site?