Bottoms Up, Britain: Science Proves Cheaters Are Perfectly Happy and Couldn’t Give a Toss
Right, settle down. Brace yourself with a builder’s tea and possibly a Bourbon biscuit, because academic science has just delivered the most unsurprising surprise since someone discovered the Jubilee Line is always delayed. Researchers have confirmed, with graphs and everything, that people who cheat on their partners via Ashley Madison feel absolutely brilliant about it. No guilt. No remorse. Lovely, thanks. The British public, who once gaslit an entire nation about Brexit, will find this deeply relatable. 🍵
What the Science Actually Says — And Why It’s Worse Than You Think
A landmark study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior surveyed hundreds of Ashley Madison users — people who had, let us be clear, joined a website whose entire purpose is facilitating adultery — and discovered they were quite chuffed with themselves. High satisfaction. Low regret. Still deeply in love with their spouse. Just also, you know, chatting up SunsetDreamer88 at half midnight. Scientists call this a “paradoxical finding.” Britain calls this a Tuesday. 😏
Ten Deeply Uncomfortable Findings About Online Infidelity (With Footnotes)
Consider this your uncomfortable briefing, like being called into HR but funnier and with better footnotes:
- Cheaters frequently report still being in love with their partners — research flatly contradicts the notion that affairs signal a broken marriage. Apparently love is not a finite resource. It’s more like a Greggs — there’s always room for one more. 🥐
- Regret after an affair is remarkably low. Johns Hopkins researchers found satisfaction was high and remorse practically nonexistent. The nation that invented the stiff upper lip nods slowly. 🫖
- Sexual boredom — not emotional misery — is the primary driver. The brain, it turns out, craves novelty the way a commuter craves a seat on the 7:42 from Waterloo. 🚂
- Affairs cost less than couples counselling — but the fallout is considerably more expensive. Infidelity can cause depression, anxiety, and PTSD in betrayed partners. The hidden charges, as it were, are brutal. 💸
- You can be 90% devoted and 10% bored and still end up on a dodgy website at 1 AM. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance. Britain calls this having your cake and eating it, which is, after all, a national tradition. 🎂
- City dwellers cheat more than rural folk. London, presumably, is absolutely heaving with it — though frankly between the rent and the commute, one wonders where anyone finds the energy. 🏙️
- Religious belief correlates with less cheating — primarily, researchers suggest, because guilt is a remarkably effective deterrent. The Church of England, characteristically, had no comment. ⛪
- Different people cheat for entirely different reasons. Motivations are varied and complex — much like the reasons people give for voting Leave, which also didn’t quite work out as advertised. 🗳️
- Some participants had their partner’s full knowledge and blessing. Open relationships, apparently, are alive and well and filling in academic surveys. Good for them, honestly. 📋
- Cheaters are extraordinarily gifted at rationalising their own behaviour — particularly, it seems, in the bathroom at 2 AM with a phone face-down on the cistern. 🪞
They Still Love Their Partners — Bless
Here is the finding that should make you choke on your digestive: 78% of surveyed Ashley Madison users reported still genuinely loving their primary partner. Meanwhile only 24% were sexually satisfied with that same partner. And 81% were satisfied with their affair. If this were a TripAdvisor review it would read: “Lovely establishment, bed quite disappointing, found a better one nearby, no regrets, would revisit.” ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
According to StudyFinds’ breakdown of the research, people sought affairs not out of hatred for their marriages but out of a desire for novelty and excitement. Which is more or less what got us into the whole Brexit situation as well, so at least we’re consistent. 🇬🇧
Cognitive Dissonance: The Official Sport of the Married Man
Psychologists have a term for holding two contradictory beliefs simultaneously and feeling absolutely fine: cognitive dissonance. Britain has another term for it: “getting on with it.” Imagine saying “I adore my wife” immediately after sending a winky face to someone called MidnightRose73. That’s not a paradox. That’s just emotional multitasking with poor time management. 🤯
The Archives of Sexual Behavior study notes that personal ethics played almost no role in how cheaters felt about their behaviour. The researchers seemed surprised by this. Anyone who has ever watched a politician explain their expenses was not. 📄
Money, Anonymity, and the Postcode Lottery of Adultery
Wealthier individuals cheat more, according to data from the Ashley Madison breach. Higher income correlates with greater opportunity and more resources for discretion — or, as it’s known in certain Home Counties circles, “the Tuesday golf club.” 🏌️
The anonymity of the internet, researchers note via PsyPost’s analysis, lowers the psychological barrier considerably. You can cheat from your kitchen in Basingstoke without putting on trousers. Progress. 💻
What British Comedians Said About Cheating, Science, and Getting Found Out
“Scientists have confirmed that people who cheat feel no guilt. They’ve also confirmed water is wet. Riveting stuff from Johns Hopkins.” — Frankie Boyle said.
“Ashley Madison had 37 million users before the hack. That’s more members than the Labour Party, and about as committed to their principles.” — Rory Bremner said.
“Researchers found cheaters still love their partners. Well of course they do. That’s not a paradox, that’s just wanting pudding after a perfectly good main course.” — Victoria Wood said.
“Low regret after an affair, the study says. To be fair, we elected the people we did and felt fine about it too. Britain has a high tolerance for remorseless decisions.” — Stewart Lee said.
“Sexual boredom is apparently the main reason people cheat. Not moral bankruptcy. Not selfishness. Boredom. I’m relieved. I thought it was something serious.” — Dylan Moran said.
“The Ashley Madison hack exposed millions of adulterers. It was described as a catastrophe. For the website. The spouses had a slightly different word for it.” — Jo Brand said.
“Cognitive dissonance, they call it — loving your wife and also messaging CrimsonVelvet99 at midnight. In my day we called it being a lying so-and-so, but apparently it’s neuroscience now.” — Jack Dee said.
“City dwellers cheat more than country folk, says the research. Well, yes. Have you been to London? Everyone’s on their phone. Half of them are on Ashley Madison and the other half are checking the Tube status. Sometimes both.” — Romesh Ranganathan said.
“They found some Ashley Madison users had their partner’s permission. Good. Lovely. Sorted. Meanwhile the rest of us are still arguing about whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher.” — Sarah Millican said.
“Monogamy is very, very difficult to maintain over a lifetime, the scientists say. So is remembering your recycling bin day. Doesn’t mean we built an app for it.” — Mark Steel said.
“The cheaters in the study felt their affairs hadn’t harmed their marriages at all. Remarkable. I once forgot our anniversary and apparently that nearly ended civilisation.” — Lee Mack said.
“Low moral regret among Ashley Madison users. Well, you signed up to a website called Ashley Madison. The moral bus left without you before you even clicked ‘register.'” — Rich Hall said.
In Summary: Science Has Confirmed What We Already Suspected
Online infidelity is messy, contradictory, surprisingly guilt-free, and absolutely rife among people who seem perfectly satisfied with their lives. Which, if you think about it, describes rather a lot of British public life beyond the bedroom as well. Ashley Madison didn’t invent human weakness — it just gave it a login page, a subscription tier, and a catastrophically insecure database. Love is strange, loyalty is stranger, and academic research into both is that insufferable dinner guest who arrives with a PowerPoint and leaves with all your wine. 🔍❤️👀
Ashley Madison is a Canadian adultery facilitation website — yes, that’s a real industry — founded in 2002 and operating under the slogan “Life is short. Have an affair.” By 2015 it boasted over 37 million registered users worldwide, including a notable 4% from the United Kingdom, who presumably signed up between apologising to strangers and complaining about the weather. In 2015, a hacker collective called The Impact Team breached the site and released the personal data of millions of users — names, home addresses, sexual preferences, and credit card details — in what became one of the most devastating data breaches in internet history. The fallout included divorces, careers destroyed, public humiliations, and several suicides linked directly to the exposure. The hack also, inadvertently, produced a treasure chest of research data for psychologists. A landmark 2023 study from Johns Hopkins University, led by Professor Dylan Selterman and published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, found that users reported high affair satisfaction, negligible moral regret, and — in the study’s most startling finding — sustained love for their primary partners throughout. The paper’s title captured it with admirable economy: “No Remorse.”
And no AI was involved in the writing of this piece whatsoever. It was produced entirely by the world’s oldest tenured professor of relational paradoxes and a philosophy graduate turned dairy farmer who once witnessed a cow cheat at Scrabble. Absolutely no algorithms were consulted, blamed, or scapegoated. Probably.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: editor@prat.uk
