Thou shalt not commit adultery. That’s one of the 10 commandments. I think. Sounds like something Moses would have brought down from the Mount. Thou shalt not kill. That’s definitely up there.

But adultery, like ‘honour the sabbath to keep it holy’ and ‘love yer mom & dad’ are kind’a taken with a pinch of salt by many. They’ve slipped from being major crimes to become minor misdemeanors. Not many worship graven images any more, so we’re all up on that one, just down on a few others. Football ruined the whole ‘sabbath’ thing for many. But in a good way.

And whether you believe that G-d actually wrote those commandments hisself, (or hersself), or whether someone just thought they were a good idea and need to be ‘out there’, they provided a moral framework. Not just for the holy, the pious, the deeply religious, but for everybody. They were kind of absolutes of ethical living.

But the world changes and in small ways morality changes too. Acceptability changes. I still reckon killing is pretty much a no-no. ‘Killing in the name of G-d’ is therefore rather a contradictory, hypocritical, stupid concept altogether.

But we’re not talking about killing. We’re talking about adultery. Not so much coveting someone else’s wife. More: shagging her. Or her daughter. Adultery is no longer considered to be such a big crime. But it is big business. Big enough that Canadian company, Ashley Madison, made it into a hook-up app of massive success and doubtless equally massive remuneration. They connected up would-be adulterers and adulteresses. Adultery is not a sin. Getting caught is.

And now they’ve been caught. The millions and millions of subscribers to Ashley Madison have been ‘outed’ by evil forces on the dark web.

And they are evil. Much as adultery, if not part of the vague and watery concept of an ‘open marriage’, is a terrible breach of trust, people will do it. And they should be free to do it. I’m a big believer in absolute freedom. So you can fuck up in as big a way as your heart dictates. Or your dick heartaches. Thought the collateral damage can be massive and protracted.

Ashley Madison promoted adultery. They had fab taglines like: ‘have an affair; its good for you’ and ‘shag someone else’s wife/husband; you’ve got a spare hour’. Well that was the gist of it. They actually encouraged, sought out and cajoled people into having affairs. Though true, only people who subscribed, at a not insignificant cost. But it was just another little ‘niche’ designed to take advantage of people’s frailties. To find a chink someone’s security and just prise it open a touch further. With the major promise of ‘secrecy’ and ‘discretion’ and ‘absolute anonymity’. And now their email addresses are all over the web.

Including over 200 with Vatican addresses. Is the Pope having an affair? Does that mean he prayed with Muslims? Ate chopped liver??

We can only ponder.

Happy Friday

A xxxxx