French Dating Site 'Gleeden' Being Sued For Promoting Infidelity | HuffPost Life

Dating Site For Married People Sued For 'Encouraging Cheating'

Ryan Barrell— The Huffington Post UK

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A French dating site which caters to married women looking to have affairs is being taken to court for allegedly breaching the country's civil law.

Gleeden, which almost exclusively markets itself to married women and boasts almost two-and-a-half million users worldwide, is being targeted by conservatives and Catholic pressure groups in France due to what they call a breach of the French civil code.

Article 212 of the code, which is enshrined in law, was written in 1804 during Napoleonic times and states "Married partners owe each other the duty of respect, fidelity, help and assistance."

The Association of Catholic Families (AFC) claims the website is illegal based on this law.

An advert for Gleeden in Brussels reads: "The Lover Doesn't Cost Anything To Health Insurances, Not Like Antidepressants"

"There are plenty of other websites out there which promote sexual contact between individuals, but what makes Gleeden different is that its very business model is based on marital infidelity," says Jean-Marie Andres, president of the AFC.

"It states quite openly that its purpose is to offer married women opportunities to have sex outside the marriage.

"But here in France, people and parliament are all in agreement that marriage is a public commitment. It's in the law. What we are trying to do with our suit is show that the civil code - the law - has meaning."

Judges in France are free to interpret these codes as they wish, meaning the case could go either way.

"Fifty years ago many more people would have been shocked by what Gleeden is offering," family law specialist Stephane Valory explained.

"Today it is only a minority who notice. So the courts will certainly not rule in the same way as they would have 50 years ago."

Some posters have been torn down by critics

Users are standing behind the website, with 44-year-old Margot telling the BBC she had no intention of leaving her husband but joined because she was sexually unsatisfied.

"I chose Gleeden precisely because it is for married people. It means that the person you meet knows your situation. There's no deception. We can talk openly about husbands, wives and children," she said.

"Also when we are both married, we both accept we only want to go so far in the relationship. It's easier to keep things uncomplicated. We respect each other's private life."

She understands where the controversy comes from, however:

"Let's face it - it is promoting infidelity. In fact, it's selling infidelity. It's making money out of it. People could easily be pushed into the act after seeing those advertisements," Margot added.

"But let us not be hypocritical. It's not black and white. In most marriages at some point there is infidelity, but that does not mean the marriages collapse. Sometimes the infidelity is what saves the marriage."

Solene Paillet, a spokesperson for Gleeden, said: "We didn't invent adultery. Adultery would exist whether we were there or not.

"All we are doing is filling a demand. If people see our advertisements and are shocked, well there is no obligation. If you see a nice car in an ad, you aren't obliged to buy it. You make your own mind up."

Gleeden have also hit headlines recently for a series of bus adverts which caused public outrage, particularly in the highly religious city of Versailles.

Bus company Keolis said it had received 500 complaints in one week for a set of posters emblazoned on their vehicles, compared with the average 900 per year.

Spokespeople for Gleeden cried censorship, calling the reaction "exaggerated".

"Infidelity pollutes the couple and the family and destroys the social fabric of France," critic Aude Ducros said.

"It is immoral to be publicly promoting adultery, and hurtful to infidelity’s victims."

It may be too much too late, however, as the last six French Presidents have been embroiled in some kind of adultery scandal and infidelity seems to be creeping into the realm of commonplace in the Republic.

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Cheating And The Sexes

More Women Think Infidelity Is Wrong(01 of12)

In the General Social Survey, which tracks how Americans think on a variety of issues, a majority of men and women both said that infidelity when married is always wrong — but more women agree. At least 78 per cent of men think cheating is never okay when you're hitched, while 84 per cent of women share that sentiment. In the 1970s, those numbers were 63 per cent and 73 per cent respectively, so both men and women are more likely today to be anti-infidelity, and the gap between the sexes on the subject has narrowed over the time. (credit:Shutterstock)

Men Are More Likely To Have Cheated(02 of12)

Data from the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy says that approximately 25 per cent of husbands and 15 per cent of wives have had sex with someone else while married. However, the fact that people are not necessarily eager to admit that they've been unfaithful — even anonymously — those numbers could be higher in reality. (credit:Shutterstock)

Women Are More Likely To Cheat Now Than They Used To(03 of12)

More women are committing adultery today than reported doing so in the past. A 2010 survey by the National Opinion Research Center found that women are 40 per cent more likely to cheat today than they were 20 years ago. Some researchers think this is because more of them are in the workforce, and because more women today have jobs that require them to travel. (credit:Shutterstock)

Cheating Isn't Necessarily About Sex(04 of12)

When researching his book The Truth About Cheating, marriage counsellor M. Gary Neuman found that 92 per cent of men said that their infidelity wasn't about sex. The men said that their reasons for cheating were often emotional, such as feeling disconnected from or under-appreciated by their spouses. (credit:Shutterstock)

It's Also Not Necessarily About Looks(05 of12)

Neuman's research indicated that 88 per cent of men who cheated didn't do so with someone more attractive than or fitter than their wives. But people who are perceived as more attractive — whether it's because they have looks, money, education, or power — are overall more likely to cheat. (credit:Shutterstock)

Cheaters Rarely Tell(06 of12)

Fifty-five per cent of the men in Neuman's study either lied when presented with evidence of their infidelity, or just didn't tell their wives it had happened. (credit:Shutterstock)

Men Are More Forgiving(07 of12)

A study from the University of Texas found that 50 per cent of men said they'd forgive their female partner if she cheated with a woman, but only 22 per cent would forgive if she cheated with a man. Women felt differently — 21 per cent said they'd forgive if their male partner was unfaithful with a man, but 28 would forgive an affair with a woman. The researchers indicated that the difference may be because many men find female-on-female sex to be erotic, and because a woman's affair with another woman can't result in pregnancy. (credit:Shutterstock)

Most Men Didn't Hate Their Marriages (08 of12)

In one survey, 54 per cent of men who had cheated said that before the affair, they thought their marriage wasn't bad — or was even good. Just 34 per cent of women who had cheated felt the same. The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family in 2008, found that those who defined their marriages as "not too happy" were three times more likely to cheat than those who said their marriages were "very happy," and even people whose marriages they described as "pretty happy" were twice as likely to cheat as the "very happy" respondents. Another study found that half of women said their marriages had problems before an affair occurred, while only a third of men felt the same way. (credit:Shutterstock)

It Doesn't Have To Be Sex To Be Cheating(09 of12)

A recent American poll found that a large majority of both men and women felt that non-sex cheating was just as damaging to a relationship as sex. Eighty-five per cent of female respondents and 74 per cent of men said that sexting is cheating. (credit:Shutterstock)

More Men Are Okay With Kissing Than Women(10 of12)

Sixty per cent of men in the YouGov poll felt that kissing someone other than your partner was fine, but only 34 per cent of women agreed. Younger people were more likely than older respondents to consider a kissing cheat a reason to end a relationship. (credit:Shutterstock)

Women More Likely To Turn Affairs Into Relationships(11 of12)

A study published in the journal Sex Roles in 2007 found that women were more likely than men to start a new relationship with someone they cheated with. As well, men were more likely to say they cheated simply because the opportunity arose, whereas women cited problems in their existing relation as reasons for their infidelity — perhaps for women, cheating is more often seen as a way to get out of an unhappy relationship and into another. (credit:Shutterstock)

Both Genders Experience Guilt (12 of12)

One study found that both men and women feel guilty about infidelity— but not for the same reasons. Men feel guiltier following sexual infidelity, the researchers found, while women feel worse about an emotional betrayal, such as falling in love with someone else. (credit:Shutterstock)

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