Abstract
The more politically conservative Americans are, the more restrictive their sexual attitudes are. A natural follow-up question is how this difference in attitudes relates to actual behavior. But self-reports of sexual behavior may be compromised by a social desirability bias that is influenced by the very sexual attitudes at issue. We employed a non-self-reported measure of sexual behavior: usage of the adultery-focused dating website Ashley Madison. Linking an August 2015 leak of user data from Ashley Madison to 2012 voter registration rolls from five U.S. states, we found 80,000 matches between 200,000 Ashley Madison user accounts and 50 million voters. According to simple rates in the sample, and also to predictively validated regression models controlling for state, gender, and age, we found that Democrats were least likely to use Ashley Madison, Libertarians were most likely, and Republicans, Greens, and unaffiliated voters were in between. Our results provide support for theories arguing that people with stricter sexual attitudes are paradoxically more likely to engage in deviant sexual behavior.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adorno, T. W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D. J., & Sanford, R. N. (1950). The authoritarian personality. New York, NY: Harper.
Alexander, M. G., & Fisher, T. D. (2003). Truth and consequences: Using the bogus pipeline to examine sex differences in self-reported sexuality. Journal of Sex Research, 40, 27–35. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490309552164.
Apfelbaum, B. (1984, November). Sexual reality and how we dismiss it. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20010627190317|http://www.bapfelbaumphd.com/Sexual_Reality.html.
Arfer, K. B. (2016). Diversity of sexual practices is not bad. In Empirical sexual attitudes. Los Angeles, CA: Author. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://arfer.net/w/esa/practices.
Atkins, D. C., Baucom, D. H., & Jacobson, N. S. (2001). Understanding infidelity: Correlates in a national random sample. Journal of Family Psychology, 15, 735–749. https://doi.org/10.1037/0893-3200.15.4.735.
Biddle, S. (2015, August 19). What’s actually inside the nightmare Ashley Madison leak. Gawker. Retrieved from http://gawker.com/1725077740.
Blevins, C., & Mullen, L. (2015). Jane, John… Leslie? A historical method for algorithmic gender prediction. Digital Humanities Quarterly, 9. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/9/3/000223/000223.html.
Brier, G. W. (1950). Verification of forecasts expressed in terms of probability. Monthly Weather Review, 78, 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1950)078<0001:VOFEIT>2.0.CO;2.
Bröcker, J. (2009). Reliability, sufficiency, and the decomposition of proper scores. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 135, 1512–1519. https://doi.org/10.1002/qj.456.
Burdette, A. M., Ellison, C. G., Sherkat, D. E., & Gore, K. A. (2007). Are there religious variations in marital infidelity? Journal of Family Issues, 28, 1553–1581. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513x07304269.
Buss, D. M., & Shackelford, T. K. (1997). Susceptibility to infidelity in the first year of marriage. Journal of Research in Personality, 31, 193–221. https://doi.org/10.1006/jrpe.1997.2175.
Carroll, J. S., Padilla-Walker, L. M., Nelson, L. J., Olson, C. D., Barry, C. M., & Madsen, S. D. (2008). Generation XXX: Pornography acceptance and use among emerging adults. Journal of Adolescent Research, 23, 6–30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558407306348.
Coleman, L. M., & Testa, A. (2008). Sexual health knowledge, attitudes and behaviours: Variations among a religiously diverse sample of young people in London, UK. Ethnicity and Health, 13, 55–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13557850701803163.
Edelman, B. (2009). Red light states: Who buys online adult entertainment? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 23, 209–220. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.23.1.209.
Feldman, S. S., & Cauffman, E. (1999). Your cheatin’ heart: Attitudes, behaviors, and correlates of sexual betrayal in late adolescents. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 9, 227–252. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327795jra0903_1.
Fisher, T. D., & Brunell, A. B. (2014). A bogus pipeline approach to studying gender differences in cheating behavior. Personality and Individual Differences, 61–62, 91–96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2014.01.019.
Freud, S. (1910). The origin and development of psychoanalysis. American Journal of Psychology, 21, 181–218. https://doi.org/10.2307/1413001.
Fried, J. (2008). Democrats and Republicans—rhetoric and reality: Comparing the voters in statistics and anecdotes. New York, NY: Algora.
Gallup, G. H., Jr. (2003). Current views on premarital, extramarital sex. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://www.gallup.com/poll/8704/x.aspx.
Gelman, A. (2008). Scaling regression inputs by dividing by two standard deviations. Statistics in Medicine, 27, 2865–2873. https://doi.org/10.1002/sim.3107.
Geuss, M. (2016, December 14). Hacked cheating site Ashley Madison will pay $1.6 million to FTC for breach. Ars Technica. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20161214/https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/12/hacked.
Grieser, W. D., Kapadia, N., Li, R., & Simonov, A. (2016). Fifty shades of corporate culture. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2741049.
Griffin, J. M., Kruger, S. A., & Maturana, G. (2016). Do personal ethics influence corporate ethics? Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://ssrn.com/abstract=2745062.
Hill, T. D., Moulton, B. E., & Burdette, A. M. (2004). Conservative Protestantism and attitudes toward homosexuality: Does political orientation mediate this relationship? Sociological Focus, 37, 59–70. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380237.2004.10571234.
Independence Party of New York. (2014). About/Legislative Agenda|Independence Party of New York State. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20141106202740/http://www.nyindependenceparty.com/agenda.
Kirby, D. (2007). Abstinence, sex, and STD/HIV education programs for teens: Their impact on sexual behavior, pregnancy, and sexually transmitted disease. Annual Review of Sex Research, 18, 143–177. https://doi.org/10.1080/10532528.2007.10559850.
Lamont, T. (2016, February 27). Life after the Ashley Madison affair. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/28/what-happened-after-ashley-madison-was-hacked.
MacInnis, C. C., & Hodson, G. (2015). Do American states with more religious or conservative populations search more for sexual content on Google? Archives of Sexual Behavior, 44, 137–147. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-014-0361-8.
McArdle, J. (2007, August 27). Craig arrested, pleads guilty following incident in airport restroom. Roll Call. Retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20150908081135/http://www.rollcall.com/news/-19763-1.html.
Moe, K. (1984). Should the Nazi research data be cited? Hastings Center Report, 14, 5–7. https://doi.org/10.2307/3561733.
Paton, C. (2015, August 24). Ashley Madison hack list: How to download and search leaked adultery website database email addresses. International Business Times. Retrieved from http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/1516808.
Petersen, L. R., & Donnenwerth, G. V. (1997). Secularization and the influence of religion on beliefs about premarital sex. Social Forces, 75, 1071–1088. https://doi.org/10.2307/2580531.
Pew Research Center. (2009). Trends in political values and core attitudes: 1987–2009. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://www.people-press.org/2009/05/21/independents-take-center-stage-in-obama-era.
Pew Research Center. (2015). A deep dive into party affiliation: Sharp differences by race, gender, generation, education. Retrieved May 30, 2018 from http://www.gallup.com/poll/8704/x.aspx.
Prince, S. J. (2015, August 19). Where can I find Ashley Madison data? Heavy. Retrieved from http://heavy.com/news/2015/08/how-to-download-ashley-madison-full-email-list-dump-torrent.
Sidanius, J. (1985). Cognitive functioning and sociopolitical ideology revisited. Political Psychology, 6, 637–661. https://doi.org/10.2307/3791021.
Stanger-Hall, K. F., & Hall, D. W. (2011). Abstinence-only education and teen pregnancy rates: Why we need comprehensive sex education in the US. Plos ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0024658.
Steel, E., & Schmidt, M. S. (2017, April 19). Bill O’Reilly is forced out at Fox News. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/media/bill-oreilly-fox-news-allegations.html.
Strang, E., & Peterson, Z. D. (2016). Use of a bogus pipeline to detect men’s underreporting of sexually aggressive behavior. Journal of Interpersonal Violence. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886260516681157.
Tuttle, J. D., & Davis, S. N. (2015). Religion, infidelity, and divorce: Reexamining the effect of religious behavior on divorce among long-married couples. Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, 56, 475–489. https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2015.1058660.
United States Census Bureau. (2012). Table 1. Annual estimates of the population for the United States, regions, states, and Puerto Rico: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2012 (NST-EST2012-01). Retrieved May 30, 2018 from https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/tables/2010-2012/state/totals/nst-est2012-01.xls.
Victor, D. (2015, August 19). The Ashley Madison data dump, explained. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/20/technology/the-ashley-madison-data-dump-explained.html.
Whitley, B. E., Jr., & Lee, S. E. (2000). The relationship of authoritarianism and related constructs to attitudes toward homosexuality. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 30, 144–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2000.tb02309.x.
Yoon, H.-J., Tourassi, G., & Xu, S. (2015). Residential mobility and lung cancer risk: Data-driven exploration using internet sources. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 9021, 464–469. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16268-3_60.
Zabin, L. S., Hirsch, M. B., Smith, E. A., & Hardy, J. B. (1984). Adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior: Are they consistent? Family Planning Perspectives, 16, 181–185. https://doi.org/10.2307/2134899.
Acknowledgments
This project was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH109205).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
Both authors are registered to vote as Democrats. The authors declare that they have no other potential conflicts of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Arfer, K.B., Jones, J.J. American Political-Party Affiliation as a Predictor of Usage of an Adultery Website. Arch Sex Behav 48, 715–723 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1244-1
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-018-1244-1