Sanctity Of Marriage, Vol. XLIII

Hey, did you know there's a dating website with over 3 million members that's just for heterosexuals looking to redefine the definition of marriage? AshleyMadison.com's slogan: "Life is short. Have an affair." The company tried to run an ad during the Super Bowl, but were turned down by NBC and the NFL. However a local station in Texas (which is apparently a seething sweaty hotbed of infidelity) was happy to run the commercial, which was not received very well by some.

Football fans are used to outrageous ads on Super Bowl Sunday, but a 30-second pitch for adultery had Monday-morning quarterbacks buzzing. “Infidelity is a form of betrayal, and the idea of portraying betrayal as an answer to relationship problems is mind-boggling,” said family therapist Tim Louis in Houston. He was referring to the $250,000 spot for AshleyMadison.com, an online dating service for married folk. The ad, deemed inappropriate by NFL and NBC officials, ran only in Texas. It showed a couple celebrating their anniversary at a white tablecloth restaurant. The man blew his nose, answered his cell phone, then stood up to leave in the middle of dessert. “Happy anniversary, honey,” he said on his way out. Then came the voice-over, speaking to women: “Isn’t it time for AshleyMadison.com?”

Louis was emphatic that the answer is no. “The reality is many people do have affairs, but they only create additional problems between husbands and wives,” he said. “There’s nothing like a big old secret — and guilt and fear — that further isolates you from your partner.” AshleyMadison.com CEO Noel Biderman said he started the service in 2001, after reading that 30 percent of the people signing up for singles dating services were actually married. “I thought, wouldn’t it be better to be honest about your status?” he said. “About 3.3 million members and tens of millions of dollars later, I think I was right.” Today, the Toronto-based company is focusing on Texas because Houston, Dallas and San Antonio represent its fastest-growing markets. “We’ve had close to a quarter-million members join in the past few months,” Biderman said.

Gay activists should email a link to AshleyMadison.com to every wingnut that uses the expression "sanctity of marriage". If they want to use every bizarre little instance of a gay person acting badly against us, let's throw THREE MILLION CHEATERS in their face.


(Tipped by JMG reader Richard)

Super Interruptus

Yesterday I mentioned the porn interruption of the Super Bowl seen by Arizona cable customers. Gizmodo has posted the clip (NSFW), which is rather amusing but definitely not very sexy.

(Tipped by JMG reader Tom)

The Really Super Bowl

A crucial final moment of last night's Super Bowl was interrupted for Comcast customers in Tucson, Arizona by a switchover to a sex scene on pay-per-wank channel Club Jenna. Apparently, it was an inside job. Heh, job.

Comcast believes the pornography that interrupted its feed of the Super Bowl Sunday night was the result of foul play, a company spokeswoman said Monday morning. “Our initial investigation suggests this was an isolated malicious act,” spokeswoman Kelle Maslyn said in a statement emailed to the Star. “We are mortified by last evening’s Super Bowl interruption and we apologize to our customers. We are conducting a thorough investigation to determine how this happened.” It is still unclear how many viewers were affected by the clip, which lasted about 30 seconds, and featured full male nudity, Maslyn said.

Comcast is working on a plan to compensate customers, but nothing has been set in stone, Maslyn said. The pornography clip was from Club Jenna, an adult cable television channel. The Arizona Daily Star newsroom was flooded with calls from irate viewers who said that the porn cut into the game with less than three minutes left to play, just after Arizona Cardinals player Larry Fitzgerald scored on a touchdown pass from Kurt Warner to put the team in the lead. Callers said that the clip showed a woman unzipping a man’s pants, followed by a graphic act between the two.

I can only imagine being at a Tuscon sports bar where five seconds after a scream of outrage, the room suddenly became rather silent....

Best Super Bowl Ad: Hulu.com

I've got to agree with Gawker that Hulu.com gave us the best Super Bowl ad. Then again, just about anything with Alec Baldwin in it works for me. It's also kinda funny that Hulu makes you watch an ad before you can watch their ad.

Jennifer Hudson "Sings" At Sporting Event

There was some kind of game tonight. Lots of guys in crimson and goldenrod blouses running around in pedal pushers. Anyway, Jennifer Hudson came out of her tragedy-spawned seclusion to deliver a stunning example of lip-syncing. Yo-Yo Ma was seen miming wild applause from his sky box. I love J-Hud, live or not, and thought her version was one of the best I've heard.

UPDATE: Drudge Report is pointing everybody to this quote from the show's producer, Rickey Minor:

Although entertainers can perform live, Minor insisted that Hudson and Faith Hill, who sang "America the Beautiful" before the national anthem, use the tracks the NFL requires them to submit a week before the game. "That's the right way to do it," Minor said. "There's too many variables to go live. I would never recommend any artist go live because the slightest glitch would devastate the performance."

The Bacon Explosion

The hottest Super Bowl recipe on the internet: the Bacon Explosion.

For a nation seeking unity, a recipe has swept the Internet that seems to unite conservatives and liberals, gun owners and foodies, carnivores and ... well, not vegetarians and health fanatics. Certainly not the vegetarians and health fanatics. This recipe is the Bacon Explosion, modestly called by its inventors “the BBQ Sausage Recipe of all Recipes.” The instructions for constructing this massive torpedo-shaped amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce first appeared last month on the Web site of a team of Kansas City competition barbecuers. They say a diverse collection of well over 16,000 Web sites have linked to the recipe, celebrating, or sometimes scolding, its excessiveness. A fresh audience could be ready to discover it on Super Bowl Sunday.

Do I post too much about bacon, the perfect food? Remember Baconnaise?

Rejected: PETA's Super Bowl Ad

PETA's "vegetarians have better sex" Super Bowl ad was rejected by NBC because it "depicts a level of sexuality exceeding our standards." What, models in lingerie rubbing asparagus on their vah-jay-jay is too far?