A young Frenchman is to launch his extramarital dating Web site in the “puritan” US, selling the idea that adultery is no longer what it used to be.
The clash of national stereotypes will see Gleeden.com vaunt its women-friendly credentials over the likes of brasher and more well-established North American adulterers’ site AshleyMadison.com.
Teddy Truchot, 27, launched his site in France last year after polls showed that fully a third of people on dating sites claimed to be single, but were in fact already in a relationship.
Today his forum has over half-a-million members, mainly in Europe, of which almost 250,000 are in France.
Its success is a sign of the changing mores of our times, Truchot says, empowering financially emancipated women who are less afraid of the potential repercussions of seeking a bit on the side.
“The French love infidelity. Even if they don’t practice it, they’re very good spectators,” Truchot said.
“The need itself is the same in France, Italy or the US,” he said.
The site’s success comes from French notions of seduction, with a quarter of women going there for nothing more than flirtation, Truchot says.
“Some women just need to feel seduced, to read a little message that says, ‘you look pretty in this photo,’ they like to hear that because they don’t hear it from their husbands anymore,” Truchot said.
Not surprisingly, in a country where an overnight bag is known as a baise-en-ville (sex away from home), Truchot doesn’t think adultery is necessarily bad.
“Life is stressful, a relationship can become routine, a committed relationship can be scary, for a man or a woman, so infidelity isn’t as bad as all that,” he said.
A Gleeden-sponsored opinion poll by IPSOS seems to back this up.
Fully 14 percent of Frenchmen do not consider a one-night stand infidelity, nor do 7 percent of Frenchwomen, while 22 percent of the French think that infidelity can save a relationship as it “gives moments of freedom.”
Chantal, 32, a mother-of-three, found moments with a stranger after signing up with Gleeden “because I was curious,” she said. “My husband is away a lot, so am I, we have children, we bump into each other, then there was a moment when there was no excitement, we saw each other less, it became a bit like the daily grind.”
“Then I met this person, it allowed me to get out of the daily grind, so when I went home I was in a different mood, but perhaps it strengthened our relationship as a couple,” she said. “This allows me to have something on the side, an outlet, something for myself. Some women do a lot of shopping. Not me.”
Truchot is optimistic about prospects in the US.
“The US is a territory that is very puritan, but I think we’ll have a certain success over there,” Truchot said.
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