Ashley Madison, the dating site for people in relationships looking to have a side dish to their main meal, has released its data on which places in Australia are the most adulterous.
The site released a ranking of the top 20 towns and cities in Australia according to how many signups it recorded as per The Herald Sun.
Since this is Ashley Madison’s area of speciality, this list will is probably as close as we’ll get to knowing our country’s “most cheating” cities.
I highly doubt we’ll cop an “are you a cheater” question on the national census any time soon but stranger things have happened.
So without further ado, here’s the list in full:
1. Mackay, QLD
2. Canberra, ACT
3. Albury, NSW
4. Rockhampton, QLD
5. Cairns, QLD
6. Toowoomba, QLD
7. Ballarat, VIC
8. Townsville, QLD
9. Gold Coast, QLD
10. Sunshine Coast, QLD
11. Bunbury, WA
12. Bundaberg, QLD
13. Wollongong, NSW
14. Darwin, NT
15. Newcastle, NSW
16. Brisbane, QLD
17. Hobart, TAS
18. Adelaide, SA
19. Launceston, TAS
20. Melbourne, VIC
Not sure what’s in the water in Mackay but the city of just over 130,000 has cemented itself as Australia’s capital of infidelity. Congratulations (???).
The second and third spots were occupied by Canberra, ACT and Albury, NSW respectively with Rockhampton and Cairns rounding out the top five.
Safe to say the smaller cities have been punching above their weight class.
As Melburnian, I’m frankly shocked to see it appear on the list as late as number 20. Not to mention the fact that Sydney didn’t even appear at all.
Perhaps you don’t need an Ashley Madison account in the big cities?
But, if our time watching reality TV shows like MAFS and more recently The Love Triangle has taught us anything, it’s that city slickers were probably underrepresented in the data.
Ashley Madison originally began in 2001 and by the end of 2020, had reached 70 million users. A number that is considerably bigger than the population of Mackay.
The site’s slogan is “Life is short. Have an affair.” and purports to be the antidote for when “monogamy becomes monotony”.
Isabella Mise, an Ashley Madison spokesperson said that Aussies were “starting to see non-monogamy as something to seriously consider rather than something taboo and unrealistic”.
There’s definitely been a trend over the past few years towards more flexible relationship structures, so there’s probably some truth to Mise’s take.
If you feel like you and your partner might be interested in such things, peep PEDESTRIAN.TV’s handy guide on how to make your current relationship non-monogamous.
