The day after Halloween, I noticed this ad on the back page of New York Metro. The ad features an obese woman posing in lingerie. While the image disturbed me, the ad’s tagline actually bothered me more, asking: “Did your wife scare you last night?” Then I noticed the bottom of the ad: it was an ad for Ashley Madison, a company that caters to married people who want to have affairs. I’ll push the moral problems I have with this homewrecking business to the side, and instead focus on the ad’s not-so subtle implication that fat women are ‘scary.’ And of course, if a woman is fat, she deserves for her husband to cheat on her. After all, it’s her fault for not realizing those marriage vows came with a weight clause.
What doesn’t make sense is that the business may be risking offending customers who are big women, which according to the company is a growing sector of their consumer base. But it’s not like Ashley Madison ever acknowledges female consumers in their advertisements – most of their ads contain half naked women to lure in potential male customers. I guess it’s not shocking that Ashley Madison’s ads reflect gender stereotypes - that only men have affairs and no man wants a heavy woman – because this is true of almost all media. Other bloggers were bothered by the ad's reinforcement of the myth that fat women don’t get laid. I can’t say the ad is doing something horrible that’s never been done before – after all, it’s nothing new to see women being valued by their physical attributes over all else. But this ad attacks so many groups and values at the same time - women, bigger people and the institution of marriage itself - that it's offensiveness is impossible to ignore. I think what’s truly scary about this ad is that it was ever allowed to run in the first place.
