14 DAY TRIAL // Ashley Madison is a “dating” website that fixes married men and women with potential partners. One of its latest adds features a supersize model named Jacqueline – and she is outraged that her image is being used for such a purpose.
Working under the motto “Life is short. Have an affair,” Madison came up with at least two adds featuring Jacqueline: one is of her and the caption “Did your wife scare you last night,” while the other shows her next to a gorgeous brunette, with the caption “We call it as we see it.”
Writing on Jezebel, Jacqueline claims she's furious at the way her name and likeness are being used to promote cheating.
Moreover, she says, what the ads do is body shaming, where they're telling women from all over the world (or the US, at the very least) that being overweight is neither desirable nor acceptable.
Moreover, she vents, gaining weight is the surest way of losing a partner, at least for women. Such behavior is unacceptable, she says, especially since she knows for a fact that this isn't true.
Jacqueline runs her own website, for people who find heavy or overweight women attractive, to put it in very mild terms.
Aside from the fact that she believes she was conned into signing off the rights for the picture (of which she claims to have been told it was for “personal use”), she also states that the ad embodies what is worse in our culture.
“There is an enormous problem in this world in regards to female body shaming, and not solely in regard to fat women, but all women. A size 2 woman who sees this ad sees the message: 'If I don't stay small, he will cheat',” she writes on Jezebel.
“A size 12 woman might see this ad and think 'If I don't lose 30lbs, he will cheat.' A size 32 woman could see this ad, and feel 'I will never find love.' It's horrific,” she further says.
“The fact that they are now suggesting that a person's partner not fitting their ideal body size/shape, entitles that person to ‘shop around' is disgusting,” Jacqueline further argues.
“It's bad enough that a business exists that encourages and profits from cheaters, but, worse still, that they have the gall to blame a woman's body on the act, rather than the man who is incapable of commitment and loyalty,” she goes on to say.
For the obvious reasons, we can't include with the article the photo that caused such uproar online. You can see it and the full post from Jacqueline here. Also here is Ashley Madison's response.