According to most Americans, ordinary people can expect their sex lives to remain private, but cheaters can't
Last month it emerged that the world's most popular website to arrange affairs, Ashley Madison, was the victim of a data breach which may mean that hackers have access to the personal information of millions of would-be cheaters. Josh Duggar, a reality TV star, noted 'family values' campaigner and admitted sex offender has become the first prominent figure to be exposed after hackers released the Ashley Madison information online.
YouGov's research shows that most people don't feel that cheaters can reasonably expect that their private sex lives will remain private. 50% of Americans say that it's unreasonable for people cheating on their partners to expect their sex lives to remain private while only 32% say that it is reasonable. This compares to 82% who believe that ordinary people have a reasonable expectation of privacy. The issue is more split when it comes to celebrities and politicians, with 39% of Americans saying that it is unreasonable for celebrities to expect their sex lives to remain private while 43% think it is unreasonable for politicians to expect so.
46% of Americans think that news organizations should be allowed to publish details of the sex lives of politicians at least sometimes, compared to 36% who say the same about celebrities and only 24% who say the same about ordinary people. 63% of people think that the media should never be allowed to publish details of ordinary people's sex lives but only 40% say the same about politicians.
When Americans were asked how they would respond if they found out that someone close to them were cheating on their partner, only 18% of Americans would tell the partner that was being cheated on. 37% would confront the person cheating while 28% would stay out of it and do nothing.
Full poll results can be found here and topline results and margin of error here.
