지난달 18일 한국에 상륙한 기혼자를 대상으로 한 온라인 데이팅 사이트 ‘애슐리메디슨’에 대한 반응이 심상치 않다
"인생은 짧습니다. 연애하세요 (Life is short. Have an affair)”라는 도발적이고도 앙큼한 슬로건은 공식 한국 사이트 개설 일주일 만에 4만5천명의 가입자를 낳았고, ‘에슐리메디슨’은 앞으로 한국회원 50만 명 유치를 목표로 삼고 있다.
슬로건 외에도 불륜 알선 사이트 ‘애슐리메디슨’에 이목이 집중되는 이유는 또 있다. 국내에는 현행법상 불륜중개에 대해 직접적으로 처벌하는 조항은 없으나, 1953년 제정된 간통죄가 현재까지 존재하며 또 이에 의거해 애슐리메디슨도 법적 책임이나 규제를 받을 수 있는 가능성이 있기 때문이다.
이에 ‘애슐리메디슨’의 창립자이자 CEO인 노엘 비더만은 (Noel Biderman)은 한국의 간통죄 관련 법은 “대책없이 진부하다(hopelessly outdated)”며 법적 책임을 지게 될까 고민하며 “밤잠을 설치지 않는다”고 AFP와의 인터뷰에서 말했다.
그는 이 사이트가 아시아 문화와 세계 전역에서 이미 일어나고 있는 일들을 거드는 것일 뿐이라고 주장하며 “사람들은 어떤 방법이 허용되건 허용되지 않건 그와 관계없이 바람을 피운다. 그렇다면 좀 더 분별력 있는 방법을 제공하지 않을 이유는 없지 않나””라고 반문했다. 그는 또 “(애슐리메디슨은) 공개적으로 굴욕을 당하거나 해고 당할 수 있는 직장내의 불륜의 대안이라”며 오히려 법원에 가는 일을 줄여줄 것이라고 말했다.
직접 사이트를 사용해 보기로 한 AFP는 유부녀 회원으로 등록한지 24시간 안에 20대부터 50대 남성 60여 명이 접근했으며, 대부분은 자신이 기혼자라고 밝혔다고 전했다.
그 중 몇 명은 누드 셀카를 보내왔으며, 한 50대 남성은 “가족 5명의 책임을 지려니 스트레스 속에 살고 있다. 여자친구가 필요하다며” 동정심을 유발하려고 했다고 전했다.
누드 셀카를 비롯 성매매의 온상이 될 수 있다는 지적에 비더만은 회사가 자제척으로 검열을 하고 있다며 “(애슐리메디슨은) 온라인 사창가가 아니라 같은 생각을 가진 사람들이 모인 소셜 네트워크다”라고 반박했다.
방송통신심의위원회의 한 관계자는 '애슐리메디슨' 가입자들 간에 불법적인 행위가 이뤄지는지 모니터링하고 있다며 "온라인 성매매와 같은 범죄의 단서가 포착될 경우 방통위에서 폐쇄 조치를 취할 수 있다"고 말했다.
코리아헤럴드 박한나 기자 (hnpark@heraldcorp.com)
<관련 영문 기사>
Adultery website tests the law in S. Korea
Noel Biderman insists he has no problems sleeping at night after launching an adultery hook-up site in South Korea where marital infidelity is a crime punishable by up to two years in prison.
Biderman is the CEO of Canada-based AshleyMadison.com -- slogan: "Life is short. Have an affair" -- which claims more than 25 million subscribers in 35 countries and launched in South Korea last month.
Within a week, 46,000 people had signed up and Biderman said the company was targeting a membership of around 500,000 -- or one percent of the total population.
The website is no stranger to Asia, having already launched in Japan, India and Hong Kong, but South Korea offers particular challenges given a 1953 statute that criminalises adultery.
Biderman believes the law is "hopelessly outdated" but still heeded legal advice not to attend the South Korea launch in person.
He insists that his website simply facilitates an activity that is universal and crosses all social and geographical boundaries.
"Infidelity is present in Asian culture, in the same way that it is present in every other culture in the world," he told AFP in a telephone interview from New York.
But not every Asian government sees that as a reason to welcome AshleyMadison.
Singapore's Media Development Authority banned the website in November, saying it constituted an attack on "our family values and public morality."
Like Singapore, South Korea is modern but socially conservative, particularly when it comes to the Internet.
Last year about 23,000 Korean webpages were deleted, and another 63,000 blocked, at the request of the Korea Communications Standards Commission (KCSC), a largely government-appointed body.
The main targets were pornography, prostitution and gambling.
'Problematic' but not criminal
KCSC official Song Myung-Hoon told AFP that the commission had been "closely monitoring" AshleyMadison since its launch.
"We know this website is problematic and are discussing internally what to do with it," Song said, while acknowledging there was nothing inherently criminal about the website.
South Korea's adultery law is not much of a deterrent, and conviction usually results in a suspended sentence rather than actual jail time.
As an offence, it can only be prosecuted on complaint, and any case is closed as soon as the plaintiff drops the charge.
Whereas 216 people were given prison terms under the law in 2004, that figure had dropped to 42 by 2008.
But it remains on the statute books, despite half a dozen referrals for review to the country's Constitutional Court, and there is no great groundswell of opinion to have it removed.
In 2011, a Christian pastor was jailed for 18 months for having a decade-long affair with a woman whose wedding he had officiated at, after her husband named them both in an adultery complaint.
Socially conservative groups have already denounced the Korean-language version of AshleyMadison.
"It's ridiculous, legally and morally," said Lee Kum-Sook, a member of the Seoul-based civic group, Healthy Family.
"Adultery is a punishable crime here, although people still do it secretly.
But promoting it so openly on the Internet will make the problem even worse," Lee said.
The fact that married people secretly have affairs -- even when illegal -- is a cornerstone of Biderman's argument for embracing AshleyMadison.
And he rejects suggestions that his website could be held responsible for a married woman who finds herself on trial for having an affair with someone she met on the site.
"I don't struggle going to sleep at night over that," he said.
"The point is that people are going to have affairs no matter what avenues are open or closed to them. So why not provide them with a discreet way to do it?
"It's an alternative to affairs in the workplace, which risk exposure, humiliation and dismissal. If anything, our website will help keep people out of the courts," he said.
Naked 'selfies' and sympathy
There was no doubting the enthusiasm of the early members of the website's Korean version.
A married woman profile drafted and posted by AFP garnered 60 responses in 24 hours from men ranging in age from their 20s to late 50s -- nearly all of them self-identified as married.
While some decided that sending naked "selfies" with their messages was the best way forward, others looked to conjure up some sympathy.
"I'm a married man and my life is always so tense because I have to take responsibility for five members of my family," wrote one 55-year-old.
"I want a girlfriend. How far we can go depends on we feel for each other," he said.
Song Myung-Hoon from the KCSC indicated that the commission's monitoring of AshleyMadison was partly focused on whether subscribers might use the site for illegal activities.
"We can shut down the website if there is evidence of anything like online prostitution for example," Song said.
Biderman says the site's own moderators would block anyone found engaging in anything like prostitution, and added that other members were quick to complain if they felt they were being solicited.
"This is not an online brothel. It's a social network for like-minded people," he said.
"I am not in the sex business. I am not selling sex."
