FOUNDERS: Ashley Madison's Amanda and Noel Biderman.

'Ashley Madison'. It sounds like the name of an innocuous family friend: pleasant, breezy, quite the baker. It doesn't sound like the name of the most successful adultery website of all time, attracting more followers than the Pope has on Twitter; a controversial network that connects married men and women, enabling them to stray discretely; or a hugely profitable company with a notorious slogan – "Life is short. Have an affair" – and 28 million members worldwide.

The founder and owner of this well-oiled infidelity machine is 43-year-old Noel Biderman. He has, at various times, called himself "the most hated man on the Internet" and the "Emperor of infidelity".

So it may surprise you to learn that Mr Biderman – who designed Ashley Madison for women because he knew men would then "gravitate" toward it – has a wife. And that despite his very specific line of work, infidelity is not an ingredient in their marriage.

SHOCK TACTICS: Ashley Madison has pushed the boundaries with its advertising.

Speaking from the couple's family home in Toronto, Noel says, "I believe monogamy is worth pursuing and that it's a worthwhile endeavour. However, I'm aware we're not engineered for monogamy and it's actually a minority of us that will be successful with it."

It all begs the question: who married this man?

Amanda Biderman, 38, is "the insane woman who did". Originally from South Africa, she has a background in marketing and plays a pivotal role in the promotion of her husband's business. "For females, sex is more of an intimate, emotional thing," she says, trotting out the stale old Mars/Venus dictum. "It's connectivity with somebody, whereas with men it's a biological need and a drive."

That drive, as every brothel in the universe has discovered, is quite lucrative.

So is Ashley Madison, reportedly worth US$125 million. The Bidermans, who have two children together, want for nothing.

It all began in 2001, when Noel, a successful sports attorney with an entrepreneurial spirit, read that a quarter of online daters were not actually single. "That was an eye opener," says Amanda. "Once I understood there was a marketplace that needed to be serviced, I thought, oh god, this is going to be big."

The reactions to Noel have been widespread, heartfelt, ardent, and include death threats. Has Noel really received letters to cease and desist from the Pope? "Unfortunately, yes." (Interestingly, Catholics are the second largest religious group on Ashley Madison in the US.)

"Listen," says Amanda. "This strikes a deep chord with many people… It breaks apart a very traditional, conservative approach to how we see our relationships and conduct our lives. People definitely want to attack.

"[But] most people don't recognise that infidelity has been there for centuries. We see it in the presidency in the United States and the upper echelon of Hollywood. People think Bill Clinton was an anomaly – or Tiger Woods? Of all the people that come out in a year, think of all the minions nobody knows about. That's why it's so successful. It's not a new phenomenon; it's just that nobody ever documents it or wants to understand it."

"Noel," says Amanda, is simply an entrepreneur who identified "an opportunity to understand the psychology around relationships and dig deeper [to] unearth the things people don't want to discuss. And he's up for the challenge."

Amanda does not believe that the site is facilitating deception. It simply provides a platform, she argues, "for like-minded adults to communicate with one another. There's likely less deception happening on Ashley Madison – where everyone is looking for the same thing – compared to other dating sites which are often fraught with married people masquerading as single."

Granted, people using the site are clear about their relationship status, however it's the unsuspecting partners of members who are mostly likely to feel deceived.

"People pursue affairs because they don't want to leave their marriage," says Noel. "They want to have their cake and eat it too, I acknowledge that. I'm not suggesting it helps the dynamic between those two individuals, but it might help them stay within the institution of marriage."

Any marriage, according to Noel, has a number of important foundation elements: "It has economics, raising children together, extended family, and a home. For many people those foundations are all steady – it's just the monogamy that's not – so that's why they choose deception."

People frequent his website, says Noel, "because they're not having sex".

The couple, who married 11 years ago, met pre-Ashley Madison. "He was not a savvy dater, no smooth womaniser," recalls Amanda. "He had forgotten even the small change for the parking meter – I liked that."

He tends to take over dinner party conversations, she says. "He was always the magnet of any discussion, even before stepping into this role. He has a charisma that spoke to me from the moment I not only laid eyes on him, but heard him articulate his vision for a happy life." (For the record, that vision includes: "finding time to do what I love", "being a leader and role model for my kids", and "making sure to communicate my needs and expectations with those around me".)

He certainly doesn't look like an emperor of infidelity. "People are often shocked that I'm the guy behind it," says Noel. "That my shirt isn't open and I'm not wearing a bunch of gold chains and there isn't a bevy of blondes behind me. Maybe they're really disappointed that I seem like a family guy and I'm a little dull in that regard."

They do not practice what they promote, they say. Amanda: "I'm sure most people assume that because of what Noel does, we must be in an open relationship, but this is absolutely untrue." Noel: "I don't know if you can hypothesise something like that. It's like a certain level of pain – you can't imagine it."

Amanda says she would be "heartbroken" if she discovered Noel had been unfaithful. "We have such a great relationship, and are open about our needs, that it really would come as a big surprise."

Noel says, "The failing of our monogamy endeavour would be between the two of us. We obviously [wouldn't have given] each other what we needed. That's where all the responsibility would lie."

Despite her feelings toward infidelity, Amanda has loaned her face to an Ashley Madison billboard campaign. The slogan reads: 'Your wife is hot, but so are ours!' She is also the brains behind the feminine design of the site, which was reportedly named by combining two of America's favourite baby names.

Did she get any grief for the billboard? "Absolutely!"

She's used to the grief, though. "People say to me, 'How could you be married to him? Don't you feel embarrassed?' And: 'How could you live with yourself?' [But] I find it exhilarating waking up beside someone each day who is doing something no other person before him has ever done."

Explaining to their two children what Noel does doesn't faze her, either. "They will think about it the way I do. They will know and accept that it is a profession and not the way we live our lives."

For Noel, the point strikes a deeper chord. "I am prepared for fully-fledged honesty," he says, "and I hope that they judge me for the father they see me being. But if you want to know the one thing that keeps me up at night? What is the legacy effect of creating this business, potentially, on my kids?"

He says there is no way he can "bullet proof" either of his children from "ever experiencing cheating" and says it's probably "a rite of passage most of us go through on one side of the equation or the other". But equally, he says he doesn't want to add fuel to that fire by "somehow being viewed as complicit in the whole thing. Those are the anxieties that I have if there's any about this business. It's not that I think I am doing any wrong. In the grand scheme [of things], I think I'm making millions of people who are otherwise very unhappy find moments of happiness."

A daughter of divorce, Amanda will admit she hasn't always been entirely comfortable with the concept. "Personally, it was hard at first to understand this environment," she concedes. "I'm not condoning it. There's definitely a brokenness around these relationships – people are trying to find themselves, and find happiness. But I [also] understood this was a business and not our personal philosophy. And who are we to judge others?"

Curious about those others, I joined up – for research, I reassured my husband – and was stunned at how quickly my profile, which had no photo and only four words of description*, was winked and messaged at. You can search within a 20- or 50-mile radius, but requests also came from Australia, Canada, the United States – and Hamilton.

There were entertaining member names like 'big-n-thick', and taglines like 'Let me climb your mountain and search the valleys between'. Their messages were often surprisingly businesslike: "I do not want to jeopardise my relationship. I'm looking for somebody interested in a discreet liaison. Wine or coffee or food."

Like some nightclub door policies, the site is free for women only. It's open to both straight and gay persuasions, though predominately aimed at heterosexuals.

Dr Eric Anderson, a professor of sociology at Canada's Winchester University, is employed by the Bidermans to interpret its data and debunk various infidelity myths. The most popular times of the year to sign up, he tells me, are the days after Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day and New Year's Day, because "people's expectations weren't met by partners". (Breakfast in bed might need a revamp: more married women sign up the day after Mother's Day than any other time.)

The busiest day of the week for affairs is not Friday – when one might assume people let loose – but Monday morning. According to Anderson, "it's likely due to thwarted expectations from the weekend".

The stats also reveal that the seven-year itch is largely a myth: "The first instance of infidelity is most likely to occur within the first three to five years of marriage – coincidentally the same time a pregnancy is most likely to occur." Anderson calls this phenomenon, rather crudely, "the first bump effect".

Men outnumber women, particularly in the over-60 age group, but women aged 30-45 represent the largest growing group on the website. "We are virtually at 1:1 ratio between male to female for this group," says Anderson.

Among New Zealand's 127,000 members, women slightly outnumber men in the below-50 age bracket. That statistic is so interesting it's worth repeating: between the ages 18 and 49, Kiwi women on Ashley Madison outnumber men.

"Women display much of the same characteristics that men do when it comes to infidelity," concurs Anderson.

"That's the one area people don't want to agree on: that a woman would instigate such activity," says Amanda Biderman. "It's assumed men are having affairs; there's less of an eye on women. [But] women are empowered and independent and making money and choices."

Operating across 42 countries, Ashley Madison has become one of the largest studies on adultery the world has ever seen and offers its findings to universities and the media. Media is something Noel Biderman is – by now – very used to. He knows the controversy drives memberships sky-high, and his views never fail to incite.

"You can point fingers at me all you want but, let's be honest, this is massive," he says. "It's like a tidal wave and I couldn't possibly be responsible for all that sociology. There is nothing I can do or say to persuade anyone to have an affair. People who are going to have affairs are going to do it, whether it's at the work place, with their best friend's partner, or on Ashley Madison. Those are inevitabilities."

Amanda knows her husband's sound bites are controversial. "He looks like the villain trying to tear apart relationships, that he's okay with infidelity, but in reality, all he's doing is bringing light to something people turn a blind eye to."

She believes Noel is opening those blind eyes: "He's not afraid to ask the really tough questions."

He's also not afraid to admit his raison d'être: "We're in the business to make money." He does not view the site as online bordello, though. "If you want to pay for sex, there are a million places to go and do that. There really is."

"Even if people are against a site like Ashley Madison," says Amanda, "and don't agree with affairs, you can't deny the fact the site has opened up dialogue about modern relationships and the role of monogamy in society. It's helping shape our understanding of what it means to be in a marriage today."

The dialogue and wealth of data their site enables serves as a sober warning for couples, says Amanda, who claims it has made her own marriage even stronger and more communicative.

Sure, she says, she wasn't "jumping up for joy" over the site's concept at first. And she's not thrilled "there's this reality in our society". Yet, "In my mind, if people were smart, they would learn from it. Take those findings into their own relationship to make it successful, and make my husband less money."

*Apologies to anyone messaging the Auckland woman titled 'free-spirited, mad dancer'. She's a snitch.

 - Sunday Magazine