Sexual desire is an omnipresent part of life. The issue of workplace sex or copulation within a corporate organisation, over the years, has often been ignored. Disregarded due to its ugly existence in almost every contemporary organisation. It is rare to find an explicit definition for workplace sex or make a clear cut boundary between professionalism and sexual desires. There is an underlying desire for companies to create ways in which to curb this ‘necessary evil’ or ‘immorality’ but the result, based on findings, metamorphoses into a multi-headed monster.
Indubitably, education on workplace sex in corporations remains woefully inadequate. Furthermore, when these issues are addressed, discussions tend to focus on issues of excess, abuse, and harassments, thereby precluding a fuller and fairer exploration of the role debauchery plays in professional relationships with colleagues, customers and trainees.
What situation(s), if any, lead to office sex? What are the consequences of this shameful act? Who should be the moral judge? Is it a necessary evil or an aberrant judgement oft-imbrued in corporate environments? To try and answer these questions alone makes the addled and suppressed nature of this issue salient
The definition of workplace sex at this juncture can only be adumbrated by various accounts of different individuals. For a full grasp of the definition, these scenes should be imagined with a sixth sense.
The first scene was narrated by a former employee of one Nigerian bank. He stumbled on one of his superiors having sex with a female colleague who just got married two weeks prior. They stopped when they saw him. In the time since this steamy adventure, the witness further claimed that the woman got rapid promotions, increased allowances and other mouth watering packages. Unfortunately, the witness cum accountant lost his job. Why?
Another was a case of a male staff that consistently slept with his female boss embarking on the parlanced ‘sleeping his way to the top’ approach. The husband of the boss was eventually made cognizant of this sexual liaison, took laws into his hands, and had the employee waylaid and executed by hired thugs. The boss was shocked after the incident and broke down psychologically which led to some irreplaceable loss to the company.
The last scene reveals where workplace sex begins and gives an insight to the psychology most new recruits carry into a particular organisation. It involves a university graduate recruitment officer of one large oil servicing corporation who sleeps with female graduate trainees. The incentive the ladies get for opening their legs for his lust is a job placement. When the university graduate officer was questioned about sex activities in his company, he looked to the heavens, swore with every fibre of muscle in him that he wasn’t guilty of such venal, misogynistic business. In his words, ‘our company frowns seriously at that kind of stupidity.’ Revelations from some of his company’s staff, however, prove otherwise. Some of the victims claim sex before employment consideration to be his modus operandi. It epitomises the Nigerian axiom, ‘money for hand, back for ground.’
These scenarios occur daily in our corporate organisations. From the above scenes, one is forced to cogitate what is perhaps a fatal breakdown of human sensibility. The relevance of these issues cannot be shut out of the corporate parlance. Employees need to be educated about the risks and disadvantages of workplace sex. It kills the spirit of contributing effectively to the development of the said company. Laws must be enforced and accurate punishment must be meted out to individuals who fall short in this respect. Mails should be monitored as most of the sexual activities, it has been found, start from ‘dirty’ communication between colleagues.
Engineers, bankers, lawyers, accountants, secretaries, amongst other professionals, need to act professionally at all times and learn to control their sexual emotions. Some professionals have argued that office ‘love’ lead to marriages. Blissful as it may sound, a large number of the relationships in offices end up on a sour note. Lives are addled, homes are broken and jobs, sometimes, lost. Some of the victims feel guilt compounded with a drained integrity that is no doubt detrimental to the company’s work atmosphere, cohesion and performance.
It is safe to conclude with Frankel and Williams (2001) who espouse ‘the use of facilitated discussion groups, workshops, support groups, and personal awareness groups as well as individual and group therapy to encourage open discussions of sexual issues in the workplace. These approaches can increase self-awareness, prevent unconscious acting out of sexual needs; help distinguish feelings from actions, and help trainees and practitioners develop appropriate personal and professional boundaries.’
Irene is enrolled as a PHD Creative Writing student at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge
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