How Sex Hurts the Workplace, Especially Women

Sex in the workplace doesn't just hurt those parties involved. Sure, Mark Hurd's recent scandal produced three obvious casualties: Mark Hurd, Hewlett Packard and its shareholders, and even, to an extent, Jodie Fisher. But in the barrage of press attention since the news broke, little mention has been made of a large group of other casualties: high-achieving female executives.

Women's careers tend to stall out in upper-middle management and female executives need the support and sponsorship of C-suite men if they are to stand a chance of climbing the highest rungs of the corporate ladder. Sad to say, in the wake of the Hurd ouster, sponsorship is going to be in even shorter supply. However tangled the Hurd/Fisher narrative becomes, a large proportion of male leaders who read the story will have one and only one takeaway: "Poor guy was fired for dining alone with a junior woman. No one is even alleging a sexual relationship. How crazy is that! It makes me want to avoid ever being alone with a younger female colleague." So said one C-suite male I talked to.

All of which puts a crimp on sponsorship, a relationship which requires a senior executive to "use up chips" to help a high potential mid-level executive gain visibility, win plum assignments, and eventually get promoted. To take on a protégée — a serious commitment — a sponsor needs to get to know the candidate well and spend a significant time one-on-one (possibly even having dinner!) in order to assess his or her potential and decide whether he or she is worth backing.

Research out this fall from the Center for Work-Life Policy shows sponsorship to be the critical promotional lever for women in the marzipan layer, the layer just below the top layer of management. No matter how high achieving, an upper middle-level female executive will fail to find career traction unless she is sponsored by a powerful senior executive — who, more often than not, is male and married.

http://blogs.hbr.org/hbr/hewlett/2010/08/how_sex_hurts_the_workplace_es.html

High Flying Women lie about Sex Too

What’s a girl to do? According to new research, men are more likely to be unfaithful if their wives are high-fliers – so maybe your marriage will be safer if you stay at home and bring up the children.

Except, unfortunately, that sounds like even less fun: although women who are financially dependent on their husbands are not likely to cheat, their highly paid spouses still tend to stray.

“At one end of the spectrum, making less money than a female partner may threaten men’s gender identity by calling into question the traditional notion of men as breadwinners,” reckons Christin Munsch, author of The Effect of Relative Income Disparity on Infidelity for Men and Women. “At the other end of the spectrum, men who make a lot more money than their partners may be in jobs that offer more opportunities for cheating, like long working hours, [and] travel.”

It turns out that the best bet for women hoping to ensure their husbands’ fidelity is to make roughly 75 per cent of their partner’s earnings. I can see exactly why this would work: it’s enough to allow the woman to feel financially independent – and for her husband to understand that to be the case – but not enough for the man to feel that his masculinity is impugned.

Luckily, it is indeed often the case that husbands make a bit more than their working wives – a few years on what Americans call “the Mommy track” often depresses women’s earnings, even for couples with roughly parallel careers.

But these things are hard to plan, particularly since many of us meet our future spouses at university or in the first few years of our working lives. At that point, a decision that one or other partner will be the main breadwinner seems more straightforward.

Munsch’s assumption is that men’s confidence comes under threat if their wives earn substantially more then they do, whereas it is socially acceptable for women to be supported by their husbands. There is doubtless a lot of truth to that – but there may be other explanations for her results.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/tracycorrigan/7951397/High-flying-women-lie-about-sex-too.html

Female Sex Tourism Hot Spots

Global tourism and the sex trade have made the world "a gigantic theme park", it has been said. That picture apparently applies to tourists of both genders. Female sex tourism (or "romance travel", as some call it) goes on everywhere from the Gambia to the Holyland, for primal reasons.

"I totally understand why more and more British single women like me are going on holiday looking for sex," corporate head-hunter Nicky Jardine told the UK's Daily Mail in a 2008 story about female sex tourism. "It's the easiest thing in the world to pick up a young, handsome guy who will tell you you are beautiful and make passionate love to you," said Jardine.

Some exotic gigolos will do much more than that, according to the author of a book that addresses the "revolution in mate selection", Jeannette Belliveau. "If you go on vacation, if the guy has all the time in the world to borrow a boat and show you the starfish in the lagoon, and talk to you afterwards and have a meal, and rub your back, he's a more attractive mate," Belliveau told Globalpost in April this year.

In the past [2006 Observer], Belliveau has slammed anyone who thinks that adventurous women should not date outside their race or economic group. According to Belliveau, critics who take that line are like members of the British far-right National Front party.

Her anger underlines just how much bad blood that female sex tourism generates. She was, she claims, smeared by a British tabloid that depicted her as a reactionary who saw exotic gigolos as "sexual conmen".

No wonder the female sex tourism scene is so secretive. Few except zealous opponents care to discuss the subject. For a suggestive peek behind the curtain, read our guide to destinations that lure female tourists in search of steamy flings with "tour guides".

http://travel.ninemsn.com.au/holidaytype/weird/7942963/cougar-prowl-female-sex-tourism-hotspots

Joy Behar: Letting Men Cheat

BEHAR: Men like to cheat on their taxes, on their golf scores, on their wives. And most cheating husbands eventually become ex-husbands. But what if allowing your man to stray could save a relationship instead of destroy it?

Enter the concept of negotiated infidelity. Basically it`s cheating with rules. Here to discuss the controversial topic are Stephen A. Smith, nationally syndicated Fox Sports radio host; Noel Biderman, founder and president of ashleymadison.com a Web site that encourages extra marital affairs; and Diana Falzone, relationship expert; and by phone from Australia, Holly Hill, author of "Sugarbabe" and the woman behind this theory.

Holly, you`re on the phone, let me start with you. This is your idea, negotiated infidelity. Now most relationships are based on monogamy. You recommend the opposite, why do you do that?

HOLLY HILL, AUTHOR, "SUGARBABE" (via telephone): Well, negotiated infidelity is about accepting the biology of men and women and using it to work for your relationship rather than against your relationship. I have a little saying, bashing your head against brick walls becomes self- mutilation after a while and that`s really what`s happened to our marriages over the last couple of hundred years, because we have a 50 percent divorce rate.

What this is about is changing the recipe. And it`s about -- really to use an analogy -- walking the dog on a leash rather than letting it escape through a hole in the back fence. And it`s about women taking control of their men`s sexual urges and if a woman needs to cross her legs for any reason, she provides alternatives to her partner so that he isn`t inclined to go out and cheat on her.

And this way, the woman maintains control. And he`s happy and we don`t have a 50 percent divorce rate any more.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1008/04/joy.01.html

HP's Mark Hurd and Jodie Fisher: When workplace flirtation goes bad...

As most readers know by now, Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd was ousted last week because of ethics violations stemming from a relationship with actress Jodie Fisher. H-P said its board determined that Mr. Hurd didn’t violate H-P’s sexual harassment policy and Ms. Fisher said that the two “never had an affair or intimate sexual relationship.”

Still, the fracas serves as a reminder that office relationships can be fraught with landmines. Even strong flirtations among co-workers that don’t culminate into full-blown affairs can have real and serious consequences — and can change the mood and equilibrium of the office. For one, it can be tough for other co-workers to concentrate when two colleagues are engaging in flirty banter or making googly eyes at each other. And if feelings change or aren’t fully reciprocated within the couple, then office tensions can run high.

Of course, many workers have taken office flirtations to the next level: A 2009 CareerBuilder.com survey of more than 8,000 U.S. employees found that 40% have dated a coworker.

With so much potentially at stake, why do so many people continue to pursue these relationships? The romantic in me likes to think that maybe true love is at stake and that the couple carefully weighed the consequences and decided to go for it. I do know of several couples who met at work, kept their romance out of sight at the office, and have ended up getting married, with no damage to their reputations or careers.

Read More via the WSJ

http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2010/08/09/h-ps-mark-hurd-and-jodie-fisher-when-workplace-flirtations-go-bad/

Ask Amy: Affair with Wife's Closest Friend

DEAR AMY: Almost seven years ago, my wife of 24 years learned that I had a 10-year affair with her closest friend. I had ended that relationship, but then I had a two-year affair with another friend of hers.

(Affair partner No. 1 exposed my second affair to my wife.)

I moved out, my wife divorced me and our two grown kids were traumatized and disappointed in me, but chose to see that I was horribly ashamed of my behavior and forgave me.

My former wife and I continued in therapy with the hopes of reconciliation. We are now living together.

My commitment to her and our family is certain. I live with shame for what I did and how it affected many lives. My former wife will not go to social events if she might see the women who betrayed her.

We have not seen the other couples in several years. My ex-wife's pain from these traumas is always just below the surface, and I hear about my affairs again and again.

I love her, but I am tiring of hearing about my actions, which traumatized me too

Is full reconciliation impossible? I can't take back 12 years of adultery, but I want a future with the woman I loved all along. -- Now, True Blue

DEAR NOW: It is possible for your wife to forgive you and yet not be able to forget.

Remember that she was betrayed not only by you, repeatedly, but by two friends. That's a lot to get over.

It is exceptionally hostile for you to choose to be unfaithful to your wife with her friends. I can only hope that in addition to atoning for your own actions, you have also at least attempted to understand them.

I believe that full reconciliation is possible, but your wife may not want to reconcile -- or she might be ambivalent. (I would not be ambivalent.)

.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/26/AR2010072603117_2.html