The Sanitized Workplace

Abstract

Does sex have a place in the workplace? According to most management theorists and feminist lawyers, the answer is a resounding no. Progress, they say, means precisely driving sex out of the workplace whether in the name of efficiency or equality. It may seem paradoxical that such strange bedfellows would endorse the same sanitizing impulse; feminists are rarely viewed as close companions of corporate management. But upon further examination, it isn't ironic or strange at all. One of American society's most cherished beliefs is that the workplace is-or should be-asexual. The dominant ethic says, "Work is work, and sex is sex, and never the twain shall meet." Call it the ethic of workplace asexuality.