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> By "sex-negative," do you mean "negative about gender" or "negative about sexuality" or even "negative about the act of intercourse?" The latter two. > "..i

> By "sex-negative," do you mean "negative about gender" or "negative about sexuality" or even "negative about the act of intercourse?" The latter two. > "..intercourse, sexuality and gender don't affect our professional interactions...these things are not relevant to the part of our lives that intersect, not that we're negative about them." You seem to be of the opinion that it is completely possible to separate the personal from the professional. Yet a lot of us absorbed in the tech/startup world spend the larger part of our awake time (~10 hours or more) interacting with people at work. In such an environment, I don't think it is realistic to totally separate the professional from the personal. Otherwise, you turn the meaning of "personal" on its head for the majority of your working week, if you have to behave "non-personally" for > 60% of the time.' And actually I think this is part of what I mean to say. The attitude of, "Sex is not relevant in the workplace. Let's be professional about this." Why not, exactly? Why are professionalism and sexuality mutually exclusive? Maybe if we at least explore the possible reasons why people's sexual motivations may cause them to interact in specific ways at work, we can make progress towards making those interactions somewhat positive and frictionless.

delinka 12y ago
I'm of the opinion that most people don't need to discuss things irrelevant to the task at hand. I deal with personal life throughout the day - I IM my wife and children for various reasons. I have co-worker friends that I lunch with and with whom I do discuss personal matters sometimes. I do not need to discuss personal matters, let alone sexual (for all interpretations) matters, with my manager, with the other team members, with various other male and female co-workers. It's not relevant to the reason I'm at the office. Ever.
- parennoob 12y ago
  Your things are very specific to your situation, yet you yourself easily generalize them to "most people". What about people who don't have wives or children? What if their social circles are mostly concentrated at the office (as often happens with young people in startups)? What if they have a crush on their manager, or their attractive co-worker? These are real things that happen, and just forbidding them from ever being spoken of is not a very good strategy in my opinion. And I think Bentham's thoughts are very applicable in this regard.
  - delinka 12y ago
    Who said anything about forbidding these topics? I simply express a lack of understanding about why such things would be relevant to a place that has nothing to do with such topics. People want to talk about this stuff at work? Fine let's talk. But at some point, we need to get our jobs done. If sex and gender are an obstacle to getting work done (you know, the actual reason we're even getting paid to be in this office), then sex and gender discussions are a priority. As it stands, they're not critical to doing my job. If you're standing around the water cooler for hours a day discussing football, cinema, the symphony, and/or sex, you're not getting your job done unless you work for a company whose business revolves around these things. Are these things taboo at the office? Certainly not. Are they relevant to the jobs of most people in the US? I doubt it, but certainly I could be swayed by actual data on the subject.
    - parennoob 12y ago
      > "People want to talk about this stuff at work?......water cooler for hours a day discussing football, cinema, the symphony, and/or sex..." Either you misunderstand my point, or you're making a straw man argument. I was talking about discussion on here (HN), not sitting around water coolers in the office for several hours. See how my previous comment has been downvoted without explanation? I'm talking about that sort of thing, reflexive "Ewww, he said sex!" behaviour. > "If sex and gender are an obstacle to getting work done (you know, the actual reason we're even getting paid to be in this office...." Well, it isn't an obstacle to work every day, but it can be. You might have heard of the github incident recently, or if you haven't, you might want to read the details.

delinka 12y ago

I'm of the opinion that most people don't need to discuss things irrelevant to the task at hand. I deal with personal life throughout the day - I IM my wife and children for various reasons. I have co-worker friends that I lunch with and with whom I do discuss personal matters sometimes. I do not need to discuss personal matters, let alone sexual (for all interpretations) matters, with my manager, with the other team members, with various other male and female co-workers. It's not relevant to the reason I'm at the office. Ever.

parennoob 12y ago
Your things are very specific to your situation, yet you yourself easily generalize them to "most people". What about people who don't have wives or children? What if their social circles are mostly concentrated at the office (as often happens with young people in startups)? What if they have a crush on their manager, or their attractive co-worker? These are real things that happen, and just forbidding them from ever being spoken of is not a very good strategy in my opinion. And I think Bentham's thoughts are very applicable in this regard.
- delinka 12y ago
  Who said anything about forbidding these topics? I simply express a lack of understanding about why such things would be relevant to a place that has nothing to do with such topics. People want to talk about this stuff at work? Fine let's talk. But at some point, we need to get our jobs done. If sex and gender are an obstacle to getting work done (you know, the actual reason we're even getting paid to be in this office), then sex and gender discussions are a priority. As it stands, they're not critical to doing my job. If you're standing around the water cooler for hours a day discussing football, cinema, the symphony, and/or sex, you're not getting your job done unless you work for a company whose business revolves around these things. Are these things taboo at the office? Certainly not. Are they relevant to the jobs of most people in the US? I doubt it, but certainly I could be swayed by actual data on the subject.
  - parennoob 12y ago
    > "People want to talk about this stuff at work?......water cooler for hours a day discussing football, cinema, the symphony, and/or sex..." Either you misunderstand my point, or you're making a straw man argument. I was talking about discussion on here (HN), not sitting around water coolers in the office for several hours. See how my previous comment has been downvoted without explanation? I'm talking about that sort of thing, reflexive "Ewww, he said sex!" behaviour. > "If sex and gender are an obstacle to getting work done (you know, the actual reason we're even getting paid to be in this office...." Well, it isn't an obstacle to work every day, but it can be. You might have heard of the github incident recently, or if you haven't, you might want to read the details.