SEX IN THE OFFICE, THE LATEST FIGURES

Apparently, the so-much-porn-so-little-time web has been heating things up a bit. Even our proper British cousins have gone wild. A few weeks ago, the Register reported on "The UK office: hotbed of Bacchanalian lust." According to a recent survey, the UK office has become "a steaming cauldron of sexual desire in which colleagues exchange flirtatious emails and smoldering looks as a prelude to forming the work-based beast with two backs." Research conducted by the Aziz Corporation found:

-- One third of Brits have had a noncommittal "toss" with a fellow worker and the majority of managers consider the practice "perfectly acceptable".
-- Eighty-three percent of senior management have no objections to inter-staff nookie, and 53 percent said they'd indulge in it a bit themselves (even if it were with a junior colleague).
-- Forty-three percent admitted they'd fancied someone at work but were unsure about what to do about it.
-- In addition to the aforementioned 33 percent who've enjoyed a brief encounter with a fellow worker, 29 percent have formed long-term relationships with someone from work.
-- Twenty-eight percent of those polled said they'd indulged in e-flirting.
-- And with regard to good, old-fashioned sexual fantasizing, 44 percent confessed up to daydreaming about poking a colleague.

PR INDUSTRY A SEXUAL LAGGARD

In spite of the fact that the general trend for office sex is way UP... PR remains flaccid and almost totally unresponsive. Once thought to be the leading business sector for getting laid, the industry has become a sexual wasteland. According to a recent phone survey of 493 U.S. PR practitioners conducted by Nelson Metrics (representing within plus or minus 3 percentage points of what they would be if the entire population of U.S. PR professionals): only 11 percent ever fantasized about co-workers; less than 6 percent have had sex with an office mate; and only 3 percent have formed long-term intimate relationships with an office colleague.

One of the world's leading experts on business and economic theory, Martin Turnbull of the renowned Kepler School of Management, author of "The Image Industry, Public Relations at a Flashpoint," said, "The finding of the Nelson Study are totally counterintuitive. One would think, as PR is a proxy for clients to seduce customers, especially with the predominance of women in the business, that there'd be a lot more goin' on, goin' on."

ANALYSIS: UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM

The general consensus among industry experts is that there are 4 main reasons for the frigidity:

1. As the ratio of women to men is now better that 4-1, it would appear that to avoid undue competition for the limited resource (men), women have almost totally suspended their natural tendencies for procreation.
2. Also, along with the predominance of women has come the dominance of women's issues and a hyper sensitivity with regard to suspected harms. Regrettably, sexual harassment is very amorphous by definition. Bottom line: men are terrified of various long-term repercussions for even looking at a female colleague wrong.
3. As the senior-most ranks of PR management are still, by and large, all white males, the women who have been promoted to "join the club" have been those that have demonstrated a lot of similar masculine traits. These "bearded females" are not necessarily in sync with Mother Nature and consequently are not pursued by virile males. The result is that if they ain't gettin' any, nobody's gettin' any.
4. Lastly, of the men who are actually available and sexually capable, there are a whole lotta Hobson-Holtz podcasters in the business.

Turnbull said, "Sadly, when it comes to the Seduction Business, PR seems to be at best a veritable dry hump."

COMMENTARY: PRELIMINARY RECOMMENDATIONS

Rather than more blogging "conversation" and web relationships... the severity of the situation requires an overt commitment to change by PR industry leaders. Perhaps we:

-- Hire more men even if it's in half-hour increments;
-- Hold two Christmas parties a year at the very least;
-- Make a concerted effort to promote more attractive women that are more confident in their sexuality;
-- Make "Sex and the Office" by Helen Gurley Brown part of an agency's orientation.

It's a start. Sure would make coming to work more fun. Some of us would work for free. I'd bet our work product would improve ten fold. OH YEAH!