What It’s All About Note:
Sex in the Workplace
13 February 2019
¶ Having done with Inspector Morse, we have sailed into Lewis, and I must say that I rather prefer the later series. No matter how violent or otherwise exciting, the episodes are quieter, because Morse is not ranting about minor matters. The raillery between Lewis and his sergeant, Hathaway, alternates patterns established in Morse even to the point of being overtly friendly. And of course everyone knows about the Internet — for better or worse.
What astonishes us is Rebecca Front’s wardrobe. Taking the place James Grout’s Superintendent Strange, a man as unfashionable as he was substantial, Front’s Superintendent Innocent is not only shapely but always dressed to go out. In fact, she can be counted on to wear garments with necklines that Kathleen and I consider totally inappropriate for the professional environment of a police station. We wonder if a Point is being Made: women have the right to be as sexy at work as they feel.
Talking about this, I shared with Kathleen last week’s idea, that while men want one thing for different reasons, women want different things for one reason. The one thing for men is, very simply, orgasm. I haven’t got quite the right word for the one thing for women, but it has something to do with integrity, or integration, or completeness. A facetious way of putting it would be that women want Everything, but in a variety of wrappings. For some women, being sexy is part of Everything, while for others it really isn’t, and not just because they disapprove.
Men’s many reasons include gross pleasure, power, revenge, and — though often overlooked — contentment. Contentment is a kind of Everything.