My boss/CEO lives and works in a different city, but most of her mail arrives at my office because it is the company’s official address. I routinely open mail and packages addressed to her. Usually they contain documents for me to handle or software for me to install, but today I opened a package with her name on it to find something completely different: a pair of vibrating panties.
Both the billing address and shipping address are the same, so I’m guessing she purchased them on her company card.
I know this is more of a business-etiquette question, but do your amazing sex-advice skills provide you with any ideas on how I should handle this? It will be very obvious that the package has been opened, even if I try to tape it back up and send it to her home address. But if I do nothing, sooner or later she’s going to wonder where her shipment is.
We’re a small, casual company and she’s a pretty confident and outgoing person, but I can’t really predict how she will react to this. Would it be weird for me to just be up-front about this situation? Should I just throw in a sticky note that says, “Whoops! Have fun! ;-)” And send it on? Or should I pretend this embarrassing thing never happened?
Avoid the Awkward
Emoticons are never the right answer, ATA. Please make an emoticon-free note of it.
Now here’s what my amazing sex-advice Spidey sense is telling me: Vibrating panties are not a sex toy, ATA, they’re a gag gift. Check your boss’s schedule: Any bridal showers coming up? Bachelorette parties? A friend holding a bash to mourn/celebrate a recent divorce?
There’s a small chance that your boss doesn’t know much about sex toys and purchased a pair of vibrating panties for herself and intends to wear them on long flights (if she can get them past security). But you should nevertheless treat this pair of panties like a misplaced gag gift, ATA, and not an existential workplace crisis. So no notes, no emoticons, no being “up-front about this situation,” ATA, because this isn’t a “situation.” It’s a shipping error.
Tape up the box and send it off to your boss and forget about it. If she feels a need to bring it up—if she wants to apologize or let you know it was, in fact, a gag gift—she will.
Yesterday I was finishing a work conversation with my boss via instant message from my home computer. I meant to send her a legitimate link, but because I used the wrong combination of keys, I accidentally entered a several-day-old porn link that was still in the memory and hit send before I noticed my mistake. I’m a 30-year-old male, my boss is a few years younger and female, and she’s generally cool. Once I realized what I had done, I immediately told her not to click the link and I sent the right one. The URL left little to the imagination about what kind of link it was.
We work in a very professional environment that’s careful about maintaining a respectful and harassment-free workplace. I’m horribly embarrassed. How should I handle it? I’m inclined to never speak of it again unless she does first.
Jerk From Home
Workplace power dynamics being what they are—bosses can fire employees, employees can’t fire bosses—you do need to put something in writing.
First, no emoticons.
Second, send a brief e-mail to your boss detailing just how that happened—IMing from your home computer, not your work computer (making it clear that you weren’t looking at porn on your work computer without using the word “porn”)—apologize one more time, and state that you’ll take care that it doesn’t happen again. You could still get in trouble with HR if your boss decides to make a case of it, but you’ll be able to point to a contemporaneous e-mail that details your side of the story, i.e., an accident, you weren’t rubbing one out in front of a work computer.
In somewhat related news: Today I sent my straight boss a picture I found online of a guy with a wine bottle stuffed up his ass—I did it on purpose. 😉
I wanted to thank you for drawing so much attention to Sex at Dawn. I am going to get it as soon as possible so I can better understand myself. I have always felt a certain amount of shame because I’ve never had a monogamous relationship. Having been married 14 years (married at 19, which I know is a no-no in your book), I’ve had plenty of temptation and only given in a few times. Those events felt like they were saving my sanity; they never had anything to do with me loving my husband any less. It wasn’t until I started listening to your advice that I realized that maybe I wasn’t the problem. For all these years, I felt like shit because I couldn’t be monogamous. Thanks for clueing me in to evolution, reptile brains, etc.
M
Thanks for the nice note, M. Now go forth and cheat no more, i.e., don’t be a CPOS (cheating piece of shit). If you’re incapable of being monogamous, don’t make monogamous commitments that you’re damn well going to break.
And to all the outraged folks writing in to ask if I’m seriously suggesting that no one should ever be monogamous: That’s not what I’m saying—and it’s not what the authors of Sex at Dawn are arguing either. The point of Sex at Dawn—and my point in drawing my readers’ and listeners’ attention to it—isn’t that no one should attempt to be monogamous or that people who’ve made monogamous commitments have a license to cheat on their partners. For the record: I’m happy to acknowledge that there are lots of good reasons to be monogamous and/or very nearly monogamous, e.g., children and other sexually transmitted infections.
What the authors of Sex at Dawn believe—and what I think they prove—is that we are a naturally nonmonogamous species, despite what we’ve been told for millennia by preachers and for centuries by scientists, and that is why so many people have such a hard time remaining monogamous over the long haul. I’m not saying that everyone everywhere has to be nonmonogamous; the authors of Sex at Dawn don’t make that argument either. (Lots of monogamists, however, do run around insisting that everyone everywhere should be monogamous—and proscriptive monogamists get a pass because, hey, they mean so well and wouldn’t it be nice if everyone were?)
The point is this: People—particularly those who value monogamy—need to understand why being monogamous is so much harder than they’ve been led to believe it will be. In some cases, this understanding may help people find the courage to seek out nonmonogamous relationships and/or arrangements and/or allowances that make them—gasp!—happier and make their relationships more stable, not less, as a routine infidelity won’t doom their marriage/civilunion/commitment/slavecontract/whatever. But understanding that monogamy is a struggle for most people—and being able to be honest with our partners about experiencing it as a struggle—may actually help some people remain monogamous.
amazon prime error!
doot
Thank you for making that point completely clear regarding monogamy, Dan. I can see why some would find that confusing.
I also have a difficult time remaining monogamous- as a 47 year old man who’s aging well, I get more attention than I’m sometimes comfortable with as the temptation is always there. But since my soon-to-be-wife is thoroughly GGG, I’m not really that tempted by anything to date.
That doesn’t mean that the temptation is gone, of course- just that I understand it well and can keep it under control.
Most employee manuals won’t address the vibrating panties or the inappropriate IM link. Good advice.
Hahah excellent, that natural vs. unnatural stuff again. We are a naturally non-monogamous species as much as we’re a naturally heterosexual species, Dan. What on Earth are you trying to prove by dragging natural vs. unnatural in this whole discussion?
I had a JFH moment yesterday. I was having simultaneous IM conversations with my wife and Aunt. I accidentally sent a nekkid women link to my Aunt instead of my wife. Whoops.
Interesting tip of the hat to Dan on page 231 of Sex at Dan (yes, I ordered it as soon as Dan told us to) – “And why does being cuckolded consistently appear at or near the top of married men’s sexual fantasies, according to experts ranging from Alfred Kinsey to Dan Savage.”
Nice one!
Where’s that wine bottle photo link Dan?
JFH corrected the error and should let it go.
Children and “other” sexually transmitted infections LOL LOL LOL
Re: IM error. We have a filter system @ work for all media that captures, targets, and quarantines violating keywords. Our most recent “peckerwood”.
Know any geeks that can help us circumvent the babysitter?
“children and other sexually transmitted infections”? You funny guy…
Wha shouldn’t we be monogamous creatures naturally? Plenty of animals are. Perhaps non-monogamy, like homosexuality, is the aberration and monogamy the norm.
Plenty of possibilities, no need to consider just one.
Most animals get it wherever they can, tinywoman. Monogamous critters are the exception, not the norm.
That said, we humans can override our instincts, and Dan’s rattling on about how monogamy among humans shouldn’t be considered the norm has gotten really old.
For M – if you cheated, I’d say its good that you felt like shit. If you’re just wanting to use your “newly discovered nonmonogamous self” to justify cheating (past and future) then you are like Dan says, a CPOS. Sure these events perhaps weren’t due to the lessened feelings you have for your husband, but if you did not have the respect for him to be upfront about your actions, I question if the feelings you speak of are actually love.
@my name here
I don’t think Dan is say nonmonogamy should be the norm. What he is arguing is that nonmonogamy shouldn’t be considered abnormal and that monogamy shouldn’t be the only norm. His point is that both monogamy and nonmonogamy are normal.
@#5, I could not agree more. When I dated women, people said I had to be born that way and all the time I previously dated men was just me being confused. Well I know that there is no confusion here, I am happily in a very GGG monogamous relationship with a man. It does not feel unnatural, but like all relationships the key is communication.
@5 I think he makes it abundantly clear what he’s “trying to prove”. If we are naturally nonmongamous, then it follows that the concious choice of monogamy will prove difficult. That doesn’t mean its bad, just that maybe we need to ratchet down the outrage and/or pause to consider what our natural tendency is, either way, before we make a monogamous commitment.
We ARE a naturally heterosexual species. We’re also a species that divides into two genders naturally, have a natural tendency towards socializing in groups and are naturally omnivorous. That does not mean that there is something unnatural about homosexuality or that a gay transman who prefers solitud and is a vegetarian has done anything wrong at all. The idea that the existence of a predominant trait in a population means that a minority trait is inferior or an aberration is a very poor understanding of biology.
Please, please, can we not talk about “Sex at Dawn” ever again?
Thank you.
Both are just normal for different reasons. There are natural/biological reasons for both for monogamy and nonmongamy. Nonmongamy is governed by our instincts to mate and spread our genes around. Monogamy is governed by our instinct to pair bond for support/assistance of the pair as well as their offspring. Both are beneficial to a species, and like most things there is a balance, and individuals vary in the way they are balanced. Some have stronger instincts to be nonmonogamous and some stronger instincts to be monogamous
@ 16
Only if by “normal” you don’t mean “natural” – let me quote Dan’s last week’s column:
“…monogamy is unrealistic and—this is not a word I toss around lightly—unnatural.”
@ 18
I couldn’t agree more with your last sentence. However, why do you and Dan call minority traits unnatural? What’s unnatural about those of us who have them? Are we less human, are we freaks, are we aliens, are we built of man-made materials (unnatural = can’t be found in nature)?
Dogs eat shit. Ducks regularly commit gang rape. Cats torture littler animals to death then don’t even eat them. Nature is frequently disgusting and cruel. If nonmonogamy is part of our nature it may be something worth ridding ourselves of, if at all possible. Nature is a bitch.
That said, why is anyone trying to decide what our nature is by comparing ourselves to other animals, even if they are our close relatives? Throughout human history we have had successful, brilliant societies founded on all sorts of human romantic and reproductive attachments–many anthropologists believe that this flexiblity is our real nature and the key to our success as a species. With this in mind, who is to say what our real nature is, and why do current nonmonogamists feel a need to use our so called nature to justify the version of romance that works for them?
I think the problem with that book is that it (or Dan) is focusing only on urges towards infidelity, labeling them “natural” and then ignoring monogamous urges.
For instance, if our partner flirts with someone else, we may feel jealous, resentful, hurt, angry. These sound like pretty primal emotions that would suggest we have some predilection for monogamy. We don’t like sharing at some level. We have a “natural” tendency to want our partner exclusively, which is satisfied in monogamy.
Also, it seems like Dan has defined monogamy as perfect monogamy, or nothing at all.
There were a lot of great rebuttals to the column last week that maybe Dan should take more seriously.
I enjoy the column for the laughs. Hope to hear less of the evo-psych.
We are not a naturally heterosexual species. We’re a species that procreates through heterosexual sex. Who we have to have intercourse with to make a human being (or borrow genetic material from depending on your assisted method of reproduction) is entirely different than who we copulate with for the pure fun of it. Sex has a biological function which for humans is heterosexual and creates new people. Sex has a social function which for humans can be many things other than heterosexual (or monogamous). There’s as much difference between a wedding and a marriage as there is between making a baby and fucking. The sooner all people internalize that the better for all of us.
WTF dan? you had a great start this week with work related ‘oops’ that were relatable and kinda funny…..then you go back to the fucking ‘sex at dawn’ bullshit. you didn’t need to explain yourself or the book. that shit was last week. DONE. NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN.
Talking about human nature is super problematic. It’s so problematic that people on all sides of this discussion are objecting to it with good reason. I’ll defend Dan’s use of that language though. If you understand how meaningless that word is in relation to humans, then you aren’t Dan’s audience. Lots and lots of people believe there is fixed (monogamous) human nature and there is something wrong with them if they or there partner fail to comply. Rather than attempt to dispel the promise of human nature Dan hopes to sow version of human nature that allows for more compassion and understanding. The Guy was raised Catholic; He knows that lies and half truths can ease suffering.
Lastly I’m also totally over this recurring rant. Maybe he can coin a phrase and start referencing this by some short hand
@23 “Also, it seems like Dan has defined monogamy as perfect monogamy, or nothing at all.”
Quite the opposite. He’s arguing that monogamous relationships should face the idea that they may include a little non-monogamy, here and there (a one-night stand, a brief affair), and it shouldn’t have to split up the couple. If y’all mono types will cop to being in something called “imperfect monogamy,” where you forgive each other for mistakes, that will make Dan very happy. (See the slog thread about handjobs, where he says: “I do advocate, however, being realistic about the odds that one or the other or both partners in a truly long long-term relationship will cheat at some point…I think a good, strong relationship should be able to survive, and be expected to survive, a routine, non-nuclear-level infidelity.”
“Wha shouldn’t we be monogamous creatures naturally?”
Science isn’t about “should”, it’s about “is”. Some species (mostly birds) are monogamous, but most aren’t, and our nearest relatives most definitely aren’t.
Contrary to what Dan implies, biologists and anthropologists have been saying this for decades. I don’t know about psychologists, though.
@27: “He’s arguing that monogamous relationships should face the idea that they may include a little non-monogamy, here and there (a one-night stand, a brief affair), and it shouldn’t have to split up the couple.”
Sorry, no go. “Imperfect monogamy” to me already is monogamy, as much as “perfect monogamy.” They’re both just “monogamy”, because I already understand that its definition varies between couples and that making up a term for every single definition is ridiculous.
I personally can forgive infidelity, depending on the circumstances. But I can also understand people who really do ask for exclusivity. They’re not the problem IF they communicate that very clearly. The problem is the partners who can’t (or in some cases, don’t want to) adhere to those terms but go for it anyway.
“‘If y’all mono types will cop to being in something called “imperfect monogamy..'”
That’s exactly what’s pissing people off. The snide implication that we’re all lying to ourselves, living in delusion, that an incident or two in years should define the whole relationship.
Acknowledging something can happen isn’t the same as accepting it blithely. I still aim for so-called “perfect” monogamy, but this doesn’t preclude me being entirely pragmatic about my partner, who, while entirely honest, is still human. Yet being realistic doesn’t necessarily mean I won’t be hurt, while being hurt doesn’t necessarily I’ll leave or resent him.
“where you forgive each other for mistakes, that will make Dan very happy.”
I’m sure he would be. But he himself pointed to a letter where he recently told a super-monogamous guy to skedaddle from his less-monogamous girlfriend. The aim here is to ensure everyone’s happy and honest on their own terms, not to dictate what the hell to feel.
Second to last paragraph, you mean “prescriptive monogamists”? Someone proscribing monogamy would be banning it…
My 2 cents for ATA: I don’t care if the contents of the box was the entire contents of the Babeland catalog. You tape it back up and pretend it never happened. Unless this has some consequence to the business (did your boss embezzle the funds?) it falls outside your scope of duties. It wasn’t your business in the first place; the sooner you stop making it your business, the better.
News flash: People have sex lives. Even your boss. Get over it.
I think acknowledging our natural non-monogamous impulses would do a great deal to help people live monogamously. Especially the ladies, who have been brought up to believe that sex is something you should only want with your one true love blah blah blah. So when they’re in a monogamous relationship and start having eyes for a cute guy, they start questioning the strength of their relationship, whether they really love their partner, whether the new attraction is a sign that they should move on, etc. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that scenario play out.
Contrast this to guys, who generally accept that they’ll want to fuck other women all the time, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love their wives/girlfriends.
[Standard caveat about each man and woman being unique, not necessarily bound by gender roles, etc.]
The problem with using the behavior of prehistoric humans to explain our current problems is that no one actually knows how prehistoric humans behaved. While I’d agree that this longest period of human existence is probably very important and probably has a huge impact on the way we behave, we don’t actually know what happened in enough detail to make clean conclusions.
People could just as easily write books about cavemen supporting the opposite position–or even crazier ones. I once ran across a book that claimed that women always knew about their fertility rhythm (not true) and used it to control men and prehistory society. Um, right.
So while Sex at Dawn might be an interesting read and might make people who don’t mesh well with monogamy feel better about themselves, we should take what it says with a due measure of salt.
@21, err I’m confused. You couldn’t agree with me more but then you ask why I’m holding a position I could swear I just finished arguing AGAINST?
The last sentence is key. The existence of a predominant trait does not mean there is anything wrong or unnatural about a minority trait. Humans are naturally heterosexual but that does NOT mean homosexuality is unnatural. I guess a persuasive argument could be made that we should avoid the “natural” label altogether, since too many people both us and interpret it as Ä-synonymous with “good” and B-implying that anything other than whatever is being called “natural” is by definition “unnatural”.
My personal feeling on the matter is that both monogamy and nonmonogamy are rooted in our evolutionary heritage. Perhaps one of the two tends to dominate (I’d guess nonmonogamy, but I’m not sure). However you can be absolutely certain that if you take a behavior in a species, especially one as complex as ours, you will find that there is ALWAYS a natural variation within the species. That is to say that even if you found out that humans have a strong tendency to monogamy OR nonmonogamy, you would undoubtedly find that different people NATURALLY tend to it in different degrees.
Naturalness + Monogamy:
It’s really simple, peeps.
Do you ever get “turned on” by someone other than your monogamous partner? If so, that is a “natural” (i.e., chemical, biological) and *nonmonogamous* response to your environment.
Do you consciously fight/deny/repress that arousal? If so, you might be having a monogamy-oriented response to your natural and nonmonogamous feelings of arousal by someone other than your partner.
After so long a period of evolution, much of it after the social institution of monogamy (in many cultures) as a way to insure that your descendants get your property (among a couple of other useful and worthwhile reasons), it’s hard to say that monogamy is entirely “unnatural,” but it definitely postdates the evolutionary wiring of the parts of our brains that have to do with arousal.
So monogamy may be “natural,” but nonmonogamy is a human nature with an older lineage. Return to my first question: Do you feel sexually aroused by people other than your partner?
Yeah? Okay. Then, accept that part of you isn’t monogamous. If you want to override that part of you, you have consciousness, or a superego, or the ability to rush home and beat off the porn on your computer. Feel free to be as monogamous as you want to be.
But make sure you really want to be as monogamous as you’re telling yourself you are. Because, hey, life’s a little easier (and sexier) if you don’t always have to fight those urges. 😉
As a final note, consider this: we did not always know that sex led to babies. Women were revered as magical creatures in part because we had no idea that sex made babies. There’s a pretty big fucking gap between conception and birth! It took observation–it took prehistoric science, basically–to figure out the connection between sex and babies. “Oh, look: women who aren’t having sex aren’t having babies. I wonder if there’s a connection…?”
Now if we didn’t know that sex made babies, then a lot of our sexual wiring had more to do with smells/sights/senses/urges than with the concept of producing tiny humans. And if that’s the case, we come back to sex being a natural, immediate kind of act that predates our concerns and prejudices about genetic coupling and offspring.
@ 34
Oh, I see my mistake. After having read the first paragraph in your previous comment I was sure you were arguing from Dan’s point of view, so when I read that you don’t think monogamy is unnatural, cognitive dissonance kicked in so my brain just decided not to see that sentence; my apologies. But then, you and I have nothing to discuss – we agree. You should join me in criticizing Dan for being a bigot and calling a preference he doesn’t have – a preference he doesn’t understand – unnatural.
@36 Dan would agree that wanting monogamy is natural.
But he’s saying it is also natural for many (not all!) monogamous people to fuck up occasionally.
(He says, further, that some people are never going to come close to being mono, and they should find like-minded partners.)
Monogamy isn’t natural. Neither is any form of polyamory.
What’s natural is wanting to have your cake and eat it too: the vast majority of us probably wouldn’t mind having the odd dalliance on the side now and then, but we’re too possessive to want our partner to do the same. So we make a compromise, and it usually takes the form of “Okay, so nobody gets to mess around on the side.” Committing to just one person isn’t always easy (it’s natural to sometimes find others attractive, after all), but with self-awareness and good communication it can be done.
Other couples compromise and decide “Okay, let’s both mess around on the side”. Giving your partner that kind of freedom isn’t always easy (it’s natural to be jealous and possessive, after all), but with self-awareness and good communication it can be done.
There are people who genuinely only have eyes for their partner, and there are people who genuinely don’t feel jealous or threatened by “sharing” their partner (I’ve met both). But I do think most of us fall into the “have our cake and eat it, too” category.
Can we stop the pointless arguing over which relationshp model is more “natural” now? 😛
Something ATA needs to watch out for, unfortunately, is that somebody is setting him/her up to get fired for sexual harassment. ATA didn’t intend anything by it, the boss (probably) didn’t indend anything by it, but some jerk who finds out about it can and will think that ATA is either harassing or sleeping with the boss.
And this is why I hate the world of work.
My husband and I ordered Sex at Dawn and thank Dan for bringing it to our attention. We’ve been monogamous in our marriage so far and plan to stay that way, but we at least need to be honest with each other and HAVE CONVERSATIONS about temptations we feel without feeling like our relationship is in crisis or that we’re horrible people. There’s the myth that you will never feel tempted or attracted to anyone else unless there’s something lacking between you and your partner: bullshit. Dan, and now this book, have helped us realize that.
Those of you who are tired of having the columns hijacked by blurbs for the book Sex at Dawn: Please e-mail Dan and tell him so. I don’t believe he reads the comments posted here.
I’m just going to take a moment to be amused at the fact that in the small bubble that is Slog in the cyber-universe, conversations about what is natural and unnatural and good and bad take the form of something like monogamy vs. nonmonogamy, wheras in almost any other corner of the internets the subject would be homosexuality vs. heterosexuality vs. bisexuality. Here no one gives a crap what gender your partner is, the issue is exactly how many people you should (or have a natural tendency to want to) fuck. Progress!
Good grief, Dan. I’m beginning to think that you secretly believe this book is crap. The authors were kind enough to write in your column in an attempt to clarify their book (not to mention science in general) and here you are with round two (or is it three) of making the book sound idiotic.
Bottom line is waving around a book claiming it proves your personal bias makes you no different from the bible-thumpers. Give it a rest.
@ 37
No one disputes that. We are humans and we rise above urges, blah blah blah. So – Dan acknowledges that it is possible to want to be monogamous, like it is possible to want to stop eating junk food and eat broccoli instead. You realize that it has some advantages that matter to you so you make a sacrifice. But he also denies that it can be natural to actually enjoy the taste of broccoli and have no interest in concentrated sugar, and that for some people, it’s not a sacrifice.
What I am disputing is that the urge to be monogamous (or be crazy about broccoli) is unnatural, ergo doesn’t come naturally, doesn’t exist in nature, people who have it are deluding themselves etc.
It’s really stupid to assume the words ‘normal’ = good and ‘abnormal’ = bad, the way they are colloquially used. People need to get their heads out of their asses and realize that morality has nothing to do with these gross generalizations of statistics, which is all the words should mean. I mean, people are arguing that, since monogomy is ‘obviously’ sooo morally superior, it must be ‘normal.’ Fuck off; why would anyone, pro-Christian/monogomy BS or not, care what everyone else is doing when deciding what is morally right or wrong? Or is it that we’ve heard the stupid rationalization that homosexuality is bad is because it’s ‘unnatural’ (as if that, not being a sheltered, squicked-out idiot or paranoid closet case, has anything to do with the distaste) so many times that we truly believe normalcy has something to do with morality?
@27 If infidelity does ever become “routine,” doesn’t that make it MORE unforgivable rather than less? When infidelity becomes “routine,” Dan is actually right for once — oh how I hate to admit it! — when he questiions why be married/supposedly-monogamous in the first place?
Choose the action: marriage — and you choose the consequences: monogamy. It really is that simple.
@44 do you think it is common for people to want only broccoli and no junk food, in a world of junk food?
@46 – routine means ordinary infidelity, not “true love”; it doesn’t mean ordinary as in “on ordinary days you are unfaithful”
@perversecowgirl – I have to say that your measured comment, even if it’s not right, sounds right. Maybe only because it’s a lot less shrill than other things posted here.
Thank you, Dan, for reinforcing the important message of the week: NO EMOTICONS! For the love of god, allah, the moon goddess, or whatever you might personally hold to be sacred and good, enough with the cutesy little smiley faces. And while we’re at it, can we get ban lol?
I feel kind of bad for the boss on the off chance that the vibrating panties were a legit purchase–those things suck.
Um, I’m with #8. I want a link! Please don’t make me search for it! (unless it’s Goatse—then I can find it myself)