Bondage

If you found this post by doing a Google search for "bondage" you might be disappointed. But, maybe not. Perhaps, as Google puts it, you should be "feeling lucky."

My real topic is corporate hiring practices. As they relate to bondage. The issue was raised in a letter to Lucy Kellaway at the Financial Times. Link here.

A young woman was applying for a junior position at a company. An executive at the firm, presumably from HR, did a search and came upon her web page. There, responding to a question about her "favorite positions," she wrote: "on top with my bondage gear and whip."

The executive recommended that she not be interviewed because: "even if it was a tongue-in-cheek comment it might be hard to take such a member of the staff seriously."

To me this makes sense. To many of those who commented on the letter, it does not.

These latter asserted, at times, strongly, that private behavior is none of anyone's business and that kinky habits ought not to disqualify anyone from getting a job.

Others agreed that the candidates love for whips and chains is none of our business. About this there can be no doubt. Yet, once she posts it on a site that is open to the public, she has made it everyone's business.

To be explicit, she has invited and encouraged us to picture her in an iconic pose that detracts from our natural tendency to judge her by her professional qualifications.

Were she to be hired, and were this image to start circulating, her presence would be distracting and disruptive. It may not be fair, but, then again, life is not always fair.

As an adult, the candidate is responsible for her behavior. And she is also responsible for her public image. If she wants to advance her career prospects then she cannot post what she pleases in public forums.

Some will retort that she is simply doing what everyone else does. For someone of her generation the behavior is normal. And if everyone is doing it, postmodernism tells us, then it cannot be embarrassing.

Which raises this question: Is there a point when otherwise shameful behavior becomes right and proper? Is shame merely a social construct?

Whether the young woman was being frank or indulging in humor, she is modest when compared to the Cincinnati high school students who regularly send naked pictures of themselves over their cell phones. According to an article in the Cincinnati Enquirer something like 20% of high school students are doing what has now been dubbed "sexting." Link here.

To the horror of their parents, and most sentient adults.

But where are these children getting the idea that "sexting" is a positive experience? Perhaps they are applying the lesson that the therapy culture has been trying to pound into them: namely, that they should not be ashamed of their bodies. How better to show that you are not ashamed of your body than to show it off?

Surely the therapists who drone on about how we should get over our sense of shame did not mean to suggest that teenagers should aspire to porn stardom. And yet, their advice easily lends itself to this interpretation.

If you follow my blog, you will recall my comments in a recent post entitled, "Bare Naked Ladies." Link here.

There I quoted an expert in Marie Claire telling young women that they should feel comfortable getting naked in front of their lovers.

If this is what it means to be an adult women, why wouldn't high school girls want to get a jump on their future. Isn't sexting a sign of aspiring to womanhood as defined by Marie Claire?

Some young women will happily explore their sexuality, and we can only wish them the best. And yet, once this exploration enters a public space, it will most likely undermine their career goals.

Unfortunately, some young people have been taught that by sacrificing their modesty they are subverting Puritan morality. It would be good if their handlers told them that this form of postmodern martyrdom can exact a heavy, both professionally and personally.