Porn@Work by Michael Leahy - book review
If you've felt tempted to brighten your day at the office with a sneaky porn break, you'll know about the risks discussed by Michael Leahy in his new book Porn@Work.
Drawing from his own experiences of attempting to balance his career with a damaging addiction to porn, Michael's insight delivers a powerful warning for risk-taking workers, and their responsible employers.
Porn-obsessed employees gamble with their reputation, respect, promotions and even their entire careers. And for employers, the risks are even greater: they are liable for everything that happens on their premises. Porn@Work highlights the chilling realities of prosecution, newspaper headlines, sexual harassment and workplace environment lawsuits.
No business can afford to ignore this threat, especially with the suggestion that legions of porn-consuming, hyper-sexualised young people are now being recruited into the workplace. Through his Porn Nation tour of college campuses, Micheal conducted an extensive SAST survey of student's sexual outlook and compulsivity. He deduces that 22% of college students fall into the 'at risk' category of sexual addiction. In due course, they will find accessing porn at work impossible to resist.
This book makes a very valid contribution to the growing recognition of porn addiction as a threat to livelihoods. The author's rhetoric may occasionally verge on melodrama, but his passion for raising awareness of this issue shines through every chapter. I would question some of the claims arising from the student survey too, but they do provide thought-provoking reading.
Above all, Porn@Work provides inspirational hope for anyone struggling with porn, and some sound ethical pointers for employers and HR departments. Michael urges employers to maintain a policy of respect for the individual. Providing workers with opportunities for porn addiction help and treatment will benefit productivity and morale in the long term. Such a scheme can run alongside traditional policies of acceptible conduct and employee discipline.
Porn Game Over is Jason's self-help plan for quitting the habit. Click here for a fresh approach to internet pornography addiction...
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3 comments
If you use your companies IT
If you use your companies IT systems (network) including your desktop or laptop to view porn whilst at work or during work your are skating on very thin ice indeed. Not only are the chances of getting found out extremely high because any good systems administrator would spot surfing for porn easily & in nano seconds. In addition many employers would consider that staff had stolen company time (i.e. you broke the T&C of your employment contract) because you were not doing your job whilst porn surfing. If you think I'm just scaremongering you can think again because its wide spread company policy across many sectors of UK employment. Surfing for porn in company time on a persistent basis (repeated basis) is now a sack-able offense. If found out you would be asked to clear your desk ASAP and on top of that how are you going to explain why you were sacked by your last employer and what kind of reference while your past employer give you??
Alex
I have come across a number
I have come across a number of more enlightened companies & employers who regard access to the Internet as an essential tool for conducting their business. And to that end most staff have web access via their desktop PC or laptop. One company allowed a relaxed policy of explicitly allowing staff (mostly engineers & designers) to surf the web whilst on their lunch brakes whilst at the same time monitoring & recording the sites which were viewed and also blocking or filtering access to adult sites. The policy was that if anyone overtly abused this policy to view porn and the company had a x3 strikes and your out system. i.e. firstly a polite verbal warning, secondly a formal disciplinary telling off and thirdly sacking. I would say this is from a company who clearly has a good policy in place to deal with this issue. Employers like this must have such policies and recognize that when you employ mostly male staff with a rather macho culture then porn via the web is always going to be an issue or come up as an issue its a phenomena of our time.
I really enjoy Leahy's
I really enjoy Leahy's writings in general. He's got a grasp on the issues in a way that others do not.
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