Porn@Work: A Book Review

Whether you are a human resources professional, a midlevel manager, or even a senior executive or business owner, you are responsible for managing people and maximizing their productivity to help your organization achieve its mission. Of course, that job description involves ensuring that potential costs and consequences are held to a minimum, especially as they relate to negatively impacting the bottom line of threatening the achievement of mission objectives. …I want to help you “get inside the head” of a typical employee who is struggling with sexual compulsivity and addiction at work so you will have a better understanding of that they’re really thinking and why they’re doing what they do. – Michael Leahy

Title: Porn@Work Exposing the Office’s #1 Addiction

Author: Michael Leahy

Basic story line:

Author Michael Leahy picks up where he left off in his book Porn Nation, tackling the effects and implications of the problems of porn in the workplace.

I think he makes a great argument about treating pornography as something we really need to address, learn more about, and not just punish. If an employee is simply punished for his or her online porn issues, it drives the addict underground into more compulsive activities.

Michael argues that companies should encourage help and accountability for their employees.

51% of the businesses surveyed said they had disciplined employees for misusing the Internet, while 26% had even fired workers for it. This approach has many adherents, including a growing number of organizations that have also taken the extreme stance of removing warnings and reprimands and have adopted a “zero-tolerance” policy of immediate termination. While this may seem like an attractive stance to some, I see several problems with it. For one, the clear message to employees seems to be “If you’ve got a problem with this, better handle it on your own because we sure won’t help you.” – Michael Leahy

Leahy has first hand knowledge of what he is talking about. In his life, he has struggled with porn and then moved to an affair. After spending time in recovery, he has been able to speak out honestly and openly about his addiction. Being invited to college campuses across the country has given him insight into a generation raised on the computer, and a college culture that is very lax on ‘computer accountability’.

Add to that, being in corporate USA for much of his business career, and specifically, the computer industry, he speaks well to the potential hazards that businesses could have if they don’t think carefully about who they are hiring, and how they handle their most important people (their employees) in crisis situations regarding pornography at work.

What can you apply right away?

If you are in business, and have employees, especially those who are coming right out of college – where there is a particularly ‘lax’ attitude towards online porn- you should really pick up this book to understand better the implications of our “Porn Nation”. Some of the research is astounding.

We- the American business sector-helped to create this beast, and for the most part we’re now turning our backs on its victims as well as its misguided fans. As the adult entertainment industry grew, we protected it with our laws and helped to legitimize it by inviting its companies to go public and sell stock. We stood by as hotel owners and hotel chain conglomerates started piping porn into their guest rooms, and hardly paid attention as they even became collaborators with big porn by boldly advertising to their guests that they would hide the titles of any adult movies they bought when printing up their final bill. We defended the rights of pornographers to print and publish their material so they could freely distribute it to consumers everywhere. And when those consumers started showing up on the Web, we once again embraced the porn industry’s e-commerce business models and started becoming more pornographic ourselves in marketing and advertising our goods and services on the internet. After all, everyone knows that sex sells. – Michael Leahy

If you liked this, What other books might you enjoy?

Porn Nation – Michael Leahy

In the Shadows of the Net – Patrick Carnes

Contrary to Love – Patrick Carnes

Mending a Shattered Heart – Stefanie Carnes

If I only could read one chapter, which one would I read?

To be honest, I would read one entire section. Part 3 – Finding a Better Way to Work.

Leahy talks about the upcoming work force and their thoughts and habits online in chapter 7 – “When Worlds Collide”.

Then Chapter 8 moves on to “The “L” Word-What keeps CEOs Up At Night”…Litigation…talking about being proactive as a company instead of being reactive when it comes to online policies and procedures.

Chapter Nine is “The First Step to Solving a Complex Problem” dealing with a change of heart within corporations, and providing employees assistance programs much like companies now offer those who struggle with alcohol and drug addiction.

The Big Wrap Up

This is a very interesting and eye opening study of pornography and the issues that companies could potentially face when employees are struggling with compulsive sexual behaviors online.

I think it is a must read for anyone who might believe that they have an addiction to porn and work in corporate America. Plus it makes a good read for business owners, managers, etc. who have employees who work online, and how they might help their struggling employees or coworkers.

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On a special note, the publisher of Porn@Work sent me an extra copy of Michael Leahy’s first book – Porn Nation. If this is a book that would benefit you where you are right now, please contact me via my contact page, and I will send it to you immediately!

**If you are struggling with a porn addiction, please visit The Marry Blogger Resource Page for information about internet filters, and programs/ support groups to help you out!!

Tagged as: book review, Michael Leahy, porn, porn@work, pornography, Sexual Addiction