Sexualized relations in the workplace: the end of a taboo?

A perspective on-state-of-the-art research and issues of regulation by work institutions

Abstract

Sexualized relations in the workplace have received limited attention beyond research on sexual harassment. This article reviews legal, organizational/managerial and sociological literature on so-called “consensual” sexualized relations, bringing together the scarce studies written in French with a more prolific scientific literature written in English. It identifies key issues in these three disciplinary fields, as well as the terminology used to define and analyze such relations. By mobilizing the concept of a continuum of sexualized relations at work, it highlights underexplored questions for the sociology of work and gender studies. The concept of a continuum not only enables a critical deconstruction of the binary categories opposing consent to harassment, but more fundamentally it renews the analytical framework by conceptualizing sexualized relations in the workplace as a structural phenomenon, shaped by work organization and conditions, as well as by the norms and power relations that govern professional environments. In conclusion, this concept makes the regulation of sexualized relations at work a fully-fledged research question: in a post-#MeToo context, it makes it possible to ask not only who is protected by regulatory mechanisms, but whether those mechanisms reproduce or reconfigure the very power relations they claim to address.