Incest 0000i-xiv FM 1 - William L. White

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t h e i n c e st u o u s wo r k p lac e
verbally in the organization? How are adequacy, self-worth,
and competence demonstrated in the work environment? What
is the prevalence of sexual harassment and other abuses of
power in the organization?
The sexual culture of an organization constitutes the milieu in which
the staff and clients served by the agency maintain their self-esteem
and adequacy. It shapes the interactions among staff members and between
staffers and clients. The sexual culture defines the boundaries of
client self-disclosure. Clients rapidly learn what, if any, areas of their
sexual lives they may discuss. Some counseling agencies are blind to
the sexual problems of their clients because the agencies’ sexual cultures
covertly prohibit the raising of such issues in a serious and
straightforward manner.
There can be great incongruence between the sexual culture of an organization
and the values expressed to clients receiving services from
that organization. In cases where specialized services have been developed
for women, for example, such services may exist in an overall organizational
milieu that discounts the specialized needs of women, forces
women into stereotyped sex roles in the name of clinical progress, and
undermines the power and professional legitimacy of female staff members.
Clients receive two contradictory messages from such an agency.
Whereas the explicit message from the women’s services specialist is
sexually empathic, the implicit message from the organization’s sexual
culture is sexually insensitive and exploitive. Such contradictions may
exist on a number of levels and include a broad range of issues. A professional
counselor, for example, might articulately communicate to
clients the need to slow down, relax, enjoy, explore, and share sexual intimacy,
while addressing his or her own sexual needs like they were
emergency appointments squeezed into a frantic schedule.
The sexual culture in any organization defines the response to the
sexuality we bring to the organization. The sexual culture can also begin
to change our own attitudes, values, and behavior related to our sexuality.
The nature of the sexual cultures in open and closed organizational
systems differs significantly.
7.3 Sexuality in Open and Closed Systems
I do not wish to imply that all sexual coupling between organizational
members is somehow pathological, or that all sexual activity in a group
results from what I will refer to as an incestuous dynamic.
Sexual relationships between members of open systems reflect the