Study: Office sex talk isn't all bad.

From the Globe & Mail:

A new Canadian study finds that some employees say they actually enjoy the occasional sexually charged joke, discussions of sexual matters or flirtation around the office.

A quarter of 238 respondents who participated in a series of studies in five different workplaces said they found sexual banter around their office "fun" and "flattering." Another 50 per cent said they were not offended.

That finding is "somewhat surprising," says study co-author Jennifer Berdahl, an associate professor of organizational behaviour in the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

"Previous studies have only looked at the negatives of any behaviour related to sex in the workplace. This looked at the possibility of finding positives. And we did find some."

Still, the finding - based on experiments in which employees were asked to describe the sexual behaviour they'd seen around their office over the past two years - shouldn't be interpreted as open season on sexual banter in the workplace, she says. Employees are tolerant only of some kinds of sexual banter, and can pay a price for raunchy talk.