Sex at work is no longer taboo. That’s the opening line on an article from CBS News in Philadelphia.
The article is based on a survey from Business Insider that asked people questions about sex in the workplace. Call me naive, but the results shocked me: Nearly half of the people who have had sex with a colleague say they have had sex at the office.
It’s no wonder American productivity is suffering. (According to the U.S. Labor Department, the measure of employee output per hour decreased at a 2 percent annual rate in the first quarter.) Perhaps if people weren’t so busy dreaming about having sex with a colleague (85 percent) or having sex with their co-workers (54 percent), they could focus more on producing positive results for their employers.
As a witness to the fact that immorality is rising, a 2010 study from Sensis Condoms found that 17 percent of Americans admitted to having sex at work. When compared to the more recent Business Insider survey, that makes for a more than 100 percent increase in less than three years.
It seems Americans will have sex anywhere and everywhere, from airplanes (3 percent) to cars (69 percent) to public parks (28 percent) to trains and buses (4 percent). Even churches aren’t sacred! According to the Sensis survey, 3 percent of Americans have had sex in a church or other place of worship.
Immorality is indeed rising at a rapid clip. A May Gallup poll reveals that Americans’ tolerance of a number of moral issues has risen over the past 12 years:
- 19 percent increase in acceptance of gay and lesbian relations (59 percent approve)
- 15 percent increase in acceptance of having a baby outside marriage (60 percent approve)
- 10 percent increase in acceptance of sex between unmarried people (63 percent approve)
- 14 percent increase in the acceptance of polygamy (14 percent approve)
- 1 percent increase in acceptance of pornography (31 percent approve)
“Americans have generally become more tolerant of a series of moral behaviors over the past 10-12 years,” Gallup reports. “This trend is particularly evident in views of gay and lesbian relations and having a baby outside of wedlock.”
Will bestiality soon make the list of morally acceptable behaviors, even if it’s a minority view? What about incest? If those questions shock you, consider how the acceptance of other immoral behaviors on the list above would have shocked America’s Founding Fathers or the fathers of the modern Pentecostal movement or the revivalists from the healing movement in the mid-century.
The point is, immorality is raging in our land. At the root, tolerance is opening the door to these and other vile behaviors finding acceptance in our society—and tolerance will open the door wider to even more wickedness in the decades to come. How should the church respond? Sound off.
Jennifer LeClaire is news editor at Charisma. She is also the author of several books, including The Spiritual Warrior’s Guide to Defeating Jezebel. You can email Jennifer at [email protected] or visit her website here. You can also join Jennifer on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.
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