Bill Maher made a pretty compelling case that lots of rules against consensual sex in the workplace are not only ridiculous … they’re harmful.
The “Real Time” host challenged companies that require immediate notification if 2 employees are banging and prohibit sexual relationships between supervisors and their subordinates.
He concedes, if there’s a workplace relationship between a superior and a subordinate, it should be watched … but not banned.
As Bill says, work is where most people spend most of their waking hours, and that’s also where they get to know people … and sometimes they catch feelings and even fall in love.
He ticks off a list of people who have been fired for their consensual relationships. He points to former CNN honcho Jeff Zucker, who was fired for having a consensual relationship with a 49-year-old CNN executive — as if the company needed to tell the 49-year-old exec it wasn’t right because of a power imbalance, even though she didn’t think it was a problem.
How ’bout this point he raises … if these rules were in place back in the day, Barack and Michelle Obama wouldn’t be married. He was a summer associate at a law firm and she was his supervisor. Bill says she was literally banging the intern, and good for them!
He point out the hypocrisy … Harry Styles and Olivia Wilde hooked up during the shooting of “Don’t Worry Darling,” and when you shoot a movie a director is not only boss, she’s God.
And how ’bout this as a capper … there’s an epidemic in this country among young folks — loneliness, and it causes lots of physical/mental problems. So, he says, how smart are we to close off a major avenue to abate the problem?