May 7 —  We asked what’s really going on behind office doors, and you answered in mass — 31,207 of you in fact. And were we surprised: A lot of flirting and downright hanky-panky goes on in the workplace — with minimal fallout or offense to either sex.

‘In a society consumed by careerism and material aspiration, the notion of removing romance from the workplace is a prescription for extinction.’
— SURVEY RESPONDENT
       FIND OUT more about the new corporate reality by reading excerpts from the ELLE/MSNBC.com Office Sex and Romance Survey, written and analyzed by Janet Lever, a sociologist at California State University at Los Angeles.
       
       Who’s fishing in the company pond?
       …Who’s not?
       62 percent of respondents have had at least one office affair — and nearly one in 10 had four or more.
       Only 14 percent said they’d never consider dating someone from work.
       
       Climbing the ladder
       Roughly half of women and 20 percent of men have had an affair with a superior; for 28 percent of women and 10 percent of men, it was with their boss.
       Only 7 percent of women have dated a subordinate, compared with 25 percent of men.
       

       Why not make it easy?
       Roughly half of women and men hooked up with a coworker from their department.
       
       The lying game
       42 percent were married or in a relationship at the time of their office affair.
       
       Love or lust?
       Nearly half said their office romance lasted one year or longer; for 16 percent, it went on for five or more years (dozens wrote in to rhapsodize about the attractive coworker or boss … who later became their spouse.)
       For 17 percent, their affair was clearly just a fling, lasting just a few days or weeks at most.
       
       All play and no work…
       More men, 44 percent, than women, 35 percent, have had some sexual contact at work. Why the disparity? More men than women claim to have had sex with their personal partner (not a coworker) on the premises.
       
       Swing(ing) shift
       One in five had sex with a coworker during work hours; 23 percent waited until after hours.
       
       Busted
       7 percent got caught with their pants down — or skirt up. For 87 percent of them, the worst repercussion was embarrassment.
       
       Don’t kiss and tell
       82 percent tried to keep their relationship at work a secret. But only 15 percent said they had to because of company policy.
       
       What’s the big secret?
       “Wanting to avoid disruption at work” was the No. 1 reason given by half for keeping their affair a secret. No. 2: To protect a spouse or partner. But only 15 percent said secrecy was needed because they were violating a company policy.
       
       Breakup fallout: The good…
       Roughly half said their romance had not interfered with work — nor did it result in problems like depression, distraction or awkwardness. A third reported discomfort in the first two months after the breakup.
       
       …The bad
       12 percent said at least one of them left the company or asked for a transfer after the breakup.
       
       …The ugly
       9 percent said their fling led to separation or divorce for one member of the couple, and 5 percent of the women and 4 percent of the men felt stalked or otherwise threatened by their office ex. Only 3 percent got fired for their transgression.
       
       Real-life Ally McBeals
       Two of three respondents believe almost everyone flirts in the office; just 9 percent think the come-ons are serious. Nearly everyone’s a target: 92 percent said a coworker they found attractive had flirted with them.
       
       Who flirts back?
       54 percent of married and 62 percent of single people do if they think it’s in fun. But the game breaks down when one party means business: Only 7 percent of marrieds and 11 percent of singles reciprocate if they think their pursuer is serious.
       
       We just want to have fun
       A quarter of women and a third of men felt that flirting with coworkers makes going to work more fun — single people and those who had indulged in an office romance were the most likely to share that sentiment.
       
       Persistence pays off? Not
       Men, if you’re risking rejection over and over with the intent to wear her down, forget it; only 5 percent of women said they ever went out with a coworker because of his persistent invitations.
       
       You lookin’ at me?
       About one in three has been the object of the same sex’s attention.
       Only 2 percent were upset by the attention, and half either flirted back for the fun of it or actually went out.
       
       The Erin Brockovich factor
       Flaunt it or hide it?
       34 percent of women say they play up their sexuality at work; 20 percent of men do.
       Meanwhile, 23 percent of women and 19 percent of men de-emphasize their sexuality. What gives? It seems women are more likely to use clothing to send a message.
       Sex appeal: asset?
       One-fourth of women feel they’ve benefited because a supervisor found them attractive.
       
       …or burden?
       13 percent of women felt unfairly passed over because a supervisor or manager found them sexual threatening.
       
       She asked for it
       46 percent of women and 42 percent of men thought a woman had no right to complain if she broke up with him but he persists in his attentions, even for months.
       
       Playing by the rules
       15% work in offices where dating is prohibited between supervisor and subordinates; another 7% say their employer forbids dating any employee. But nearly a quarter said they had no idea whether their company had any rules!
       
       All’s fair in love and work
       78 percent of both men and women felt they’d been treated fairly in the workplace, and didn’t lose out on promotions or other benefits to people who had a close personal relationship with the boss.
       Only 4 percent of women and 1 percent of men said they’d paid a price for rebuffing a supervisor’s or manager’s sexual advances.
       
       Whose business is it?
       60 percent believe an employer should not have any say in whom they date.
       
       Playing favorites
       The “old boys clubs” are still a bigger problem than romantic unions when it comes to promotions. Respondents of both sexes named friends (which were as likely to be female as male) three times as often as lovers as the beneficiaries of favoritism.
       

       Go figure
       We expected more women than men to say they’re reluctant to act friendly for fear that coworkers might interpret their advances as sexually motivated, but we found the opposite: 15 percent compared to 9 percent.
       
       Going down, moving up?
       Women who are promoted quickly are subject to gossip that they slept their way to the top. An astonishing 41 percent of men and women agreed with this statement. What’s more, four in 10 of them believe these rumors to be true!

              Limitations of the survey: Because we posted this survey on two Web sites — ELLE.com and MSNBC.com — for the month of February, our respondent pool cannot be considered a scientific random representative sample. For more coverage of results, go to www.elle.com or pick up the June issue of Elle Magazine, which provided the material for this excerpt.
 
http://www.msnbc.com/news/748467.asp