Recently I rejoined a dating app, one created for curious, open-minded people. What stopped me wasn’t who was there… it was the reason a few people gave for not showing their faces. “Due to my work…”
I found myself wondering. Do employers really go looking for what brings their people pleasure? Or is it the fear of being seen that keeps us hidden?
I don’t know how often it actually happens. But I know the fear is real, because I’ve felt it myself. Before I told my colleagues I was training to be a coach in sex, love and relationships, I held a quiet fear of being seen in what interested me outside my day job.
We’ve made progress in welcoming who we love at work. As workplaces evolve to become more inclusive, more of us can be open about our sexual orientation, and that matters deeply. But that is often where the conversation stops. How we love, what we desire, what makes us feel alive… that is still expected to remain totally and completely private.
I’m not suggesting we bring our most intimate lives into the office. What we share, and with whom, is always ours to choose… with consent on both sides. But there’s a difference between choosing what to share and compartmentalising ourselves out of fear.
So we split ourselves into pieces. We bring a carefully edited version of ourselves into work, and even into our dating profiles, and hope we never say or do anything that makes anyone around us uncomfortable.
But the parts of us we suppress don’t disappear. In my work, and in my own lived experience, I see how they find another way out… often through:
tension held in the body
short tempers with our children over things that don’t really matter
the numbness and flatness of going through the motions
When our sexual energy is denied, it doesn’t simply switch off. It quietly drains us, like a battery we’ve stopped recharging.
We ask people to bring their best selves to work… while so much of who we are stays out of sight.
