Sleeping your way to the top

IT was like the plot from a novel she had read in high school. Josette said that the decision to sleep with one of her lecturers at university had everything to do with needing to pass a core course and graduate without having to fork out extra money to repeat. She maintains that there was no attraction on her part, but there had been consistent flirting from his side all semester, which culminated in what she termed the ‘indecent proposal’ one consultation day when she sought to find out how she could earn extra credits to secure even a B.

“He was very blunt about it: I was an attractive woman, we were both adults, and he had fantasised about me,” she told

All Woman.

“There wasn’t much to think about, on my part. Sure, morally it was probably wrong, but the overall good outweighed the skeeviness that I should have felt when we eventually met up at his apartment.”

She said all it took was one session, and she finished the course with a B+, something that would never have been possible had she relied on intellect alone, as the course was extremely challenging.

“The fact is, women have been sleeping their way to the top for aeons,” she said. “At least in this situation I could see the immediate benefit. Other women compromise their values and get nothing in return.”

Counsellor David Anderson acknowledged that this has been an age-old occurrence, especially in times past when women had trouble climbing the career ladder.

He maintained that it is not so prevalent nowadays as women’s contribution to the workforce is more recognised, but said there are still women and men who believe that mobility is only possible when the woman bargains with her body.

What are readers’ views?

Yolanda, 34:

I’ve never done it before. I won’t say I would never do it, I just don’t think I would be comfortable with it.

Tracey, 30:

Any accomplishment that I have should be because of my own hard work and determination. I don’t want to owe anybody anything. I don’t want to have anything on my conscience when I achieve what I achieve.

Roseanne, 28:

I wouldn’t do that because at the end of the day these little things come back to haunt you. At some point you become a mature woman, you seek to build a family, and people can always come back and use things against you. I would encourage every woman to work hard, study, and gain what is theirs the right way.

Crystal, 23:

I didn’t spend all my time and money studying so that I can risk my career on the likes of a guy who will always have something to blackmail me with. People and attitudes change very quickly.That’s like giving someone the bullets to a gun that will be used to shoot you in the end.