I'll try to take a stab at this.

1.Sex is not ping pong. It is much more personal and intimate. There is a reason sex in public is an offense and playing ping pong in public is not. It is not yet another way to blow off some steam. It can come with baggage. It does not belong in a professional environment like an office. Go have sex at home, at a hotel, at a friend's place or in a sex dungeon (if that's your scene).

2.Talk about sex at work with someone who doesn't mind it or infront of someone who doesn't mind it. Personally I am not interested in hearing about your bondage fetishes or your "conquests". Be respectful of other's wishes. If you talk about your sexual life or someone else's in front of people who do mind that creates an uncomfortable working environment.

3. If you say sex is allowed in the office who's to say what kind of sex allowed vs. not allowed? There are infinite fetishes from the mundane to the unbelievable. If you are saying, but well sex in office isn't going to happen in an open setting but in a closed room so what does it matter what fetish is being enacted, well then my friend don't be cheap, just rent a hotel room for those activities instead of asking your employer to provide you with a sex room to indulge your sexual needs. Next you'll ask them to provide you with "companions", after all your employer did provide that ping pong table right?

4. Now you may say well the "puritanical" attitudes of your coworkers creates an uncomfortable work environment for you so how about they conform to your social beliefs? Well you see the majority dictates the social norms. It is a fact of life whether you think it is fair or not. Till a majority's attitude towards openly LGBTQ work colleagues hadn't shifted towards acceptability, having them as colleagues was uncomfortable for people. Then the majority attitude changed and it became acceptable.

Now the LGBTQ community worked hard to change that mindset and my friend in our democracy you too have that option to change people's minds.

But till you have changed a majority's mind you are stuck with our rules. Deal with it.

Thanks, I think I disagree with most of your points but unlike every other person here you've made some good points worth thinking about.

Believe it or not, but there indeed exists, even in liberal San Francisco, a certain crowd of prudish men and women who categorize sexual intercourse differently from ping-pong, even though both are technically physical activities that can be entertaining.

Of course they're different activities, but I haven't seen anyone give an objective reason why one is good and one is bad.

Ladies and gentlemen, an example of someone who doesn't understand the relevance of established social norms!

You really don't understand the difference between ping-pong and sex?

Either you really like ping-pong, or you really don't like sex.. ;-)

Listen, you may have somewhat of an academic point here, but you're ignoring the fact that way more people - men and women - would be uncomfortable with open discussion of co-workers' sexual activities, much less knowing or condoning that it happens in the workplace, than having a ping pong table in the break room.

Is this a good or a bad thing? it actually doesn't matter, because it is what it is. It is a social norm.

Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.

> Is this a good or a bad thing? it actually doesn't matter, because it is what it is. It is a social norm.

So basically "that's how we've always done things". That's a terrible justification for anything, particularly anything to do with sex and it's history of persecution. It wasn't long ago that being openly gay went against the social norms.

> Can it be changed? Sure, maybe.. But you will only present yourself poorly if you think that telling people their concerns don't matter, or are "bullshit" is the way to change this.

What concerns? I don't see anyone listing concerns or discussing the consequences of being more open about sex in the workplace, just a lot of statements that you can't or shouldn't do it.

It's not my place to educate you about why existing social norms should at least matter to you, regardless of whether you agree with them or not, so I'll let you learn those lessons on your own.

Also comparing sex in the workplace with gay persecution makes you look like an idiot. Sorry to be so blunt, but that's a completely unreasonable comparison. Are you going to compare it to slavery next?

We're done here.

He doesn't understand because he's a complete _tablua rasa_ --- ignorant of all history and society. Not realizing that sex comes with a lot of baggage and that consequences of sex are dramatically different for a man than a woman.

Or maybe he's just from one of those foreign cultures in which you just can't get a good ping-pong game in unless you're willing to put a ring on it, or at least pay for a nice dinner.

> He doesn't understand because he's a complete _tablua rasa_ --- ignorant of all history and society.

It's a good technique to evaluate of your poisition is rational or not, you should try it sometime. "That's how it's always been done" is an awful argument for anything.