SEX tips n tricks

For a significant section of India’s corporate sector, romancing a colleague, or even the boss, is all in a day’s work, according to a survey, Romance at Workplace, conducted by staffing company TeamLease Services.

A third of those surveyed also saw no harm in romancing a married colleague, while 44 per cent said an affair was often a strategic move to climb the corporate ladder.

The first in a series of surveys aimed at understanding the country’s new corporate world, the study covered 402 men and women from leading companies in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata, Pune, Chandigarh and Hyderabad.

Fifty-nine per cent of executives felt that women often initiated affairs and were equal partners in office romances. Kolkata led the list, with eight out of 10 people saying that women took the lead. Asked why an employee would have a relationship with the boss, 59 per cent of Delhiites interviewed said it would be for “quick promotions or a higher salary”.

Ameeta Sinha (28), a BPO employee in Gurgaon, seconds that. She and a colleague joined the organisation around the same time. “My colleague was soon promoted as operations manager because she was having a scene with our grey-haired, hot-shot boss. Her salary now is twice mine.”

A majority of respondents (56 per cent), however, felt that organisations should not intervene in workplace romances. An equal number also felt that such affairs took a toll on the quality and speed of work.

The general opinion said that long working hours in close proximity with the opposite sex led to workplace romances. “This wouldn’t be the case if an old-economy sector like manufacturing, with fewer women, was booming,” said Tania Gooptu, partner in Aventus, an HR advisory firm. Younger employees and a higher ratio of women in the boom sectors, like BPOs, consulting and finance, have made workplace affairs a common talking point, she added.

Overall, 16 per cent of those surveyed said they’ve been romantically involved with a colleague.

Mukund Johri, senior executive with a Mumbai-based finance company, said the figure is much more than that. “As far as sex is concerned, everyone is with everyone.”

Actress Lindsay Lohan has bared all for the latest issue of New York magazine, wearing nothing but see-through fabric. The Mean Girls actress wears a blonde wig to recreate a 1962 Marilyn Monroe spread.

The pictures are taken by Bert Stern, who photographed Monroe in 1962. He captures a pouting Lohan, lying naked on a bed, for inside pages of the magazine and another, featuring the actress wrapped in a sheer pink scarf that features on the cover, imdb.com reported.

While many of the shots tastefully cover the 21-year-old actress’ private areas, some photos have her baring all, covered only by sheer fabric.

Stern took the iconic Monroe photo shoot six weeks before the tragic movie star was found dead.

Lohan, who posed for the shots at Hollywood’s Hotel Bel-Air February 5, prepared for the sexy shoot by doing “250 crunches” the night before, and admits she was “comfortable with it”.

An official in the South African health ministry has alleged that the largest amount of fake and illegally manufactured copies of the sex tablet Viagra that is smuggled into the country originates in India.

“We go to collect packages at post offices and destroy them every week, and they come mainly from India. We even know exactly how the envelopes look,” the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the African daily Beeld here.

The remarks followed a conference earlier in the week organised by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company Pfizer to get regulatory authorities and customs officials in ten countries in southern Africa to draw up plans to counter the piracy of Viagra.

While the countries of origin of illegal Viagra have been identified, Pfizer’s financial director in Africa and the Middle East, Menassie Taddese, maintains the company did not know the extent of pirate distribution in South Africa’s market was of about two million tablets, 700,000 of which were genuine Viagra.

Viagra was developed by Pfizer and there is still no legal generic equivalent for the pills used by men with erection problems. Pfizer said the illegal copies also came from China, Pakistan and Russia, with ingredients that posed great risk to users.

“Pirated Viagra worth about 1.7 million rands (about $23,000) was recently found at the Lebombo border post between South Africa and Mozambique,” said Matthew Moodley, director of legal services at Pfizer South Africa.

“They did not contain our active ingredients, but were contaminated with other substances,” he said.

Samples of confiscated pills were so close to the original that only experts could distinguish between them, leading to unscrupulous dealers at sex shops and online sites exploiting the preference by buyers to remain as private as possible.

But while the countries of origin of illegal Viagra had been identified, Pfizer’s financial director in Africa and the Middle East, Menassie Taddese, said the company did not know the extent of pirate distribution in South Africa’s market was of about two million tablets, 700,000 of which were genuine Viagra.One of the options that make up the rest of the market is Indiagra, an Ayurvedic equivalent to Viagra. Indiagra is sold here by Maltiherb, a company that specialises in a range of Ayurvedic medicines imported from India and repackaged here before being sold to dealers.

ubhash Agarwal, managing director of Maltiherb, did not feel threatened by competitor or pirate products and said there was a huge demand for Indiagra.

“The attraction to Indiagra is both the use of natural ingredients and the cost. Our pack of five tablets sells for the same price as one Viagra tablet and even less than pirated products,” Agarwal told IANS.