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posted by martyb on Monday June 01 2015, @12:52AM   Printer-friendly
from the ἔρως-φιλία-ἀγάπη dept.

“Dan” seems at first to perfectly embody that popular object of scorn these days in San Francisco: the privileged tech worker. He’s a developer-turned-manager at a thriving startup, the type of guy you would expect to see dodging protesters at a Google bus stop or evicting low-income tenants in order to build his dream condo. But beyond that veneer of untouchable privilege, there is a soft underbelly. He’s a 40-year-old virgin, and his troubles with women are bad enough that he’s sought out a sex therapist for help.

This is in part a result of techies’ higher-than-average salaries, which allow them to pay for therapy, particularly when it comes to non-traditional counseling that isn’t covered by insurance. There’s something else at play here, though: In general, tech workers are more vulnerable to issues around love and intimacy, according to several local sex therapists I’ve interviewed. The reasons for this are wide-ranging, but in Dan’s particular case, it resulted from being tagged as a prodigy at a young age. He excelled in science and was encouraged to pursue it to the exclusion of all else.

The men, like Dan, who are coming to see her have been hindered by the very thing that allows them to excel in their field. “There is a very strong reinforcement [in tech] on using your brain,” says McGrath. “You brain is what’s of value.” But when it comes to sex, she says, “our brains are bullshit.”


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday June 01 2015, @05:38AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday June 01 2015, @05:38AM (#190566) Journal

    I question how smart he is if he moved into middle management.

    Ummmm.... trying hard to find where middle management was mentioned - I'm seeing only "management" mentioned in TFS/TFA. Any help?

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  • (Score: 2) by bziman on Monday June 01 2015, @04:46PM

    by bziman (3577) on Monday June 01 2015, @04:46PM (#190776)

    Ummmm.... trying hard to find where middle management was mentioned - I'm seeing only "management" mentioned in TFS/TFA. Any help?

    It's an assumption on my part... but generally, in articles like this, folks in senior management are called out as "senior management" or "executive management", while "manager" just refers to generic middle management. I've been a team lead in the past, but even then, I always referred to myself as an engineer, never as a manager. In my experience, "engineers turned managers" are often (but not always) as I described.