A few years ago, after the office Christmas party my friend had sex with her boss. Back in the days when the Celtic Tiger purred like a kitten, her company had gone all-out, and paid for an overnighter at a hotel and spa. At some point between the dancing and the dawn, my friend, who best remain nameless, found herself naked and downing yet more booze from the boss’s mini-bar.

“It was an accident,” she said.
“How do you sleep with someone by accident?” I wanted to know. Freud claimed there are no accidents and while I doubt he was thinking about these kinds of sexual shenanigans (although being Freud you never know), it seemed to me that knocking on someone’s hotel door during the middle of the night is not exactly like stubbing your toe. It requires a bit more forethought.
“We’ll it’s not like I planned it,” she explained. “It just happened.” But I still wasn’t buying it. First, because she’d been on about what a ride he was for months, and secondly because I knew she’d been for a full leg and Brazilian the week before. From what I could see, she’d taken the earliest convenient opportunity to find out if he really was as good as he looked. (Which incidentally he was. “The best sex, ever!” according to my friend. But of course the sex you’re not supposed to be having often is – it’s one of the universe’s cruel little jokes.)
Along with the coloured lights and panic shopping, you know it’s Christmas once dire warnings of the dangers of holiday excess start to hit the press. Every year we are reminded that when it comes to the Christmas party it’s best not to a) drink too much, b) flirt too much (particularly outside your pay grade) or c) get into compromising positions with colleagues.
Every year this advice is ignored by a lot, perhaps even most, of us. As soon as December rolls around, we’re in party-mode and there’s no stopping us. For thousands of years human beings have celebrated in and around the winter solstice. The Romans had Saturnalia, the Greeks Chronos, the Germanic people celebrated Yule and the Celts had Wren Day. All these festivals included a bit of religion and a lot of merry-making including feasting, music and gift giving. You can’t fight the Christmas spirit – it’s in our bones. And besides, someone else is paying (thanks Mr Stokes!).
The thing about Christmas parties is that bad behaviour isn’t just tolerated, in a lot of companies it’s practically expected. This is the greatest gift of all – particularly for the single and shy. You can plonk yourself down on someone’s lap and proceed to garrotte him or her with your tongue, safe in the knowledge that if or when it all goes pear-shaped that everyone will accept the convenient fiction that the booze was to blame.
I’m all for excess, as long as it’s – and I know that this is an oxymoron – moderate excess. Drink, flirt and shag if you will, you have my blessing, just as long as you are not (a) getting sick, falling down or driving, (b) ruining your chances of a promotion and (c) forgetting to use a condom.
Unfortunately using a condom seems to be an optional extra for many a reveller. The Irish Family Planning Association has noted that compared to other months of the year, there’s a significant increase in the number of girls looking for emergency contraception over the Christmas period. Worse still, straight after Christmas there’s an increase in the demand for crisis pregnancy counselling as well. Not fun, I can assure you…
Pregnancy isn’t the only thing to worry about. Research shows that in the UK the number of people seeking screening services for sexually transmitted diseases increases in the first three months of the year. In fact the Christmas holiday STI infection rate was so marked that a few years back Britain’s National Health Service ran a campaign called the Twelve STIs of Christmas, a cheering little campaign to remind people of all the nasty infections that are out there.
As you’d expect, anecdotal evidence shows similar trends in Ireland. “There’s definitely an increased demand for emergency contraception from about mid-November through December,” says Alison Begas of Dublin’s Well Woman Clinic. “There’s an awareness of the need to prevent a crisis pregnancy, but only a few months later do people begin to consider the possibilities of an STI. We would do a significant amount of screenings in January and February.”
When you think about it, it’s madness. I honestly don’t understand what the great big problem is. A condom fits into the smallest of handbags or the tightest of jacket pockets; they’re available in plenty of toilets in pubs and nightclubs; and if you live in an urban area you can always stop at a 24hour shop or service station if you happen to get caught short. There really is no excuse for not using one, other than misguided optimism of the ‘it won’t happen to me’ variety.
If life were a movie, my friend would have been some kind of morality tale. As such, it would have been decreed that she deserved some kind of comeuppance for her forward behaviour – a nasty itch about the privates, or an unwelcome reputation as a woman trying to sleep her way up the corporate ladder. But other than a little initial awkwardness in early January, life continued much as it had before.
So what’s the moral of the story? Well, there isn’t one, except maybe CYA – cover your ass. Whether it’s your health, or even your reputation, it’s your responsibility to protect it.
Christmas is a time of sharing, but STIs or unwanted pregnancies are Kris Kringle gifts you can do without.
Here’s to it. Have a very merry one!