I realized that it was horrible as written and I apologize. In that vein, I fixed it (replaced with "executive's gender of interest"). It was reverse-pattern-matched off of a certain company where the desk ornament happened to be female, but I've seen male desk ornament dynamics as well.

That said, if you don't think 95+% of workplace favoritism is based on sexual desire, you're misled. That's especially true in the non-technical/subjective roles where ability is so hard to evaluate.

Most corporate executives did their 20s wrong and want to Feel Like A (Wo)Man now that they're older. Which means that for non-tech/subjective proteges they tap either (a) young, attractive people of the opposite sex who give them a "hip" image, or (b) unscrupulous young men ~20 years their junior through whom they live vicariously.