For that particular party, there definitely wasn't blowback because the next morning, everybody talked about how amazing it was. I think it caught everyone off guard because it was unexpected and it gave attendees happy memories. (Yes, maybe the attendees should have been morally outraged but I can only report how they actually responded and at that time, they thought it was a huge hit.)

It's been 17 years so maybe that company doesn't hire party models anymore.

>"This is horridly objectifying and super awkward."

That's a valid opinion but just to paint the picture better, the women were not dressed up as "Playboy bunnies". They were wearing regular shorts and a themed tshirt showing no cleavage. The interactions with the models would be similar to a kid interacting with Mickey Mouse at Disney. Also, there probably were male models on roller skates as well but I don't remember them for obvious reasons.

Seeing so many people defending this practice is really worrisome with regards to the lack of morals in SV.

> For that particular party, there definitely wasn't blowback

PR is bigger than just internal opinion. Witness: this article.

> The interactions with the models would be similar to a kid interacting with Mickey Mouse at Disney

Oy

> the women were not dressed up as "Playboy bunnies". They were wearing regular shorts and a themed tshirt showing no cleavage... Also, there probably were male models on roller skates as well but I don't remember them for obvious reasons.

At least we all eventually agree that the obvious is obvious.

This particular article has an extra angle about models pretending to be friends of employees at a company party. I wasn't endorsing that.

I was relating a somewhat related story about models at a software conference. However, they were not pretending to be in relationships with anybody. They were there to be hosts with bubbly personalities and to schmooze the crowd.

>Oy

I was not exaggerating. The conference models were not there to show skin; they were there to socialize. The conversations (regardless of it being artificial and scripted from the models) are not of a sexual nature. It's lightweight platonic chatting designed to loosen up the crowd.

Here are some videos showing the Disney character Garcon at the park. Not every Disney actor's face is hidden behind a mask:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=disney+gaston

Clicking on some of those videos should give an idea of how the models interact with guests. The men that Disney hires for that work are all beautiful male specimens. (Women would typically categorize them as "hunks" or "beefcakes".) However, the purpose is not for girls/daughters/mothers/women to grab their crotch or act out Magic Mike[1] fantasies. The Garcon actor is there to be funny and provide smiles.

The Garcon models are not allowed to exchange phone numbers with the park guests. There is no "let's meet up at Cinderella's castle" secret rendezvous after they show off their one arm pushups. So, if the women at the park don't get to engage with sexual foreplay at the park with Garcon, why does Disney only hire attractive men? Oy indeed.

The models at the software conference did similar work to the Garcon actors at Disney theme parks.

The reason you don't see public-relations blowback about the beautiful models at Disney is the same reason you don't see it about models at industry conferences.

On the other hand, the Bloomberg article about "models pretending to be friends of employees" is a whole different level of weirdness.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Mike

I take it there were no women on your team?

I bet these women are getting paid a pretty penny to go to some stupid party and mingle with the patrons. Probably get drinks and food on the house too. Lucky bastards!

There's a plethora of well paid jobs out there that they could be doing instead but, for reasons unknown, they prefer to be under-dressed roller skating companions.

On a high end they are walking away with a few thousand dollars.

On a really high end they just made your yearly salary in a day - there was if I recall correctly a bank in Russia that flew a dozen of currently reasonably well known models for its New Year's party.

I can imagine some harm comes from this - e.g. an employee is mistaken for a model, or perhaps an employee is never mistaken for a model, but the magnitude of the harm doesn't seem so severe, and seems comparable to the benefit - the party is more fun.

I know why people have an intuitive dislike for this, it calls to mind paying for sex, sounds pathetic, and feels possibly misogynistic, but logically, I can't defend any of those positions myself.

This doesn't seem that complicated to me. I am not sure how I could possibly make what I am saying any clearer.

As a possible diagnosis of the problem you are having, if you believe my first sentence says or is equivalent to "I don't have a problem with this", you have a fairly common reading comprehension problem where you read what you expect to have read, rather than what was actually said, and the problem you are having with what I wrote is your difficulty in fitting such a short point into your framework of what you expect to have read. I suggest spending some more time learning how to read what is there, rather than what you think is there, as you are missing out on one of the primary benefits of reading. That's not the only possible problem you've having with understanding such short, simple sentences, but it is likely enough to be worth calling out.

My point is that employees should not be subjected to employers hiring models to attend company events.

When my wife shows up as a part of the sales team the company always sells out of the product that they bring.

> At this year’s holiday parties, however, there’ll be a surprising influx of attractive women, and a few pretty men, mingling with the engineers. They’re being paid to.