I agree that this is odd, and I think it is the reason this thing was a problem in the first place. It was decided months ago that she would speak at this conference, according to Violet Blue's blog post. They are both aware of the focus of her work and it makes sense that an organizer of this conference would want to know the specifics her talk in advance. It seems like a mistake for them to have not settled it sooner.

I think it is just that she's procrastinating a lot (which I'm also doing for a conference tomorrow). It wasn't intentional.

She has a few talks on slightly edgy topics which she gives at different venues. The "hackers and suicide" one from CCC was probably more interesting, but that was just delivered 2 months ago to a largely overlapping audience.

I wonder what would have happened if that was the talk to be cancelled? That's a triggery topic regardless of gender.

IMO it should be about cost/benefit.

I'd never put a Bond Girl in my talk (I might have at one point, but now I'm convinced it's slightly offensive); there's no reason. A Lena photo for an image processing talk, maybe, because that's essentially the standard.

However, I'd be fine with a talk about sex, drugs, rape, suicide, etc., if it served a purpose. It has to be in the right venue, and I think BSides actually is a good venue for a lot of those topics (or CCC, or HAL/HIP/etc., or parts of Defcon, or Hope, but not RSA). It should be disclosed up front, and ideally way in advance.

It doesn't make anybody feel singled out though. People affected by suicide and depression are much less visible of a population, and I think they'd be a lot less likely to have negative experiences at the conference as a direct consequence of the talk. If anything, that's a topic that doesn't get enough exposure. Sex does.