> You should talk to more women about this.

Here's a bit of free advice :) when you start to use this argument, consider that perhaps you've run out of good rhetoric.

You seem a decent enough guy, if a little clueless, so I'll give you more advice if I may. Making lewd comments certainly might make others feel uncomfortable (male or female), but the fear factor comes from attitude and presence, not the words.

For example; had these two guys been leering at Adria. And staring at her, deliberately raising their voices to project their jokes to her hearing.. that is the sort of behaviour that starts to become frightening.

No one has suggested this is the case. They made a joke between themselves, that made Adria uncomfortable. That is a far cry from her fearing for her physical safety.

Hi, Tom.

I have talked to actual women who tell me this. Why do you, as a guy, feel qualified to invalidate their experiences?

I don't think Adira felt immediate fear for her physical safety, no. But I do think fear of sexual harassment and sexual violence are an important reason why it is very important that "harmless" sexualization of professional situations isn't harmless at all.

While what you say is true, there's no reason for everyone to have to bear the burden of a few people's irrational fears. I don't know were the dividing line should be, but overheard undirected conversation doesn't seem like a reasonable threat to me.

Adira was perfectly within her rights to complain to the conference organisers about rule breaking behaviour that was annoying her. The twitter shaming and blog post about harassment was a bit overboard though.

Oh piffle, the whole "why do you, as a guy" rhetoric is even worse. Although, for what it is worth, I have volunteered in a women's shelter for many years, so have a wealth of empirical information to draw on.

What you're doing, though, is taking one issue and turning into a much more "serious" one (I use that term loosely, neither sexual discomfort nor sexual violence should be taken lightly).

Yes, sexualisation of professional situations is a problem (at least, it quite often is). As I noted, this applies to both male and female top-heavy environments. But the issue isn't really about fear of sexual violence, that simply does not match up with reality.

I agree, some women are sensitive to these sorts of conversations. And they can be triggers for them which lead to fear. But more important is the much larger majority of women for whom this conversations "merely" (again, using the term loosely) degrades them as an individual.

Hence me objecting to your casting of this issue as a major problem r.e. threat of violence. 99.9999% of the people making these comments are not about to commit sexual violence, and the vast majority of women (and, yes, men) being subjected to it are not in fear for themselves. By casting it as you have, you've undermined the issue.

And you're initial phrasing itself sounded patronising and degrading (although obviously not your intention).

EDIT: p.s. it's Adria not Adira.

Just FYI: There are those of us reading this who understand your comments and agree wholeheartedly. The difficulty I think you're facing here in getting this point across is that people are angry right now. Angry mob mode is very much enabled, and it's a mode which reduces people's ability to empathise and change their minds.

Kudos for trying though.

Not everyone who disagrees with you is angry and irrational. I'm very calm, but I think you're wrong. Just because someone got offended, that doesn't make it everyone else's problem. Publishing photos of people along with transcripts of their private conversation is highly intrusive, and should only be done in extreme circumstances. A dick joke does not qualify.

I wasn't talking about what Adria did. I agree with the consensus that she fucked up. I was talking about the fact that it's possible to be blinded by privilege and accidentally make remarks that really undermine the sense of belonging and safety of somebody with less privilege than you.

For some people, the fear factor factor comes from words alone. . .attitude and presence are not required. I'm a woman. Am I like that (feeling fearful from words alone)? No. Do I wish other people weren't like that? Yes. But it doesn't change the fact that for some people it is just the words - right or wrong. And no, I wouldn't have reacted as she did - I would have ignored it or spoken directly to them.

Are you seriously trying to draw a connection between two guys making a joke to each other about how the word "dongle" sounds like the word "dong"...

...to a person being sexually assaulted?

I am seriously saying that I have talked with people who have been made uncomfortable by sexual jokes in non-sexual contexts, and that they have told me that part of their discomfort came from fear. Fear that they were in a situation where sexual harassment or sexual assault was a sudden possibility.

Are you claiming that in the incident in question, a conclusion that she was in imminent danger of sexual assault is what motivated her to say these things? It seems beyond far-fetched but assume that is how she felt at the time. This does not exempt her from us thinking critically about whether or not that is a fair - much less: rational - conclusion. What in the context of the situation as it has been described would lead her into believing they were targeting her or sexually harassing her? It is irrational and seriously makes me question her low opinion of her own gender's threshold of insult.

> Are you claiming that in the incident in question, a conclusion that she was in imminent danger of sexual assault is what motivated her to say these things?

No. I am not saying that.

I am trying to say that sexualizing a professional, non-sexual context can trigger legitimate fears.

It's interesting you use the word "trigger" here. Anything can "trigger" legitimate fears if it is strongly mentally associated with the thing you are legitimately afraid of. It's not up to other people to shape their behaviour to walk on eggshells around you. You are not a gun with a hair trigger that other people must handle carefully. You're an adult. It's up to you as an adult to distinguish between things that "trigger" fears and things that are genuinely damaging or potentially damaging.

Sexualizing a professional, non-sexual context CAN be damaging or potentially damaging. However, I would argue that overheard jokes do not fit into this category.

The overheard jokes were bad because they were unprofessional and inappropriate, but public shaming was an inappropriate response, and this fear-pandering justification doesn't hold water.

"I am trying to say that sexualizing a professional, non-sexual context can trigger legitimate fears."

What is it about our culture that makes everyone immediately think about sex the moment we talk about our bodies in the most generic way possible? Yes they were talking about penises. But talking about penises alone does not constitute a threat nor is it inherently sexual. It's a part of the body and to stigmatize it is wrong. If it is wrong, then it would be equally sexist for men to tell women they can't talk about breasts in the context of breastfeeding because it's "too sexual". And what at all does this have to do with gay bars and leather daddies?

because tech workers are known to be rapists and any women in their vicinity is at risk of sexual assault, therefore any joke by tech men should be interpreted as a danger by women nearby.

If you look into those statistics, most assaults take place within relationships and are not even considered assaults by the assaulted women ( it is the interpretation of the people conducting the studies). Outside of the home men are actually more endangered of violence than women ( not even taking violence in prisons into account).

Don't want to defend violence in relationships, but I think it is actually a different problem than men's tendency to rape (ie people are bad at choosing mates and conducting healthy relationships)

Please show me the evidence that a non-PTSD woman's sense of risk is heightened if sex is mentioned.

Fact is, a great many if not the majority of incidents of sexual assault involve alcohol. We should then I guess move to ban it from tech events. Or we could have rational guidelines actually aimed at dealing with real incidents instead of things that might lead to an incident.