The people being sexualized.
And maybe I just find myself in different circles than you, but I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe. Instead, I see and here statements that are more like "These are things that make me uncomfortable. Please consider them seriously."
That would be fair if the sexualization was direct e.g. Bert calling his female co-worker Linda "smoking hot". But if Bert says an algorithm is sexy, I don't know how exactly it sexualizes Linda. Society's sexualization can no longer be an excuse, because both men are women are now heavily sexualized in society.
> I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe.
The posted article is chock-full of such statements. I usually don't hear such statements from people I work with either.
Serious question -- who determines if said sexualization is needless? We as a society seem to be generally headed towards hyper-sexualization. Today, men are strongly sexualized in advertising as well [1]. Seen the massive, chiseled male movie stars in movies today compared to, say, 20 years ago? It will take a while for us to acknowledge that sexualization, but it exists today.
Now the gender balance in the tech field means that on an average, a woman will be more sexualized than a man. This can be a runaway feedback loop, and to stop it, maybe we should clamp down a little on sexualization. But it would be wise to recognize this and cast it as a logical argument, rather than make blanket, Puritanical statements like "You're a man and you're needlessly sexualizing women! STOP IT!"
[1] http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/hunkvertisin...