If you’ve never frequented strip clubs, or known any strippers socially and had one of them explain it to you, or (this century) bothered to look it up, I could see why this might not be obvious.

lets let consenting adults and corporations decide

Yes, a free agreement between equals!

/sarcasm should be obvious

I wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your efforts. Posts like this are the reason I still read BoingBoing and haven’t retreated to the feminist blogosphere entirely. I only wish the comments here didn’t always leave me so disappointed/infuriated/whatever.

People who don’t see anything wrong with this:

We have a problem with *sexism*, not *sexuality*!

No one here is objecting out of prudery. I support sex workers’ rights (and, yeah, Cory used the most correct/non-demeaning term), realistic sex ed and all that. Too often people take a black-and-white view of sexuality–there are the forces of sexual repression vs. the forces of sexual liberation–when the reality is much more complicated (I can’t take credit for this idea; read Michel Foucault’s History of Sexuality vol. 1. He calls this the repressive hypothesis). Many of you are operating under this false model of the history of sexuality in our culture. Just because there are repressive forces out there does not make more sex = less repression = good.

This is problematic because it assumes that everyone in the audience–all of the Hackers/Techonologists–are straight men (I’m not forgetting about lesbian or bisexual women, I just don’t think that the organizers were thinking of them when they hired the dancers; they were thinking of nerdy men, who are stereotypically desperate for sex). This makes it seem like straight men are the ones who really belong at this kind of event. Women only belong if they’re giving the guys lapdances. This marginalizes and excludes female attendees.

Would this have been better if they had hired male dancers, too? No. Events like this just shouldn’t be sexualized; it’s unnecessary, and it excludes people who are made uncomfortable by it (and there are a lot of reasons to be uncomfortable without being a prude).

Those of you saying that you never see the outrage over booth babes, etc? Maybe not here, but it’s definitely out there. I don’t remember whether BB covered it or not, but the Dante’s Inferno promotion telling people to ‘commit acts of Lust’ with the booth babes at the show was upsetting to many people for a number of reasons.

Also, @yrogerg: You have a very poor understanding of the concept of privilege. The fact that you experience sexism as a male (your example of being treated like a child molester, which is spot on) does not invalidate or undo the ways in which you are privileged. And Cory’s position of privilege doesn’t make this paternalistic and condescending–it’s not an automatic thing. Feminist analysis is complicated: do try it at home, but do get it right. You can’t just call all men sexists and all women feminists, and anyone who tells you otherwise (whatever side they’re on) is an idiot. We (feminists) want to work *with* men, not against them, to end sexism, which affects *everyone*.

You’re upset that you get presumed to be a child molester? Any men here upset that they’re assumed to be mindless, sex-craving geeks who can be easily manipulated by marketing strategies involving tits? Good, you should be! These are negative stereotypes of men and they suck! Feminists are your allies. We hate this shit, too.

P.S.: That whole ‘men evolved to have lots of sex, women evolved to have long-term relationships’ is about as good science as the Victorian studies that ‘proved’ the white race to be superior. Evolutionary psychology creates hypotheses that can’t be tested, but ‘make sense’ because they confirm our society’s (sexist) beliefs. It’s not good science and it’s finally starting to die out in the academic world.

For those of you asking if it’s OK to have scantily clad women hawking wares at ComicCon, CES, or any other tech/geek event the answer is NO. It’s a dick move. It sends the message to half of your potential consumers that their money just isn’t green enough.

The hackers got off lightly in this cultural exchange.

Yup, sex sells crap to men. Awesome. Fast cars and other shiny inaniamate objects sell shit to men, too. Congratulations, you’re fortunate enough to have the intellectual capacity to recognize the blatant attempts to manipulate you to spend money. Lots of average males lack the finesse. That’s why sexual objectification of women works as an advertising scheme when hawking your wares to only the heterosexual male.

Yo Guys, please stop acting like boob-crazed animals who hate the opposite sex despite wanting only to f**k it.

Yahoo took too long to respond, but I’m glad they did. I just hope that the troglodytes that have been making comments on the various threads will not show up here on BoingBoing.

I do wonder how straight men defending this would feel about getting teabagged by male strippers.

Yahoo! “hire sex workers”? Come on – sex workers are people and need to make money just as everyone else. Comparison to certain types of columnists and journalists apply, but that would also be unfair – these people need to make a living too, you know.

So while I admit I wouldn’t make such a hiring myself, and admitting that this might frighten off women participants from such events, I think we should just call it a bad decision, no big deal. I mean, it’s not like someone got arrested just for doing their job, as they do to sex workers in the US (and the UK too, I believe).

If he had said “It is regrettable that lap-dancers were hired for this event“, say, then that would be passive voice – you can ask, “Well, who hired the dancers?”
As it is, it’s just management-speak.

http://www.excotc.org/content/bits-and-bites-programming-first-steps
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Pyventure

Full length:

@Bade, thanks for making the point – We in the West (UK/US, specifically) may well find the actions of Yahoo offensive*.

>That others have a different way of life should Never make *us* want to change *them* – we have seen what happens when we think we know best

Actually this is incorrect. The generic ‘different way of life’ is a dead give away for comments like this. For example, “That others have a different way of life and infibulate female children…make them fight for The Lords Army…” and so on.

There are generic elements of human life which require protecting and defending. Attachment and development research clearly show that people as young as nine are not able to make decisions about very serious elements of their lives nor give consent. They are not intellectually or emotionally independent enough. That any country permits sex with children as young as nine is abhorrent and is often considered so by many older females in the countries. That the one’s you identify are dominated by masculine centric values which fail to take active steps to prevent violence against women is NOT a coincidence.

More so, the problems within the Mid East are not the consequence purely of Western influence. The current events are not a ‘because we know best’ event. They relate to the Mid East’s monopoly on oil – pull the plug on this (pun intended) and there will no longer be any strategic interest in the Mid East. Each historical epoch has had areas of significant interest. The Mid East is ours.

All of this diverges from Cory’s main point. The events described have no place in a tech event. The events are meant to be professional and are meant to be inclusive of those that attend. Offensive behaviour is often contextual and Cory’s position is clear and obvious, as are his reasons for rejecting them. Good on him. This is not a ‘cultural issue’ it is perfectly reasonable and acceptable to criticise such behaviour. It is a sham to claim any cultural bias exists – it is merely the hegemony of a particular type of masculinity that allows this to occur and Yahoo were right to back away.

It also means being progressive on the idea of including women in traditionally male areas of power (we all think hackers are powerful, right?), and being open minded about how people other than ourselves might interpret or feel about the presence of female lap dancers at a supposedly inclusive event.

you go inside and find that there are some very buff, almost-nude males up on stage giving lap dances to appreciative women while others look on and perhaps shout encouraging things. Are you going to look around and say “I’m clearly in the right place and feel very welcome here”? Probably not.

In some ways, you and I must be very different people. I’d be thrilled to be surrounded by women who felt able to express themselves and able to appreciate beauty. I see your intended point, but it just reminds me of this dialog from Futurama:

Truckstop dude (to Leela): Yo sexy mama, let’s get busy and freaky, in that order.
Fry (indignantly defending Leela): Hey jumbo, how would you like it if Leela said you were sexy and she wanted to make love with you?