[Time to burn some karma.]<p><i>"Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue..."</i><p>This strikes me as lazily nonspecific. Isn't sexual language and imagery a pervasive part of the human experience? Isn't the problem specifically with sexual language and imagery which disempowers and objectifies people against their will? With language as general as that, you could outlaw a glance paired with a half-smile given by someone in Victorian garb completely covered from the neck down and wrists up. I've said it before: Maybe a Victorian level of carefully maintained polite deniability could facilitate greater consensuality, so long as it's absent the Victorian level sexual inequality and doublethink. (It could also be used in the opposite direction.)<p>I don't disagree with the notion that the language of human sexuality has been twisted in unhealthy ways to support the status-quo power structure. I've personally been on the short end of that deal. However, I do disagree with emotionally driven backlash devoid of consideration that seeks to vilify. Traditional cultures have already tried shaming, fear, and repression as instruments of control over human sexuality. How about we start to further consensuality and open communications instead? And for that, the atmosphere created by vilification is only unhelpful.<p>What we have here is a fundraising rave that's using sex in its marketing of an event at a nightclub. Nightclubs are supposed to be sexually charged. It suffuses the music and couture around such venues. What if a similar event had happened at a gay club, with the photo shot with two beautiful young men in the same garb and with the same poses and facial expressions? Would Techweek have come after them?<p>It seems like Techweek needs to clarify its policies surrounding concurrent events. It's a typical organizational response to greatly overshoot on the side of caution. Hopefully, this will be understood as just that.<p>EDIT: Downvote, eh? Funny how the stance of "You're either for us or against us" is cited as a sign of George W. Bush's intellectual bankruptcy, but is the unspoken policy around subjects like this.