Sexually objectifying presentation

At Technical conferences, there are often presentations which contain suggestive or pornographic content, almost always featuring women. This is an example of a sexualized environment which can be unwelcoming to women.

It's not just women who are made uncomfortable, either. Child attendees and any accompanying adults may find this unwelcome (or frightening, depending on the content) too, and men often also for various reasons do not want to view sexual material. Anyone attending the event in a work context — geek technical conferences often have attendees who are only geeks on work time — will be unprepared for material that wouldn't be welcome when described in their work environment.

Examples

• Something at linux.conf.au ca. 2001(?)
• Debconf ftp-masters talk 2003
• Acme::Playmate talk, OSDC 2006
• Spock.com lingerie model incident, Web 2.0 Expo 2007
• SLUG Christmas card talk November 2008
• At Ignite:Velocity in Burlingame, CA in 2008, my talk on open data was bracketed by two porn talks --Skud 20:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
• CouchDB talk, Golden Gate Ruby Conference 2009
• Flashbelt slide show, Flashbelt 2009
• Richard Stallman's Desktop Summit keynote in July 2009 was described by attendee David Schlesinger as containing the following:

[Stallman defined] "EMACS virgins" as "women who had not been introduced to EMACS" along with the advice that "relieving them of their virginity" was some sort of sacred duty for members of "The Church of EMACS". [1] (there is some dispute in the comments about whether Stallman referred to women specifically, but Schlesinger and Matt Zimmerman assert that he did)

Discussion

Discussion of the general issue of sexualized presentations (discussion of specific incidents should be added to the corresponding page)

• The Porny Presentation Bingo Card (Skud's blog)
• The "controversy" continues
• Shedding Some Light on a Recent Trend

Justifications/excuses

This Porny Presentation Bingo Card has many examples of excuses

Common justifications for sexualised content in presentations include:

• He's just like that
• That the presenter was aiming for a strong Emotional response
• That the presentation was intended as humour
• That tech culture revels in being anti-establishment and unprofessional
• That there weren't any women in the audience anyway
• That if you didn't want to see it, you didn't have to attend

When is sexual material appropriate?

There are a couple of special cases of sexual content. One is using sexual content when a talk's focus is on censorship or similar. However, one of the key anti-censorship arguments is that consenting adults should have the right to view sexual material at a time and place of their choosing. An audience at a geek event is not actually consenting to view sexual material right then merely by virtue of having turned up to a talk advocating against censorship.

The other special case is on a sex-focussed geek event, where obviously sexual content is appropriate. However in this case organisers and speakers should still alert their attendees to the kind of material expected, so that the audience can be reasonably considered to have had the chance to consent. It should be made clear that audience members may freely leave a talk or activity at any time and for any reason, and they should not be called upon to justify themselves. There also needs to be clear descriptions of what content or behaviour is not welcome and emphasis placed on being inclusive of different sexual orientations, preferences and practices. It is also useful to have some part of the event as a designated "chill out" space for people who don't want to participate in sexual activities or discussions at any given moment.

Notes for conference organizers

Main article: Women-friendly events

Forewarning speakers

Gently warn your speakers about unwanted content before the event (probably at the same time you tell them about projector testing and similar things). You can say something like:

[Event name] is an all-ages event and also welcomes people of different cultural backgrounds. As such, we ask speakers not to include sexual or suggestive content in their talk or slides, and to avoid any material targeting anyone on the basis of age, religion, race, gender, sexuality or ability. Session chairs will immediately end any presentation they judge to have included such material.

You might consider allowing any speaker who is concerned about this the opportunity to discuss it and review their talk with a program committee member.

Reacting to inappropriate content

The chair or most senior organiser or volunteer present in a room should immediately intervene in any presentation outside the agreed bounds. Audience members will very rarely feel any ability to respond until well after the presentation has concluded.

In the case of slides or similar containing inappropriate material, the presentation will almost certainly need to end: later content is likely to be inappropriate too, and it's unlikely the speaker is willing to or can edit the slides significantly. The chair should approach the speaker and turn off the projection of any inappropriate content. They should then inform the speaker that the talk needs to end, and finish by apologising to the audience. In cases where the speaker is genuinely contrite, they should be allowed to apologise also.

In the case of speech, the speaker is able to change their choice of words and could be warned with a simple "stop that please, it isn't appreciated!" Repeated problems may require that the talk end.