I may be misunderstanding you here, but your comments feel to me as if they're based on an assumption that everyone in society faces more or less comparable levels of offensive behavior. For instance, to my eye, your argument about lawyers only holds water if it's based on the assumption that lawyers (as a group) routinely face a level of marginalization and abuse that women (as a group) do.

In point of fact there's no urgency about banning lawyer jokes, because lawyers are one of the most respected professions in our society (as measured by various surveys about social status, etc.). Through some combination of talent, hard work, and good fortune they have wound up in a group that suffers very little discrimination. When people do make jokes about them they may find it unpleasant, but at the end of the day they're still more or less on the top of the heap.

Women, on the other hand, face a thoroughly entrenched social structure that treats them as less capable and less important than men. There's a recognized problem that many women feel uncomfortable in technical circles, and offensive jokes are a real part of that problem. So every offensive joke about women needs to be understood against that background: it's not a one-time irritation, but part of an ongoing pattern. So attempts to discourage those jokes aren't just "nobody should feel offended, ever", they're one small step that we can take to fix the much larger problem.

> What if we polled all conferences for all language that some attending population feel is off the table? Should lawyers plan to vote to ban all lawyer jokes, even if said by insiders?

The problem with slippery slope arguments is that they have a simple solution of stopping the slope, or at least considering each new idea separately: don't make sex jokes, but do (or not, whatever) make lawyer jokes.

I can think of at least four reasons that making sex jokes at tech conferences might be significantly more problematic than making lawyer jokes, such that we should think much worse of people who do the former. Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't think of these.

* Women are ~51% of the population and lawyers are ~0.3% of the population, so we might pay a little more attention to the common actions we perform that hurt women.

* We already have a problem with women feeling excluded and unwelcome from our tech communities, due to past and current sexism.

* Making sex jokes around women when they're surrounded by a large group of mostly-guys means they have to start worrying more about whether someone might assault or sexually harass them soon.

* Making sex jokes at a tech conference can encourage the objectifying idea that women are there for their sex appeal, and not their technical skill. This is a cultural idea that already exists, so it's easy to contribute to and requires significant effort to combat.

> in denial about what living in a society is (it does not mean we get to proscribe other's behaviors in minutiae).

Following a code of conduct that you'd previously agreed to follow seems exactly like what living in a society is to me.

To me it's not so much a slippery slope argument but rather, what makes one population deserving of an exclusion and another not. In other words, how does one qualify that lawyers are less hurt by language that berates them vs language which damages women, on an individual level.

>about whether someone might assault or sexually harass them soon.

I think that's a big leap. This line of argument could be used to sweep up the loiters and homeless people who act like they might attack someone due to their language and behavior.

> We already have a problem with women feeling excluded and unwelcome

I think the best way to approach that is to start young. In school, drive students of either sex to the possibilities in technology. This will make the eventual males in tech familiar and receptive to eventual women in tech. they should both feel they're both a natural fit, given their disposition.

>Making sex jokes at a tech conference can encourage the objectifying idea that women are there for their sex appeal

I don't agree. The jokes are not the objectifiers. It's the people, both the doers and the receivers. They both have to agree that jokes in question are a manner of objectification for that to have effect.

If you told a lawyer joke in an audience of drug dealers, there is little effect. If it's told by someone who hates lawyers, it takes significance, in American law. A lawyer joke among an audience of Chinese lawyers might fall flat.

>Following a code of conduct that you'd previously agreed to follow seems exactly like what living in a society is to me.

I agree there are basic parameters, but I feel that some people will always be more crude than others and I'm not comfortable saying crudeness is categorically unacceptable.

> What I mean is, I prefer most conversations to be free of vulgarity and expletives; however, on occasion, I think those same offenses can be a relief --it shows me, "You know what, society is still organic and it has its blemishes." It's not all purified and true.

Really disappointed in you for writing this -- as if my argument is that swearing, fun and R-rated movies should all be removed from society. I like those things sometimes too; I am not a prude.

What I don't like is telling someone that they can come to our technical conference and we will talk about technical things with them and not make sex jokes, and then doing it anyway. Going back on that promise (in PyCon's code of conduct) is not "being organic", it's being an asshole.

I think we actually agree that there is a problem. Or should I say I agree with you that there is a problem. What I disagree is that one can, in effect, legislate the problem out. It's like making the kkk illegal, or making racial epithets illegal.

It's not going to get rid of racism and the associated problems. When I was young I used to think 'why not make all these words illegal, that should make half the problem go away?' I now realize I was unbelievably naive. It's not so easy as that. These problems are things which take decades if not centuries to nullify. And I believe the best way is through a kind of indoctrination which starts with early education and pervades through higher ed. Sure, a few people will rebel, but that should be in the very small minority.