> There's no reason to inject sexuality into technical things.
Flip-side, what about injecting technology into everyday things people might find sexy (e.g. clothing)? Is putting some lights or LCDs on a miniskirt less worthy as a project than sewing them on a hoodie? Neither one is particularly high-technology nowadays, but that's generally not something the Maker brand/movement cares about, and on one level the only difference is that different people are more likely to wear one over the other.
> It's not something that we really want to promote in our workspaces.
In the specific case here, Make did the "not promote" thing for years, and people didn't care all that much (@sexycyborg claimed she was banned by Make from presenting at Maker Faires, even when the local organizers were fine with it, and there were some complaints about that, but even that sparked no big outrage as far as I heard). It now only blew up when their CEO went beyond that.
That is not really sexy, no more then swimming shorts. I don't know what all dudes in here have with speedo. I suspect Americans are picking it cause they are disgusted by that for some weird reason.
Sexy dudes targeted at women look different.
Also, electrotechnics is full of sex jokes. And I have seen presentations with bikiny or other women in them for no reason. It is not like sexualitu was not there previously, it is just that it was not produced by women.
> they are disgusted by that for some weird reason
Sacha Baron Cohen as Borat.
He's not the reason, but he perfectly illuminates the reason. The banana-hammock beachwear crosses the line between sexy and sleazy. It's actually worse than just being completely naked--an expression of anti-modesty.
And as America is generally more prudish than anywhere else, other than former parts of the Caliphate, the projection of anti-modesty is offensive to us. It's fine to be good-looking, but not to explicitly call too much attention to it. It would actually be better to "accidentally" show off your six-pack abs and bulging quads than to go around singing Right Said Fred songs in a man-thong.
None of them wears speedo. They have long pants and long sleeves. Also those pics are old school as hell, like 80 idea or something, one has only dudes (ugly) face. Frankly they seem to me like dudes idea of what women should like, but if that happened to work on cover and those books were super succesfull then whatever. I checked modern romance covers and they seem to be sexier to me. So I am not all that much odd one out.
I am not saying that sexy dude wears full body outfit that covers him entirely. I am saying speedo is really not it and it is used here to play to fear of Americans of ... something speedo related. It is not example of "sexy", but of something I am supposed to find disgusting. (I dont. In here, speedo is perfectly normal for swimming.)
There's no reason to inject sexuality into technical things. It's not something that we really want to promote in our workspaces.