Re: About friggin' time.
@skeleband
Yes, they are. But they are also insulting. I kind of get them at car shows because - so far as I know (I'm not much of a 'car person') - they are usually reserved for the super cars and high-powered sports cars with fences around them. You wouldn't see them, for instance, draped over the latest Subaru Forrester with mum and dad trying out the seats.
In that way, they are part of the 'you wish', going-for-a-perv-at-something-I-can't-have fantasy, rather than the 'let's see if we should wait until the new model Focus comes out'.
At a tech conference - it's all the latter market: we're there to see the new technology because we are interested in it capabilities and whether it is suitable for us. Mostly, at least.
At something like E3, I can, again, understand it more because E3 is about entertainment and, for many males - especially younger males - looking at attractive younger women in revealing outfits is entertaining.
I don't necessarily approve of it and, again, I just don't go to these things so it doesn't really affect me much but I can understand it in those contexts, where people are throwing around words and catch-phrases like "thrills" and "excitement" and "ride of your life" and so on.
I do not, however, understand in the slightest, why this is happening at a conference where people go to hear speakers discuss the best ways to implement "risk management frameworks" and "strategies to enable local law enforcement personnel to collaborate more closely with international police organizations".
For the person, above, who jumped up and down about the use of the word "thing", my use of the word "it" in the preceding text refers to "the practice and institution of having 'booth babes' at conferences and trade shows"; I am not suggesting a 'booth babe' is an 'it'. So we can all calm down, okay?