[npfmn]

If women say there is something wrong with flirting at a conference, then there is something wrong with it. It's a professional event.

Why is a professional event even seen as "an opportunity for a casual hook up"?

To say that flirting is "natural" is quite a claim; while it might be prevalent in our culture, that doesn't mean it's natural.

[autarch]

At the last programming conference I attended, I saw a man and woman holding hands. These two people had not, to the best of my knowledge, met before the conference. I don't know how far this relationship went (not that it's my business), but it was clearly mutual, and it started at the conference.

Conferences are both professional and social. In fact, it's hard to think of anything that is purely professional. People form short- and long-term relationships through all sorts of initial meetings.

I don't see any women saying "all flirting all is wrong at a conference". I see them saying they don't want to be harassed. The two things are not the same. I've talked to women at length about these issues and I've championed the adoption of strong anti-harassment policies at conferences I speak at (http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-c...).

Maybe we just have different definitions of flirting. To get back to the original article, the Twitter exchange that it highlights is not flirting. It's just a man being an asshole. I also note that the article makes no mention of the word "flirt". It talks about "harassment", "groping", and "sexism".