[jodrellblank]

It's not about "the remotest possibility of offending people", it's about the cultural background that a large penis is pushed as a dominating, masculine thing, and being in a room of 80% male attendees and someone makes a "big dongle" comment (for example) skews the environment in a male-friendly-masculine-dominance way and a female-unfriendly way.

In the same way that being around a group of really rich people and saying you missed an appointment because your car broke down and they say "didn't want to get the weekend car wet, eh? Why didn't you hire one for the day you cheapskate! Hahaha!".

It's not the mention of money that matters, it's the automatic dismissal of your life situation as something that doesn't happen to real people - it isn't even a concept - to all the other people in the group, and how alienating that scenario is to be on the 'wrong' side of. The implicit pushing of the idea "everybody" is rich and because you aren't, well, you aren't really a person. Not really.

And you say "hey, I couldn't afford one, I missed whatever it was and that sucked for me" and they say "what do you want me to do, pretend I'm a pauper forever and never talk about money? That's just political correctness GONE MAD!".

But the request is not "they should pretend to be poor", it's more like "they should consider your situation as a real person and then not say something that sounds like a clueless bozo said it".

[ciupicri]

Since you've started this analogy what am I doing in that group of rich people if I don't belong there? Also, do I really want to be there or am I doing it just because it's cool or whatever?

[jodrellblank]

I hadn't decided, but it ought to be something basically irrelevant to the point, so not a country club or a networking event with potential investors. Maybe you were pushed by family obligation into visiting your spouse's rich relative at their lakeside property and all got invited next door to a barbecue. How's that?

They're all rich and friendly, they're basically "nice" people, and you're not rich in their league. They're "trying" to help you fit in, but somehow everything they say just helps to heighten the feeling that you aren't equal and don't belong. You roll with the punches, you aren't offended, but you are alienated. You'll make the best of the night, but next time you'll try harder to avoid going.

Which is fine for an informal night with strangers, but it's not the feeling a trying-to-be-inclusive professional event wants to invoke in significant fractions of the population. It's the difference between them "trying" to be friendly (in quotes - meaning acting how they would act to each other to be friendly) and actually being friendly in the all you have to do is whatever it takes sense.