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There's some subtle things going on in that anecdote that are easy to miss.

The meeting they were in was a very stressful one, in a very stressful era. The person who looked nervously at her to see her response was new to the group. Guessing based on his concern, he hadn't yet been "initiated" into a more casual relationship with the others in the room. He was still on a somewhat formal ground.

The person who made the comment was cutting through the unspoken fog underlying the meeting, and no doubt was intentionally using blunt language to assist in that.

She responded with mildly crude humor of her own to indicate not only that she wasn't taking offense, she appreciated the attempt to break through the unspoken fog. She was also bringing the new guy into the circle a bit.

The speaker continued with crude humor to sort of close the scene out. What a screenwriter would call a "button". It also emphasized his original point- "Let's get past this posturing we've been doing. We know what the game really is here, we're normal people and we've been fighting for our own interests."

That would be the end of that line of humor, since it had now served its purpose.

The same approach would usually (but not always) be inappropriate in a meeting of new acquaintances, but this was a different case.

This was an inner circle in a time of stress, bringing a new member a little closer in.

You're absolutely right that there is a lot of nuance in that particular situation, and you did a good job of breaking it down. But that's my point: Brad was taking a very big risk in thinking that Heidi was on the exact same page. And we know that other people, even trusted friends at times, can read situations very differently than we do. If Heidi was even slightly uncomfortable around Brad or, say, had been groped earlier that day -- things unbeknownst to Brad -- her reaction could have been quite different.

I've been in situations where the relationships between coworkers have been misread. In one case, two women reported a male coworker to HR after he sent out an email that many people, including other women in the group, seemed to think was innocuous.

So I'd hate for someone to read Roizen's post and think that that is the typical response to sexual jokes in the workplace. Even if everyone laughs in the moment, someone may walk away feeling ashamed. More to the point, if you're looking for a way to break the tension, you can probably find a way to do it without making a joke that could potentially make some uncomfortable.

  “This is bullshit.  Each one of us is just sitting here with
  his dick in his hand asking for more money without truly
  justifying it.”

  Jason looked nervously at me, wondering how I was going to react. 

  “This is making me very uncomfortable,” I said. “Because I don’t
  even have a dick to hold.”

  Without skipping a beat, Brad replied “well if you need a dick to
  hold you can borrow mine anytime.”

What I think Brad did in that comment is express his frustration at the vanishingly small pot of money they were trying to divvy up, and the way everyone was going about it. From the extremely narrow context, I definitely do not get the impression Brad was saying anything even remotely like "you're here to service the males."

I also think you have it wrong that "any respectful male" would feel uncomfortable from that comment. From that one comment I can relate to exactly what Brad is describing, and I assure you it has nothing to do with actual dicks.

Who in this industry cannot identify with the feeling that everyone in some meeting is 'sitting here with his dick in his hand, asking _______'? I could never feel uncomfortable with someone making that comment, because I would understand exactly what they were saying.

My thoughts about someone on HN getting called out for "sexist language" that I put on my blog instead of mixing it up here, thus probably almost no one has seen it:

http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2014/03/grow-set.htm...

Have an upvote.

I think Brad's comment was rude and the only comeback to lighten the mood would be to ask him to slice and hand his dick over.

but hard to think this way for those not natural at wit.

I see what you are saying but I simply disagree. Depending on the age, specific region, and various other social contexts of the participants, not to mention the context of their existing relationship, that joke can be just fine and the story implied it was, in that case.

I don't agree that the comment underscored the power differential, rather than wryly acknowledging the reality that the expression didn't work well in a mixed gender group.

It is also worth bearing in mind, that when people aren't offended by a sexual suggestion, they tend to be complimented. Because the majority of people, regardless of gender, like to feel attractive. This is one reason why the area is so hard to navigate, the line between compliment and offense can be so hard to locate, but compliments are one of the primary ways we smooth over social awkwardness and bond.

I personally feel people should make a distinction between what makes them feel bad, and what constitutes someone else being wrong.

If I feel I am being treated disrespectfully, it is enough, and I will act accordingly. I don't need the disrespectful person to be "wrong." I just need to not experience that behavior any longer. Maybe I'm wrong. Who cares. I'm not going to embrace a situation which feels bad, regardless of objective "wrong." Whether I handle it by asking for clarification, leaving the room, firing something back, this is situational. But in any event, my feelings are my feelings, not someone else's responsibility.

I think the argument is that there are many ways to compliment someone that aren't sexual, and that sexual statements (whether compliments or otherwise) should not be used in work situations: that even in a situation where a sexual statement is taken as a compliment rather than an offense, it is still inappropriate for work.

I understand the argument and I think it is

a) unrealistic

and

b) especially true for a certain time and place

and

c) a standard for behavior which may have unintended consequences. If you want to regulate a behavior, you should be able to demonstrate that the harm imposed by the regulation is less than harm prevented by the regulation. In my opinion a blanket ban on sexual comments in the workplace probably does more harm than good.

She did not seem to interpret the joke the way in the way that you are doing here. As with most humor, we can assume that a lot of the meaning had to do with tone and body language, and she describes the "borrow mine" comment as something which defused the tension created by an earlier remark.

That's exactly what I found so strange about this article. In his first remark the dick is clearly a figure of speech. In this case it's maybe an unfortunate phrase but it doesn't really exclude people without male genitalia (because it's not really about those).

His second remark, however, is clearly innuendo. And that was described as having diffused the situation. As a reader, the first remark did not affect me, but this second one absolutely does feel weird and inappropriate.

All of which probably illustrates that I lack social awareness, but for some reason I find this example very confusing.

To the contrary, I think it illustrates your social awareness. You're exactly right -- in the first comment, he using dicks in a generic way to make a point about everyone in the room, including himself. This isn't the issue, really.

The issue is in his next comment when he jokes about Heidi handling his dick frequently. Yes, yes, it's a joke, so it's different from doing something physical like putting her hand on his crotch. But in telling the joke, he paints a picture of the one female in the room in a sexual position. Many people would be uncomfortable about that, even embarrassed. It's not a professional thing to do.

Why read into it this far, and just completely ignore what she said of the incident, "I took it for the joke it was intended to be..."

I don't think it was meant to be taken the way you portrayed it at all.

> But did anyone else feel that Brad Feld was very, very lucky that it was Heidi Roizen in the room and not someone less forgiving when he said, "well if you need a dick to hold you can borrow mine anytime"?

She indicates that they knew each other. So I suspect that it had nothing to do with luck that he addressed her; it might have been precisely because it was someone like her, that he said that.