These PMs are clearly predatory grooming and not at all somebody who may be interested in dating a colleague. If you're interested in somebody you don't act lik

These PMs are clearly predatory grooming and not at all somebody who may be interested in dating a colleague. If you're interested in somebody you don't act like Jian Gomeshi or Clarence Thomas constantly bringing up sexual innuendo, touching them or talking about porn. That's what predators in prisons do in what they call the 'punk test' to see how far they can push you. If you ignore them that means they can progress to level 2 and up the harassment. As for these conferences I always think not allowing alcohol is the best solution for avoiding the pack of idiots the author ran into with one loudly bragging about 'banging smoking hot chicks'. You could have behavior police there kicking out the people acting like they are in a frat party or you could just not have alcohol and at all times push this is a professional conference not a nightclub. You'll still run into creepy predators because that is a fact of human life. The advice I was given a long time ago when in pretrial lockup for bogus charges of violating the CFAA is never let anybody get to level 2 of the punk test, always make it known their behavior is not acceptable by directly telling them or use banter, which is how males typically interact with each other in these situations. With banter you also establish a rapport which makes it easier to tell them to cut out unprofessional behavior. The girl in this story when the drunk creep threw weak banter at her after she gave him the look for his loud creep comments could have responded with her own bantz instead of feeling humiliated, as that was a prime moment for a joke about him being at the wrong conference as it wasn't a fictional story writing con or stats joke on inaccurate analysis, with a direct reminder to keep their frat antics down. No humiliation, and message gets received the behavior isn't appropriate and the creeps will respect that you can keep up with the banter so usually won't persist. This sounds like victim blaming but predators are also good con artists who can insulate themselves with other powerful people to retain their status and deflect discipline so reality must be checked. A large accounting firm here that a friend of mine worked at in HR discovered they had a manager with numerous settled sexual harassment lawsuits none of the employees knew about they tried to keep secret. The company was more willing to keep paying settlements than they were willing to fire the harasser.