Zivity has been accused of using female sexuality as a ploy to get attention. A ploy, or a business model, one might ask. Mary Hodder, founder of online video startup Dabble, wrote, "It's not that we object to porn, just to the using (or appearance of using) girl geeks to get back their cred. Even if that's not what's happening from their perspective, the rest of us who would like to *not* be sexualized and objectified in our work lives really find the Zivity association disconcerting."

So maybe it is impossible to separate selling images of female sexuality from the sexist tech scene, but when it comes to the question of objectification, Banister objects. "I don't think the opinion that Zivity demeans anybody is one that's held by the majority," she told Valleywag. "I'm a tech vet, and I used to be very similar — you want to strip your sexuality and just live in your brain, and be a talented, smart individual so you can compete in a male-dominated space. You become sexless — but why can't I be both? Why can't I be beautiful and sexy and be smart?"

And a legitimate executive. Zivity isn't just another porn site aping MySpace, which is precisely why it's threatening. Zivity has a Silicon Valley pedigree, which means for the first time, a company that openly embraces female sexuality is rubbing shoulders with Valley oldtimers and chasing Valley money — $8 million in venture capital so far. When female entrepreneurs feel as if they have to fight for equal time as it is, sharing space with Zivity is tantamount to being asked to sleep with the enemy.

But for women, the enemy in this case isn't porn: It's turning against each other based on what's between our own legs. Is it any woman's fault that tech pundits don't give women a fair shake? "I think there's a lot of resentment for how much coverage we get," said Banister. "But we did place at TechCrunch40, and we're venture funded — and it's not just because I took my top off. The investors and the press aren't that naive."

Nor are we. Banister didn't mention it, but Banister's husband Scott was an early employee at PayPal, and some of the funding came from Peter Thiel, Scott's former boss. Part of Zivity's assumption-challenging reality: The Valley's most prominent gay venture capitalist is helping women make money undressing.

Banister told us that though she offered to bow out of the speaking opportunity, the Bay Area Girl Geeks asked her to stay. Dinner organizer Angie Chang told a San Jose Mercury News blogger:

We invited Cyan to give a 3-5 minute introduction as she was voted Sexiest Geek Alive in 2000 (just like Ellen Spertus of Google won the award in 2001 — Ellen was invited by Google to give the intro talk at the first Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner). Cyan is also the cofounder of a Series A funded technology startup, which I respect greatly as a female tech entrepreneur myself.

That is, if embracing women in tech is really about changing the rules, then all women have to have a seat at the dinner party. Even if you don't approve of what they do for a living.

(Photo via takeitez)

The clich goes something like this: hungry film star resorts to desperate, dirty "roles" to break into Hollywood. But what do starving start-up companies do to inflate their reps and get some much-needed publicity with the hopes of breaking into buzz? They pitch their stories ("I'm a pioneer in the New Dot-Com Era!") to anyone — the Times, the Journal, Horse and Hound.

But you do NOT deliver a line like the one Mary Hodder of Dabble (that video search engine start-up — no, that other one) gave to USA Today.

"Bubbly things started happening three, four months ago," says Hodder. "It's exciting."

Ouch. Hodder must be kicking herself over that word choice. But she'll be fine — the readers of USA Today probably don't cringe at the B-word the same way we do.

Silicon Valley starts to party like it's 1999 [USA Today]

Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake: Founded Flickr, a photo-sharing site. Sold to Yahoo. Current occupation: showing that Yahoo can nurture the Flickr brand.
Joshua Schachter: Founded social bookmarking site del.icio.us. Also sold to Yahoo. Current occupation: reminding people where those dots go.
Mary Hodder: Founded Dabble, a video-sharing site. Current occupation: hopefully pulling Dabble out of private beta to play with all the other vid sites.
Tim O'Reilly: Defined "Web 2.0" in an epic essay. Current occupation: Running O'Reilly Media; secretly crafting "Web 3.0" essay.
Dalton Caldwell: Founded social IM service imeem. Current occupation: throwing parties.

Next up: Wow, Newsweek gets it.

The New Wisdom of the Web [Newsweek]