arguments can change my mind, some comments, here or elsewhere, are smarter than “academic” articles (But changing his mind does not necessarily mean totally agreeing with these former “opponents”) 
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So I work with about a dozen women. They can be divided into two camps. About half are 18-25 - a mix of single and dating women, in college or college educated, the other half 26-50-ish, mostly married with families etc.
All well educated with a broad range of ethnicities and places of origin. I was asking them about men describing things like gear, cars, inanimate objects using words like ‘sexy’ etc., and how there was a paper written about it viewing the practice in the negative.
The overwhelming consensus among these women was that it was absurd. They pointed out that when they see something they like such as a pair of shoes, a dress, a car, and they think it’s sexy that they say it’s sexy.
They then went on to make fun of anyone thinking a man shouldn’t do the same. In particular they railed for about twenty minutes on men who would waste their time writing a academic paper about it and any man that agreed with it. The things they were saying we’re so funny my cheeks hurt from laughing so much.
For the next hour I got to hear about how they wished those guys would do something useful like learn how to fix a toilet or use power tools.
The younger women were saying how they were sick of teaching their boyfriends how to drive a stick shift or how much they hated when a guy wore tighter pants than they would wear.
I asked them if they would be offended if I ever told them that they looked nice in the work place and they shook their heads in disbelief, the older women telling the younger ones how sorry they felt for them having to deal with todays men.
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As an academic of more or less the same tribe as the authors i seriously think there are some misconceptions in this thread about their intentions.
Firstly, assume that they are not (primarily) writing to you but to other equally science-geeky peoply who read that particular academic journal it was posted in. It is not meant to make us (gearheads) smarter about ourselves but to explain to a academic circle some of the mechanisms at play in gear fetishism.
Secondly though you might think that they have a particular version of things that they are trying to cram down your throat… this is most likely not the case. The paradigm in question focuses on the multiple enactments of reality and interpreting things from a post-structuralist standpoint. In this sense they very much know that it is just one perspective, among thousand possible perspectives.
Thirdly the mocking of this not being “science” is ticking me off. Might be the english word connotes technical sciences. But in my native tongue, what happens in both chemistry and history departmens is “viden-skab” directy translated to “knowledge” . Which anyone would agree goes on both in humanities and technical fields… sorry about the rant, but nasty political campaigns targeting non-positivistic researchers kind of makes me want to question positions that humanities are lesser value. (the political campaigns curiously only targeted researchers producing ideas and results did not comply with said politicians worldview… so go figure)
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Just to be clear: “sexy” is neutral. That’s not what we’re talking about.
But it’s funny cause I asked my wife what she thought about someone ascribing gender to a drum machine and her response was: “That’s bullshit. A thing is not a person.”
See how personal anecdotes work? Everyone’s got one.
Thing is, I may not even have a wife.
See how the internet works?
That the pushback was strong enough to get MW and GS to change their name, I think its safe to say its a problem for a lot of people.
Why don’t we just err on the side of safe instead of putting in all this effort to (checks notes) ascribe gender to synths.
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No matter what anyones typing with their keyboard at the end of the day you can call your drum machine what ever the fuck you want. 
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I fucking hate the internet.
A great idea completely wasted on the idiots that use it.
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Here’s my anecdote: I have two family members, both women, who give their car a name, like Sally or whatever. It always seems to be a female name. When talking about their cars, they would use that name or ‘she’. Whenever they get a new/different car, first thing they do is decide on a name for ‘her’.
As long as it’s not called Christine I think it’s probably fine
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And dont get me started on female vs male connectors on these things. That terminology has got to be scrapped as well🤔
Wasnt the internet first used by the military? Poignant words.
My Akai Force is a girl. Her name is Shirley. Shirley is sexy.
And I love her.
Your using it, shit, so am I.
My in-laws are right, I’m an idiot.
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Only academics should be allowed to use the internet, not the unwashed riff raff.
I think the problem occurs when academics mistake things people say on the internet for things that happen in reality.
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I remember when the internet was mainly for funny cat videos. Those were the days.
I would prefer to think of them as conversations and not arguments… I think that what hinders societal progress the most is lack of open conversations or the argumentative approach which many opinionated people (like myself at times) seem to fall into when confronted with ideas which sometimes feel threatening or whatever…
It was only in the last year or so that I really paid attention to how hurtful the “r” word could be to some and made me feel a bit stupid at first that it took me so long to figure that out.
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Is that due to their social ineptitude and limited real world experience?
It is still unclear to me how someone could start a website called gearslutz and not think it in poor taste from day 1.
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I remember when the internet was about looking up something like Bass Weejuns (originator the the penny loafer) and somehow stumbling upon a website of guys who discussed their love of squishy wet dress shoes. Now that’s a real fetish!
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My aunt had a car she called Betsy. And when the car was on its last legs and due to be scrapped she jokingly acted like she was crying over losing a loved one…