Yes, I did realize that. (Although note that I didn't say you are a dick, I said you were coming across as a dick. These aren't the same thing.) Two issues guided that word choice: First, it was an attempt (possibly a poor one) to speak in a language closer to the sort you were using so the point might come across better. Second, in this particular context, the relevant point is that in a highly male environment you were using a negative term for the genitalia of the other gender. That said, neither of these were probably very good arguments. While one could potentially argue that in our society "dick" is more gender neutral as an negative term than "pussy", that argument seems to be more of a rationalization than a genuinely useful argument. I suspect that there may have also been some degree of priming occurring given that I had earlier today had a conversation with a female homo sapiens who expressed disinterest in Less Wrong because it "looked like a sausage-fest" (and also apparently that this thread as well as some of the other relationship related threads were "creepy"). Some amount of Phil Plait's speech was also floating around. But even that is an explanation more than a good reason. So I'll just say that I was aware of what I was doing, made a conscious decision to do so, but in retrospect had poor reasons for doing it.

Rule 1 was incomplete. Judgments that things are of equal value are obviously suspect as well.

It should be, but compared to women, most men are relatively less offended at the slur. Double standards; go figure.

That wasn't the point at all, as far as I can tell.

Yes, I think reasonable individuals can read the statement differently. I suspect that my reading was on the more negative end of the spectrum, and I do have to wonder what primed me to think of it, and I don't have a good explanation for that. That said, it doesn't seem like an unreasonable interpretation. It seems that the difficulty of reading what other humans mean in a text medium is really quite difficult. While this is a known fact, I apparently don't compensate for it as well as I should. That said, I suspect that I am very likely not the only person who read the comment in the way I read it.

Did you forget to update on the new information that was provided to you?

No. I did update, but see elsewhere in this subthread where I discussed the relevance of that remark.

That's a good point. I'm making a bad assumption that other humans will focus on the same issues in a comment that I will especially when it is long and contains a variety of different points.

I had hoped the reply to you by komponisto would have resolved that feeling for you. It came with a wikipedia link!

Komponisto's comment there and the ensuing discussion was etymologically fascinating. I doubt the vast majority of readers were already aware of the relevant etymology (indeed, you were unaware of the etymology). Remember, rationalists should win. If something has a connotation that is likely to be extremely distracting and trigger strong emotional reactions, then using the excuse that a sufficiently intelligent, educated and rational reader would not have that reaction is not helpful.

I think, incidentally, that one of the issues that may be occurring in our disagreement of how your remarks contributed to the signal/noise is what constitutes signal and noise. In particular, it is possible that I'm using a broader notion of what information is being conveyed in some sense, so I consider emotional triggers to be noise even if they aren't denotatively part of a message.