I'm not sure what question you think "sex sells" is an answer to.MegMurph said:Sex sells! I've seen it work! And it makes for a fun time had by all!
Do you think anybody is unclear on the reason why there are booth babes?
No; everybody knows sex sells. The question is whether using the sexual objectification of women to sell products is healthy. What is unclear is whether "a fun time is had by all."
Of course, we're not talking about merely the time had at a game convention. The funny thing about booth babes is that virtually no fans of video games ever interact with them. Only a tiny, tiny percentage of the gaming population attends conventions. To the question of games and sexuality, they're irrelevant.
But they're also the topic at hand. And the issue is whether the time a person spends with a booth babe affects how he or she will interact with women and girls afterward.
What's interesting is that the good people who hire the booth babes count on these lasting effects. Their hope is that potential customers will confuse their desire to have sex with the booth babe with the desire to buy a particular game. Customers can't nail the live girl, but at least they can play the game she was standing next to.
Is this a healthy behavior? Probably not. Does it lead to further unhealthy behaviors, such as measuring the value of women and girls according to how well they might sell sex? Probably.
Do other practices in people's lives countervail these influences? Sure.
Evaluating the impact of these things is difficult. It does help, however, to ask the right question in the first place.