The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is the Oscars of the tech industry. For the rest of us, it’s a chance to get a first look at the coolest new gadgets: self-rolling suitcases, roll-up TVs, smart toilets, and out-of-this world wearables. A big debut here can kick-start interest and orders for a new product. And that’s especially true if you’re honored with one of CES’s Innovations Awards.
So when Lora Haddock, CEO of the company Lora DiCarlo, heard her product was getting the Innovation nod, she was pumped. The company’s little invention? It’s called Osé, and it’s a hands-free robotic massager that stimulates the clitoris and the G-spot to help women achieve a “blended orgasm.” But a few weeks later, the honor was abruptly rescinded and Haddock was told the Osé was disqualified. When she pressed for answers, things got worse—the company was banned from even showing at CES.
The Osé (whosename means “risqué” in Italian) may be titillating, but it’s also a technological feat. Developed by a team of mostly female engineers and with the robotics lab at Oregon State University, the Osé uses advanced micro-robotics to simulate the sensations of the human mouth, tongue, and fingers. The tech is so sophisticated—it currently has eight patents pending in robotics, biomimicry, and engineering—the smart massager earned a coveted spot as an honoree in the robotics and drones category in CES’s Innovation Awards Program. Before the honor was revoked, that is.
So what went wrong?
Sex at CES
CES is no stranger to sex tech. The legendary show has included VR porn booths, smart vibrators, and even a sex robot in recent years. With the background in robotics and impressive list of pending patents, Osé didn’t seem out of place. And for awhile at least, officials at CES were clearly impressed. Emails and letters between the Consumer Technology Association (CTA), which hosts CES, and Lora DiCarlo confirm that on October 10, 2018, Haddock’s company received a congratulatory email notifying them the Osé was a 2019 honoree. “The product had been vetted by CTA,” says Haddock, a Navy veteran and nurse who began researching female erogenous zones after having her first blended orgasm in her 20s, “and went on to a panel of expert judges who decided that it qualified and deserved an award.”
The first hint of a problem came via an email several weeks after Lora DiCarlo had been informed they’d won. It said due to the product’s “adult” nature, Osé couldn’t be displayed on the exhibition floor. The organizers suggested a private room could be arranged instead. To Haddock, this felt like a double standard. Just last year Abyss Creations debuted the Solana sexbot, an “artificial female with porn star proportions,” during an event on Engadget’s stage in the main hall of the convention center. “You can see a stark contrast between explicitly sexual products for men, which don’t have to go through the kind of red tape that products for people with vaginas do,” Haddock says. (In an email sent to Glamour, a spokesperson for CTA said that despite Solana’s very visual presence, Abyss Creations was “not an official exhibitor at CES.”)
Shortly after, CTA sent Lora DiCarlo another email informing the company that its award was being revoked, citing a clause which states any entry CTA deems to be “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane, or not in keeping with CTA’s image” will be disqualified. (A subsequent letter from CTA president Gary Shapiro and executive vice president Karen Chupka gave a different reason, making the reversal seem more like an administrative error. This follow-up letter stated Osé was “ineligible for entry in the robotics and drones category” and chalked the entire incident up to a “misunderstanding”; CTA apologized and said it would refund the company’s application fee.)
Based on past award winners, the indecency clause seems like a stretch. In 2016, OhMiBod’s Lovelife Krush kegel exerciser/vibrator was named “Best Digital Health and Fitness Product”; the same year, the Little Bird smart vibrator by B.Sensory won a CES Innovation Award in the wearable technology category. If these devices weren’t considered “immoral, obscene, indecent, profane, or not in keeping with CTA’s image,” why was the Osé?
When Haddock asked for an explanation, she says CTA didn’t have a satisfactory answer. “The only response we got was they went a step further,” she says. “[They] told us we were not eligible for any category at all at CES, and that they were not only revoking our award, but we were banned from the show.”
When Glamour reached out to CTA for comment, the organization emailed saying Osé “does not fit into any of our existing product categories and should not have been accepted for the Innovation Awards Program.” The statement went on: “CES does not have a category for sex toys. CTA had communicated this position to Lora DiCarlo nearly two months ago and we have apologized to them for our mistake.” A spokesperson also added that some of the other sex tech companies that have won past awards were considered examples of “emerging technology categories.” “We have acknowledged certain inconsistencies in our processes and we are continuing to make strides to improve,” the statement read.
A Bros-Only Bias?
Lora DiCarlo isn’t the first sex tech company to suggest gender bias may have been at play at CES. Liz Klinger, the CEO of smart vibrator company Lioness, says she was denied admission to the CES 2018 new company showcase—the same year male-led Naughty America was permitted to demonstrate its augmented-reality porn app, in a “prominent spot,” according to Klinger. “The reasons conveyed to us from backchannels were that [CES] had unspecified ‘bad experiences’ in the past so were banning all ‘obscene’ products,” she says. “[But] having AR porn that can be viewed on a public show floor could also be interpreted as ‘obscene’ and make attendees feel uncomfortable, so I’m not sure what their criteria is.”
A squeamishness about women and sex, or about women’s sexuality, has made news beyond CES. Last May, New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) subway system took issue with sex toy company Unbound’s pastel-hued ads with illustrations of dildos and vibrators in bathrooms, and amid lounging women. But the MTA has accepted erectile-dysfunction ads from companies like Roman, whose ads feature a man’s crotch, and Hims, which uses images of cacti and eggplants meant to suggest erect penises. In 2015, Thinx’s period-proof undies—illustrated with images of eggs and grapefruits—were initially rejected for “too much skin” among other concerns but were eventually approved without changes. And just last week, Dame Products said in an Instagram post that after initially having its ads for vibrators approved last summer, the MTA was now rejecting them due to a policy that “prohibits any advertisement that promotes a sexually oriented business.”
Despite the disappointment over this year’s CES, Lora DiCarlo is still coming out a winner. Another event adjacent to CES—which recognizes “the most innovative technology products submitted by event exhibitors” at CES, but is not endorsed by CTA, selected Osé for the IHS Markit Innovation Award. It took the top prize in—you guessed it—robotics and drones. “One of the judges very quietly came up to me afterwards,” Haddock says, “shook my hand and said, ‘We promise we won’t take this one away from you.’”
Lisa Liebman is a New York City journalist covering entertainment, pop culture, and women’s issues.
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