Makers of robotic female sex toy firm brands tech show sexist after being stripped of award

Technology show CES has been accused of gender bias after it stripped a female sex toy company of a top award.

Lora DiCarlo’s Ose Massager was named as an honouree in the CES Innovation Awards’ robotics and drones category but it then had its award revoked by organisers, the firm’s founder, Lora Haddock, has claimed.

In a post on the company’s website, Ms Haddock claims the hands-free female massager was vetted by the Consumer Technology Association (CTA) and a panel of expert judges, who scored the device highly enough for it to be among the products recognised in the awards.

But she claims the organisers then backtracked over the award, initially citing a rule around the ability to disqualify any device deemed ‘immoral, obscene, indecent, profane or not in keeping with CTA’s image’, before saying the device did not fit in the robotics and drone category.

Ms Haddock said: ‘Putting aside for a moment the implication that women’s sexual wellness products are somehow immoral or obscene – if we didn’t fit their policy, how in the world did our application even get past the first round of vetting by CTA staff, let alone receive high marks across the board from their expert judges?

‘It’s also important to note that a literal sex doll for men launched on the floor at CES in 2018 and a VR porn company exhibits there every year, allowing men to watch pornography in public as consumers walk by.

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‘Clearly CTA has no issue allowing explicit male sexuality and pleasure to be ostentatiously on display.

‘Other sex toys have exhibited at CES and some have even won awards, but apparently there is something different, something threatening about Ose, a product created by women to empower women.’

In response, the CTA told The Verge that the award had been revoked because the Ose did not fit into any existing product categories and should not have been originally accepted for the awards programme.