CES: When Sextech Collides with Misogyny
CES is the largest tech show in the world. Held every year in Vegas, it’s a barometer for trends in the tech world — you can reliably predict what will become big in the coming years by walking around the floor and seeing what is debuting.
One area that’s been steadily growing is sextech, of course. I watch mostly from the sidelines because as a man in the world of sextech, a lot of what I write feels like “mansplaining” to me. There is a lot of innovation going on in sextech, and most of it is done by women. This is not an accident. During an interview with a European business journal I was once asked to explain why sextech innovators are usually women, and my reply was that women are more driven to improve their sex lives than men so they’d be a lot better at sextech than men. CES actually reflects this — until this year, the biggest sextech splash at the show was a sex doll produced by a male-led company(*yawn*). If that’s not the definition of banal, I don’t know what is.
This year promised to be something different. A female founded company, Lora DiCarlo, initially won a coveted CES Innovation Award for their Osé “vibrator” product. While technically a vibrator, the device is so much more than that. Using biomimicry and robotics, the Osé allows women to reach orgasm while keeping the experience hands-free. It’s an incredible technical advance…
