”Robotic” vibrators are not banned. OhMiBod (woman founder, too) has had them on display for years, and have a booth this year. Apparently it adjusts intensity based on your heartbeat from your apple watch now!

Also, a smart vibrator from last year, also by a woman founder:

https://sextechguide.com/news/mysteryvibe-crescendo-app-upda...

The lewdness thing is inconsistent but clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with gender bias or sexism.

OhMiBod's categorization as a personal massager is probably the determining factor- it provides the organizers enough plausible deniability to have it displayed on the main floor.

No, I did not misuse the word "ban". Read the article:

"My team rejoiced and celebrated. A month later our excitement and preparations were cut short when we were unexpectedly informed that the administrators at CES and CTA were rescinding our award and subsequently that we would not be allowed to showcase Osé, or even exhibit at CES 2019."

I.e the product was BANNED. Really seems that in this HN thread people are bending themselves backwards trying to find any other explanation for the events EXCEPT for sexism and/or discrimination. It is as if people have a priori decided that sexism can't occur.

You got an answer from someone else earlier than this comment that you didn't answer. There was vibrator, from women founder, who were at CES.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18872924

You are bending yourself backward trying to ignore that sexism or discrimination may have not been the issue here.

If theses others products were there, why wasn't they banned too if there is sexism?

That article is only one side of the story, a side that clearly want to prove that sexism and discrimination was at play here. It's fine but it only tell argument in favor of that hypothesis.

In this case, maybe her stands was relative to her winning. That would means she could no longer showcase, but wouldn't actually be disallowed to showcase (except by the deadline, which isn't sexist I can assure you ;) ).

There's still so much sexism in the world, particularly in entrepreneurship, but blaming everything on it is dangerous and can actually hurt the cause.

I didn't respond to that comment because the argument is fallacious. Just because someone has previously acted without prejudice does not mean that they will always act without prejudice in the future. It is the "I'm not Racist, I have many black friends!" argument in disguise. Especially when it comes to non-personal entities there is no firm expectation of consistent behavior.

I'm not privy to the details of this story and there are always many possible explanations for any given set of observations. I can therefore not know for sure that the explanation is sexism, but it does fit the bill. Those who discard that as even a possibility are biased.

> Those who discard that as even a possibility are biased.

You are the only one discarding possibilities here.

I didn't read it as "vibrators are banned in general", but as "vibrators are banned from receiving awards (in the robotics category)".

As far as I can tell, the VR porn and the "sex robot for men" were not given awards either. They were just present on the CES.

I believe they're not allowed to exhibit either (unless there exhibiting rights where prehaps dependent on winning an award)

we were unexpectedly informed that the administrators at CES and CTA were rescinding our award and subsequently that we would not be allowed to showcase Osé, or even exhibit at CES 2019

Not just VR porn; a sex doll too (leading to such suggestive video titles as "Sex Robot hands-on at CES 2018").

Perhaps the only reason they'd support VR porn is that that's one of the things that'll make people more inclined to buy VR-related products