The CEA, organiser of the annual technology shindig that is CES, has ruled that bikini-clad booth babes are a-okay for another year.
The backlash against the scantily clad spokesladies has been steadily growing over the past few years and this year one Forbes journalist took it one step further by creating a petition against companies' use of near-nude women as glorified gadget stands.
In response, the CEA has said it will revise its guidelines on the subject but that it will not introduce any kind of dress code for the show.
The amendments will simply warn exhibitors that using booth babes could 'reflect poorly' on the company, advising that they give it some "thoughtful consideration" before placing that bulk order for 16 branded G-strings.
Talking pigs
On the matter of bringing a dress code in for the show, the CEA's Karen Chupka said "We do not want to create and impose arbitrary or unenforceable rules, or worse, inch our event towards a Talibanesque ban on exposure of skin."
Apparently the problem is that there's no middle ground between bikinis and business casual, because if the CEA banned barely-there attire from the CES show floor, it would have literally no choice but to outlaw jeans too:
"Mandating a dress code of business casual for 150,000 people or even for the subset of 51,000 exhibitor personnel, as some suggest, would mean banning blue jeans, t-shirts and other common apparel while also trampling on freedom of expression," Chupka explained.
Well as long as we're not trampling on people's rights to imply that the only viable role for a woman at a technology show is as a backdrop to the technology that only heterosexual men are interested in.
Chupka concludes that it is an exhibitor's right to decide how to market their goods, as long as they "meet our legal guidelines as well as generally acceptable standards of decency".
At least our jeans are safe.
From the BBC
