Commentary: CES and sex in Sin City

LAS VEGAS -- A breakthrough in consumer electronics marketing occurred this week. Apparently for the first time at CES, a white lace bustier, matching stockings and high-heels were deployed as a marketing tool.

They were deployed on a slender, young, apparently blonde woman who, apparently agreeably, posed for pictures with a more or less continuous line of multicultural nerds, all male, who clearly thought that it was for moments like this that 3-megapixel cell phones, Treos and digital camcorders had been invented.

If only they’d been able to get their hands on Apple’s new iPhone, which was unveiled, rudely, 415 miles away at Macworld in San Francisco, the moment might have been a climactic one.

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LAS VEGAS -- A breakthrough in consumer electronics marketing occurred this week. Apparently for the first time at CES, a white lace bustier, matching stockings and high-heels were deployed as a marketing tool.

They were deployed on a slender, young, apparently blonde woman who, apparently agreeably, posed for pictures with a more or less continuous line of multicultural nerds, all male, who clearly thought that it was for moments like this that 3-megapixel cell phones, Treos and digital camcorders had been invented.

If only they’d been able to get their hands on Apple’s new iPhone, which was unveiled, rudely, 415 miles away at Macworld in San Francisco, the moment might have been a climactic one.

The lingerie was on display in a booth dedicated to Accelevision, which could this week legitimately claim to be the “leader in mobile entertainment.”

But others gave the pioneer a run for its money.

My.vu displayed its personal media viewer along with a blonde woman in a black miniskirt, belt and deeply scooped black knit top, on matching platform heels. “Your personal entertainment just got more personal,” gushes their Web site. Indeed.

Vonage continued its retro, early '70s schtick with a trio of young women in orange-and-white minidresses and white patent-leather, knee-high platform boots, reminiscent of that era when airline stewardesses, as they were then called, were emblems of hip, free-spirited sexuality.

At the Hypnotic booth, the car audio unit of DB Research, was yet another blonde woman, this one pony-tailed, in acrylic high-heels, and a nearly sheer, very short, backless black dress, festooned with stings of silver beads. She was autographing large posters of herself, and with a practiced smile posing for pictures with still more CES attendees.

Phoenix Wireless by contrast went upscale. The company resells brand name mobile batteries, holsters, hands-free headsets, antennas and other stuff. At its CES booth, one brand name was especially prominent: “Rugged Equipment.” But almost within arm’s reach was a decidedly unrugged, willowy brunette. She had the beauty and grace of a trained professional model, as she wore a confection of a dress in fuscia silk, gathered in a slight ruffle from the hem to the midsection, where it met a plunging V-neck. She wore strappy gold lame heels. According to a sign, the dress was by Nicole Miller of New York. Rugged’s Nubuck Universal Pouch would have looked out of place for sure, though.

“Sex sells.” That’s something that both Hollywood, Calif., and Fifth Avenue, in New York, readily agree on. But Silicon Valley, for all its hipness, has been markedly prudish in its advertising. High-tech companies have used the metaphors of desire to describe things, and usually do so without innuendos or double entendres, but only the subtle suggestiveness of “cool” and “hot,” which oddly mean exactly the same thing, “sexy” and sometimes a bit more daringly, “slick.”

Skin, so necessary to the massage, has rarely been part of the message in high tech. Cameras caress only the mirrored surface of a new mobile phone or a flat panel monitor.