“Like a virgin, bought for the very first time ….”
A 22-year old student from Sacramento, going under the pseudonym “Natalie Dylan”, is auctioning off her virginity at a brothel in Nevada called the “Moonlite Bunny Ranch”. She has her Bachelor’s degree in women’s studies, and plans to use the money from this auction to pay for Master’s degree in psychology in preparation for a career in marriage counseling and family psychology. Originally using Ebay to auction off her virginity, Natalie had to switch to other means of publicity due to Ebay’s policy of “Humans, the human body, or any human body parts are not permitted on eBay.” Howard Stern, one of the original “Shock Jocks” of radio, headlined the promotion of the auction, while the consummation of the deal is scheduled at the self-proclaimed “de-virginising capital of America”, Moonlite Bunny Ranch (where Natalie’s older sister works).
Most of the controversy involves the morality of prostitution. A few comments are she’s not a prostitute but the auction is prostitution, which I find to be contradiction in terms – a prostitute is someone who engages in prostitution. If she’s participating in prostitution, she’s a prostitute. She may not be a professional prostitute; it may be her first time, but that’s what she is if she goes through with this. Regardless of your opinion on prostitution, the strangest thing I find about this situation is her justification for it.
Below are some soundbites from Natalie:
“I understand some people will condemn me … but I think this is empowering. I’m using what I have to better myself. “
“I don’t think auctioning my virginity will solve all my problems, but it will create some financial stability. I’m ready for the controversy … I’m ready to do this.”
“Through this process I’m not just looking for the highest bidder. I’m looking for someone who is a genuine, overall nice person.”
“We live in a capitalist society. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?
A capitalist society is not equivalent to a corrupt or immoral society. It can be corrupt or immoral, but it is not necessarily so. Capitalism is concerned with allowing supply and demand to regulate prices and the availability of goods in a free market. Under this definition, as long as there is a demand for a commodity, someone who is willing to supply it should be allowed to. Without morals, unrestrained capitalism may result in an extreme case such as this: the rich and powerful have found a way to extend lives by using the body parts of others when their own body parts wear out from old age or are damaged by injury. There is a need for body parts for the rich and powerful who are willing and able to pay extraordinary costs to secure these goods. Suppliers will murder to harvest body parts to sell to the rich and powerful. Do you believe this is justified – the suppliers are making a good living at the expense of others? Is it moral? A society which only values capitalism and not morality would not have a problem with the above scenario.
You may ask about organ donors who allow doctors to salvage any usable parts of their bodies after their deaths and compare that to Natalie’s case: “It’s her body, she can do what she wants with it just like organ donors are free to choose what happens to their bodies.” While it’s true that it is her body and she can do what she wants with it, it is not the same as organ donations. Organ donation is a matter of life and death; popping someone’s cherry isn’t. Being the recipient of a organ donation doesn’t fulfill a fetish to have five kidneys, three livers, or two hearts. Natalie selling her virginity is pandering to a specific market that can at best be described as predatory. What she does behind closed doors is up to her, but to promote this auction at the national scale is sending a bad message both to other young women and to the sexual predators. Young women may take this as a cue to offer themselves up to make some extra cash – putting them in dangerous situations, while making it even easier for sexual predators to temporarily sate their cravings which may embolden them even more because it’ll be “so easy to get young flesh.” Check out what happened to Allison Stokkes who didn’t even want the attention she got and extrapolate what will happen if girls auctioning off their bodies becomes common place – how much more dangerous will these predators become?
The thought that this is “empowering” is absurd. There seems to be an undercurrent that empowering women means for them to embrace their sexual power, but doesn’t that run counter to their actual goal? If women are to be empowered, shouldn’t they be considered more than just a piece of meat? Don’t they want to be respected for who they are, not what they look like or what fleeting fantasy (like virginity) they can offer? She claims to be using the money to better herself by getting a higher education and some herald her as a brilliant entrepreneur/marketing strategist, but if she wants to be empowered and affirm her educated status why doesn’t she obtain a scholarship for outstanding scholastic achievement? Why isn’t she showing that she can make it in a man’s world on her own merit instead of twisting some rich man’s perverse need to achieve those goals?
I wish her the best in finding a “genuine, overall nice person” who is both rich and will deflower her in the way she wants. I’m not sure how her career as a marriage counselor and family therapist will fare after this stunt (“I understand she’s cheating on you, Joe, but it’s just sex. It doesn’t mean anything …”, “Jane, if I hear you correctly, your father won’t buy you a car if your grades don’t improve – but you don’t need him to get it for you. Get it yourself. Here’s what I did one time ….”), but maybe it’ll fly. Most of all, I hope that other women will empower themselves and respect themselves in a way that allows others to respect them as well.
-Reference-
http://a11news.com/641/natalie-dylan/
http://www.digitalalchemy.tv/2008/09/natalie-dylan-virgin-auction-photos.html
