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Why I'm Selling My Virginity
Courtesy of Natalie Dylan
They say you should value having sex for the first time. That’s why I’m auctioning my virginity online—and the bidding is up to $3.8 million.
When I put my virginity up for auction in September, it was in part a sociological experiment—I wanted to study the public's response. Now it seems that the tables have turned, and the public is studying me.
I’m a 22-year-old woman who recently earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Women’s Studies, and soon I’ll be entering a Masters Degree program in Marriage and Family Therapy. During the time in between, in addition to my regular 9-to-5, I’ve been exploring my upcoming thesis project: the value of virginity. To be more specific, I’ve put my own virginity up for auction on the Moonlight Bunny Ranch website, and I recently received my highest bid so far: a cool $3.8 million.
I've been congratulated for my "entrepreneurial gumption," as one CEO of a Fortune 500 company put it.
In addition to bids, however, I’ve also received an astonishing, sometimes unnerving, amount of media attention. Many of these reports have portrayed me inaccurately, however, so let me tell you what this is all about.
This all started long before September. In fact, it started in college, where my eyes were opened by my Women’s Studies professors and fellow classmates. I came to understand the role of "woman" spanning culture and time. At the university level, I was given permission to think differently and form a moral code of my own design. College opened my eyes.
Like most little girls, I was raised to believe that virginity is a sacred gift a woman should reserve for just the right man. But college taught me that this concept is just a tool to keep the status quo intact. Deflowering is historically oppressive—early European marriages began with a dowry, in which a father would sell his virginal daughter to the man whose family could offer the most agricultural wealth. Dads were basically their daughters’ pimps.
When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that? It is mine, after all. And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men. I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.
Are you rolling your eyes? I knew this experiment would bring me condemnation. But I'm not saying every forward-thinking person has to agree with what I’m doing. You should develop your own personal belief system—that’s exactly my point! For me, valuing virginity as sacred is simply not a concept I could embrace. But valuing virginity monetarily—now that’s a concept I could definitely get behind. I no longer view the selling of sex as wrong or immoral—my time at college showed me that I had too blindly accepted such arbitrary norms. And for what it’s worth, the winning bid won’t necessarily be the highest—I get to choose.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
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I don't have a problem with her selling her virginity. What gets me is how she tries to justify it and seperate herself from all the other prostitutes. Her selling her virginity is not a social experiement. I think most people are quite aware of what society thinks of selling sex. It's only legal in one state. She needs to be straight up and honest about what she is and what she is doing. She is a flat out whore, plain and simple. I don't think there is anything wrong with that; but at least have the guts to be honest about it instead of hiding behind "social experiment."
How do we know she is a virgin? Does she have proof? Will she submit to medical testing before to verify her claims?
"Natalie Dylan", how about "Entail and lay!" (anagram)
Brilliant outside the box thinking!
What would be an interesting next step
is for Las Vegas bookmakers to take
odds on which is a more cynical reflection
of our society, this little gambit, or Paris
Hilton's perpetual quest for fame.
Ya just gotta love it!
The only woman prostituting herself here is Tina Brown. After the November "kept woman" piece caused bulging site traffic during hard times it's no surprise to see The Beast shooting off with a sequel in hopes that more people will come around here. I'm sure you'll forgive my choice of language since it's obviously appropriate to the tone being set by Ms. Brown and her editorial staff here.
You should make this thing into a trilogy with the third installment offering up some young thing who revels in the cash rewards of being a video ho. Then you can finally consummate your role as Internet Madam by offering not only the printed word but also a full video! Now THAT would be THE BEAST!
(...with two backs)
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I can't believe I'm writing this...but I agree with Dylan insofar as our concept of the "good girl" is one who can keep her legs together - a value arguably conceived by men. So, who am I to judge her for wanting cash for a few minutes of her time that she'll no doubt repress anyway?
"You go girl!"
Bloggers bash Bush, Palin and others as being dumb, not EDUCATED enough, this gals' education seems to have increased her LACK of morals or ethics considerably. I bet she's on the dean's list ! Makes me wonder what professors are teaching in college these days. Ohhh, duhh, I forgot, most if not all are liberals. Nevermind.
God I love it! You found a way to make this about liberals!? Is it getting to the point that anyone working on their masters must mean that they're a liberal? If that's the angle you're working from then all I say is thank you! BTW: what she's doing is garnering "props" from neocon CEOs. That's the r0x0r for sure! You guys are the worst poor losers in the world. I say "Keep it up!" and I promise you that 2006-08 will look like the good ol days for you Cons.
To be fair, Women's and Gender Studies is typically a very liberal field of study and a liberal arts education is truly about challenging conventional norms. The post above may be stereotypically but it does have some truth in it.
I wonder if it's possible to reject the dubious history of an ideal (in this case the ideal of virginity) without abandoning the ideal itself.
I wonder if the world is possibly less black-and-white, cut-and-dry, sex-for-money or rejection-of-sex than your argument suggests.
I wonder if it's possible to become a free-thinking and free-living woman without turning your only real possession - your body - into an economic commodity, a product for capitalistic success.
I hope there still are some things more sacred than money.
3.8 million!! There had better be a thorough verification process! Also how do we know this is not a hoax--i.e. that it isn't your uncle so-and-so fake-bidding you up for the publicity?
Whoring is whoring even when it is for college credit. This one is highly suspect. One has to wonder about the professor that would oversee such a "project".
Not to put a downer on this, but for this to be scientific, Ms Dylan would need to co-op a female class mate who was not a virgin to offer the same deal (sans the virginity of course) and then we would be able to tell if men were offering $3.8m to sleep with a virgin or $3.8m to sleep with a pretty woman. Somehow (being male) I suspect the later. The state of virginity is irrelevant, but if an attractive female is prepared to sleep with me - what the heck!
"I wonder if it's possible to become a free-thinking and free-living woman without turning your only real possession - your body - into an economic commodity, a product for capitalistic success."
Wait -- isn't that what all of us do? Turn our bodies into implements for making money, usually for someone else? Whether we are digging ditches or performing brain surgery or, in this person's case, spending a little time on our backs with our legs spread, this is how a capitalist society functions.
Not much of an experiment- how much will a filthy rich guy pay to have sex. Ms whoever claims to be doing the to find out what the "value of virginity" is. She is not finding out any value- it is easy for someone to shell out 3-4 million, or more, if they are billionairs, or even multi-millionaires. So she will discover that someone is willing to shed a tiny fraction of his net worth, in order to have sex with her. That person is hardly demonstrating that her virginity has value- it shows only that he has nothing better to do with the cash. If she manages to get someone with a 4 million dollar net worth to bid 4 million dollars, I might reconsider, but I'm willing to bet whoever wins this bid will not notice the loss of cash, so in essence will have bought her for nothing of consequence to him. How enlightened.
screw the 3.8 mill, what about my virginity for yours?
I gotta agree with Ms. Dylan; the concept of the 'good girl' and virginity was only to raise the value of trading women for social status of the family. Basically, when a man took a woman's virginity, he was branding her as his property.
Kudos to Ms. Dylan for being able to profit from her virginity, rather than 'giving it away'!
Oh, seth65? Try being homeless with a 4 year old and then tell me what's more sacred than money...
I don't see how this gives you the power. Men who buy sex and I mean "hobbyists" (you should know what that means based on your studies of the sex trade) have no problem giving up their money for sex. The amount of money you charge for a service is almost beside the point. One man I know feels that payment for sex erases the "sin". He could not enjoy the sex if it was free.
There are many men who fetishize virginity, if not real virginity then the trappings of it. You know the ones who like very young girls or teens, ponytails & knee sox. You will probably end up giving your virginity to a "high class" pedophile. You're not very original. In the sex trade young girls are routinely sold at a higher price their "first time" (most of them are raped first but still called virgins).
Let me tell you something else. There are many women who work for themselves as "escorts" and are extremely intelligent and posses lots of "entrepreneurial gumption". Don't let the flattery get to your head.
Virginity is highly over-rated. I have teenagers and never once have I told them that virginity is a sacred gift. Instead, I have told them that they will never forget the circumstances of their first time so they better think about it's ramifications both to themselves and to their partners. Make it a memory you are cool with taking to your death. Too bad your mama didn't tell you that, maybe if she had you could have put your efforts into studying something more important, like how to help women who are trapped by the sex trade.
Paris Hilton called. She wants her reconstructive surgery back.
"Dads were basically their daughters' pimps." That's a very close-minded view on dowry for an independent thinker. Oh, wait. Women's Studies, that's right.
Diggin the MySpace self-portrait.
I love your premise and control of the situation. good for you! drekonja does bring up a good point that you may want to include as part of your study... I also wonder if you have seen a decline in bids since the whole recession began.
i have to say, that i hope you only continue with this empowerment and keep your maiden name when you marry and walk down the aisle independently instead of having your father "give you away." those archaic rituals (among many) should be abandoned.
side note: this was a well-written article and you may want to include this as the preface of your book. i'm just that sure you'll get a deal at this point.
What is education--inside and outside the classroom--teaching? Apparently, it's teaching that virginity is the most valuable asset a woman has to sell.
I can't believe no other poster here has called her bluff yet. Please. This is all a big publicity stunt, for her and the "ranch." Yeah, yeah, social experiment, etc. Plenty of eloquent college students (and others) have done good work in this area - hard work that actually involves real research and real studies - without needing to resort to an attention-getting stunt.
I am willing all bets that she doesn't go through with it in the end. Just watch. Either the public will never hear the end result because its supposedly private or she'll pick some less than highest bid from an insider who doesn't expert her to go through the act or she'll have some round-trip arrangement on the money with the highest bidder and not expect the act, etc. For that matter, who knows if she's really a virgin. If she does go public with admitting she doesn't go through with it in the end she'll claim it was all part of the "social experiment" and that going through with it was never in the plan or the "point" of it...
This isn't even an original idea. For those with short memories just doing a little searching. I can recall at least 4-5 previous stunts like this off the top of my head that all got their comparable 15-minutes of media fame. I remember years ago when a supposed teen couple were getting a bunch of people to buy an online subscriptions to a webcast of their losing their virginity. Surprise, surprise, in the end they were hired "actors" (and there was no final "performance" BTW) paid for by a company doing a "social experiment" (and hoping to raise attention for itself).
Bottom line: This isn't a real "experiment," it isn't an original or "entrepreneurial" idea and this isn't a real transaction. This is a reasonably bright opportunist who followed in others footsteps by realizing the media will eat this kind of stuff up and give a little fame without asking too many hard questions...
Of course you are badly mistaken. To the contrary, you have proven it to be cheap--not it's value. If that were your aim you may consider a chaste life. Or are you so generous that you throw your pearls before swine?
This all reads as a very half-hearted attempt. From the sounds of it, not even you believe your own pale and dying justifications. Your school as failed you. They have invested you with a great responsibility, an entire moral code even. What a terrible burden! It sounds like you haven't taken the task very seriously.
To adapt the words of Oscar Wilde, a whore is a somebody who "knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." A whore indeed,
I told myself I would not justify this article with comment. Then I decided I couldn't hold back.
As a Women's Study scholar are you explaining that you have not had vaginal sex and you are lesbian? The rumor mill had an unnamed female as your personal choice for the performance. Or are you simply interested in profit for sex; prostitution? These "sex for sales" stories are innovative ways to flaunt the criminal enterprise of prostitution openly in the face of the world population.
A whore is a whore is a whore is a whore.
Whether she is a woman's studies major, a hip hop honey wanting 15 minutes, an intern looking for her sugar daddy while trying to explain to her daddy, and yes, even the infamous NYC whores who only perform sex that didn't include vaginal penetration so as to "maintain their vaginal purity." So is it self delusion, 15 minutes, cool cash, a sweet offer or flaunting your criminal enterprise in the public's eye?
My pick: cash, 15 minutes and flaunting your criminal enterprise.
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