A couple of months ago, a young American woman using the pseudonym Natalie Dylan got the bright idea to pay for her studies by auctioning off her virginity through a Nevada bunny ranch, thereby guaranteeing the transaction would be legal, safe and well publicized. Natalie had completed her undergrad in women’s studies at Sacramento State but wanted to become a family and marriage counsellor and couldn’t continue her education without the appropriate funding.
Auctioning off one’s vaginal virginity (and the various virginity sub-categories, such as anal) through a brothel is nothing new: it’s been going on for as long as whorehouses have been around, most famously in Japan, where the deflowerer becomes a lifelong patron of the geisha. Sexist as it is, there is a civilized, time immemorial quality to the Japanese take on the deal. As George Michael sings in his salute to the hymen, “I’m Your Man,” if you’re going to do it, do it right.
Of course, it was only a matter of time before using the internet to facilitate the transaction became trendy. Sure enough, in 2004, an 18-year-old British student named Rosie Reid sold her straight virginity (Reid is a lesbian) to a 44-year-old divorced engineer for $15,000. Reid began by auctioning the item on eBay but was forced to move negotiations to a personal website when eBay withdrew her lot.
Women have also long been funding their academic and social betterment through sex and even before there were women’s studies courses on the sex trade, they used the same rationalizations taught by the whore-positive theorists: that sex work is intrinsically feminist, that we live in a capitalist culture and that they are merely providing a service without moral attachment. They are fully in charge and are using their sexual power for their own advancement as women.
Natalie, herself chock full of the latest truisms about sex and sex work feels this way about virginity: “It’s a socially constructed abstract thing of importance we preach to women to save and men to take. Having said that, that is why I think some men are so willing to pay huge money. In my psyche, I don’t subscribe to this idealized fantasy, which really boils down to a common, mundane act, hence the reason I have no problem with it whatsoever. I know this is a controversial move in our puritanical society, but what I hope everyone can agree on is that what is good for some is not for others. Everyone should have the common courtesy to live and let live.”
Such youthful idealism! But let’s face it, leaving people’s sexual choices alone is never going to happen because all almost everyone wants when it comes to the subject is to be right, which is why the message boards “discussing” Natalie’s choice are just boiling over with either scathing insults or you go girls.
Natalie, who herself predicted there would be a real divide, says, “The experience is fascinating — my thesis is basically writing itself, as you may have guessed!”
By the way, the crux of Natalie’s thesis is, “in a sense, pointing out the hypocrisy of people saying my actions are taking the feminist movement back when I am employing my own sexuality in a way where I feel rather empowered.”
Oh lord, not that old chestnut again. Natalie, trust me, your professors have heard it a million times, though I am sure there is something to losing your virginity on a bunny ranch that will benefit your career as a marriage counsellor.
I think we can all see the double standard in using feminism to profit off a patriarchal construct but despite this, I don’t think what Natalie is doing is not feminist. It’s just that when I think of sex work, feminism isn’t the first political issue that springs to mind. For many hookers — ones that get banged more than once anyway — the bigger issues are decriminalization and labour rights. Again, the banner of feminism is often unfurled from a privileged station, the one occupied by academics and women’s studies majors, though as a sex worker I’ve used it myself to bolster my choices and it certainly feels legitimate in an empirical setting. My body, my choice: feminism at its essence.
Natalie describes herself as “pro-sex” (a stance I find slightly amusing, considering she’s never had it) and insists that she feels that she is in the position of power because she gets to call all the shots. This is also interesting, the concept of using a stipulated position of non-power, sexual ignorance, to garner a position of power.
When I ask about her suitors, Natalie writes, “Men are very territorial creatures by nature and they love the idea of going ‘where no other man has gone.’ They want to be my first because they never want to be forgotten and I will not ever forget this experience. Most have not expressed concern over my sexual pleasure. To be quite frank, my pleasure derives from the money and they are aware of that.”
Natalie hits all the theoretical notes perfectly: our puritanical society, social constructs, idealized fantasies. But is she going to live up to the astronomical bids or is it going to be a “common, mundane act,” as she herself describes it, for the chosen man? She confirms that the rumours she’s been offered up to $3.8 million are true. That’s a lot of money. I mean, fuck, you wouldn’t catch me slogging away at a hackneyed dissertation with several million in the bank, that’s for sure.
I’m left with one question and it’s this: why must we bring feminism into it at all? Do we feel so guilty being acquisitive that we need the women’s movement behind our desire to make money? In a way, and despite her capitalist claims, Natalie is simply pandering to the image of an apologetic woman unable to accept what has traditionally been reserved for men: the making of craploads of cash under contentious circumstances. Whatever the case, I would certainly have rather gotten $3 million than HPV my first go round.