The power of virginity

January 30, 2009 8:05 AM

Virginity at age 22. Two approaches: 1. Sell it. "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?" 2. Keep it. "It is puzzling and disturbing to me that regnant feminism has never acknowledged the empowering value of virginity."
posted by Pater Aletheias (114 comments total)

I realize, of course, the most common option. But I found these two outliers to be an interesting contrast.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 8:06 AM on January 30, 2009

I blame Title IX, for no good reason.
posted by billysumday at 8:08 AM on January 30, 2009

Call me when a guy's virginity is on sale for 3.8 million.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:12 AM on January 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'd have given up my virginity for $3.80, but no one would offer that much. I'm just a cheap ho.
posted by jamstigator at 8:14 AM on January 30, 2009

1. Um, we've established what you are, now we're just haggling over the price.

2. Yeah, just hang on to it, why don't you? I certainly don't want it.
posted by Mental Wimp at 8:14 AM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

I don't really have anything to say about the idea in (1), I've got to think about this some more. But she should get her facts straight:

...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.

Dowries in fact consisted of wealth given by the family of the bride to the groom, not the other way around. This is not to say that the traditions involved in marriage weren't oppressive to women, but it's pretty important to get the basic facts correct.
posted by voltairemodern at 8:16 AM on January 30, 2009 [10 favorites]

"It is puzzling and disturbing to me that regnant feminism has never acknowledged the empowering value of virginity."

Not surprising that that was written by a virgin. I'd like to believe that the regnant feminists realized that sex is, you know, an enjoyable and worthwhile activity, and they'd like to be empowered in a way that doesn't require them to abstain. There's no point to empowerment if it forces you to deny yourself something you can have at little to no cost while remaining empowered.
posted by The Michael The at 8:18 AM on January 30, 2009 [6 favorites]

Hmmm... I think, if I'm recalling my fast food life correctly, that I'm a Whopper Virgin. I wonder if Burger King would give me 3.8 million to deflower myself.
posted by XMLicious at 8:19 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

C. If you're a man, beg someone to take it.

As "good" as it is for a woman to keep her virginity, it's that "bad" for a man to keep his. Thanks organized religion!
posted by Mister_A at 8:20 AM on January 30, 2009

The second article mostly just confuses virginity with celibacy.
posted by Tomorrowful at 8:21 AM on January 30, 2009

> And who ever heard of a man purchasing a glossy magazine to learn the secret of snagging a wife?

Underneath all the macho bullshit posturing, learning how to better yourself in order to "snag a wife" is what most men's magazines are really about.
posted by you just lost the game at 8:23 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I’m enough of a country bumpkin to suspect that contraceptives might not be enough to prevent an unwanted pregnancy or disease, and I think that abortion is killing a baby.

What the hell. I am from South Dakota, land of Leslie Unruh and "Let's put an anti-abortion bill on the ballot again this year," and I am intelligent enough to talk to a friggin' doctor and get the damn facts. If you're going to be stupid about your reproductive health, maybe you're right -- you shouldn't be having sex!!
posted by sararah at 8:23 AM on January 30, 2009

$3.8 million the first time, $20 (the same as in town) thereafter
posted by ElvisJesus at 8:23 AM on January 30, 2009

I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men.

This statement from the first link bothers me the most. By all means, do what you like with your virginity, but using it as opportunity to "gain power and opportunity from men" is still playing the usual sex/power game. Women have been sleeping with men for power and money since the beginning of time. You're not flipping anything, you're just getting a bigger payoff. If you're ok with that, great, but don't pretend you're doing something new and radical.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:24 AM on January 30, 2009 [5 favorites]

if virginity is considered that valuable...

Is it, though? I know it is talked about that way, but is it really considered valuable? I'm not that interested, but I guess we'll see what it goes for. Although it really needs a more controlled study--people pay for sex even if they aren't virgins, so what's really being purchased here?
posted by DU at 8:25 AM on January 30, 2009

I have Em & Lo's book of sexual etiquette sitting on my shelf, something I bought with an ex a while ago. It has a page of tips for how to make a female (I hesitate to use either the word woman or girl in this context) feel comfortable for her first sexual experience. For a guy (a word for which there is no female equivalent, as chick has different connotations to me), it has one tip: "be on time."
posted by Hactar at 8:26 AM on January 30, 2009

For a guy (a word for which there is no female equivalent, as chick has different connotations to me)

Gal.
posted by fleetmouse at 8:31 AM on January 30, 2009

learning how to better yourself in order to "snag a wife" is what most men's magazines are really about

I think you're confusing men's magazines with Cosmopolitan.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:32 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

The sale of a woman's virginity for a high price was one of the main plotlines in the fiction-told-as-fact novel Memoirs of a Geisha. The book made it sound like this was common practice among the Geishas.
posted by eye of newt at 8:37 AM on January 30, 2009

You know, I don't have a moral problem with women - any woman, virgin or not - selling her body for profit. Anyone who does so is merely using her physical attributes for gain, and the only reason we as a society look at it any differently than, say, a muscular guy who plays professional football, is because we have this fucked-up attitude that sex is something that men do to women (as opposed to with) and any woman who has sex for any reason outside of procreation (or, if you have a fairly liberal attitude towards sex, pleasure) must be mentally ill in some way. The other problem is that prostitution has become so demonized that it is forced underground, where women are forced to work in unsafe conditions, for lower pay than they could probably make if it were considered a legitimate profession. As a result many of the women who become prostitutes are desperate or otherwise on the lower rungs of society, which means they and the profession are stigmatized even further. It's a vicious circle.

Millions of dollars for (maybe) an hour's work? Good on her, and anyone who thinks she's somehow debased by this transaction has more in common with religious puritans than they might care to admit. If you're a guy and you disapprove of her actions and have jerked off to internet porn you're a hypocrite. When she's a millionaire I hope she hires one of the guys bitching about her "loose morals" to mow her lawn or something.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 8:38 AM on January 30, 2009 [20 favorites]

The first essay sounds, to me, like someone who's trying too hard to prove a point. Does she really want to sleep with a random man for money, or is she trying to prove that morals are arbitrary? Using your own sexuality as a blunt weapon in some ideological skirmish is the kind of thing that only really young people think is a good idea. I suspect in a few years her gender studies ideas will seem more like the lifeless abstractions they are, and she'll have a much different perspective.

Not that lifeless abstractions are so bad -- I study philosophy myself -- but really, she shouldn't live her life out of a textbook,
posted by creasy boy at 8:40 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I always new my first sexual experience was missing something... stirrups, forceps, and a checkbook.

I mean, who shells out ANY money for this without confirming a hymen? Besides, if she was a real entrepreneur, she'd have a pay-per-view event to go with it.
posted by butterstick at 8:44 AM on January 30, 2009

Dowries in fact consisted of wealth given by the family of the bride to the groom, not the other way around.

Not in Afghanistan
posted by exogenous at 8:47 AM on January 30, 2009

Misplaced earnestness -- that's what I want to say about that first essay.
posted by creasy boy at 8:48 AM on January 30, 2009

Man if I had a dollar for every time I lost my virginity.
posted by Sailormom at 8:50 AM on January 30, 2009 [6 favorites]

Is there really someone stupid enough to pay 3.8 million..?

Let me rephrase that, is somone who is smart enough to earn 3.8 million going to be so stupid as to spend that much money to get laid one time by a marginally good looking woman?

I'm guessing that at about $1k per experience, he could have about 1,000 virgin college students do him....

I call bs on the 3.8 million bid...
posted by HuronBob at 8:52 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

So how is this going to work, actually -- does the guy pay her up-front? I'm assuming no-one's bringing 3.8 million in cash, so...does she wait until the check clears? And then is she required by contract to have sex with him?
posted by creasy boy at 8:54 AM on January 30, 2009

It became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place.

Sure, it has this as a side effect in repressive countries now and in the olden days everywhere (deep shame for women who get raped, ostracization of non-virgin unmarried women by the rest of society, etc.).

However, the original reason for virginity being valuable is because demanding that your wife be a virgin was a low tech tool to help assure that any offspring are your own, and not some other guy's whom impregnated your new wife shortly before you hooked up. Your genes don't want you to put energy into raising another dude's DNA. Also virginity is strongly correlated with youth, which is in turn strongly correlated with high reproductive value (i.e. young women have more and healthier babies on average), so of course virgins are going to be sought after for that reason, but not because they're virgins per se.

But these days we have relatively easy genetic tests to determine paternity, so virginity is much less valuable.

As a personal note, I find virginity distasteful, because I have sex solely for pleasure and intimacy rather than to have kids, and virgins tend to be bad in the sack, but, uh, YMMV.
posted by wastelands at 9:02 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Of course, there have been some women who have attempted to claim this independence from men by turning in on themselves and opting for lesbian sexuality instead. But this is just another, perhaps deeper, rejection of their femaleness. The sexes rightly define themselves in their otherness. Lesbianism squelches the design of otherness by drowning womanhood in a sea of sameness, and in the process loses any concept of what makes the female feminine.

what
posted by desjardins at 9:02 AM on January 30, 2009 [8 favorites]

Brandon Blatcher: "Call me when a guy's virginity is on sale for 3.8 million."

As my friend from high school put it "well, technically none of us (guys) are virgins since we come out of our moms"

He was a little awkward but overall a good guy and friend.
posted by lilkeith07 at 9:03 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

learning how to better yourself in order to "snag a wife" is what most men's magazines are really about

I think you're confusing men's magazines with Cosmopolitan.

I think he's confusing "snag a wife" with "spilling seed on stony ground".
posted by biffa at 9:03 AM on January 30, 2009

That Christian gal sure can blather on. If she's lucky, when she finally does get her cherry popped, it'll be by something as long and turgid as that essay.
posted by ShameSpiral at 9:06 AM on January 30, 2009 [10 favorites]

I remember teaching my high school girlfriend to drive it was awful, later she was much better at it.
posted by pianomover at 9:07 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I hate people like the woman selling her virginity. Not because she's selling her virginity, but because she's getting a lot of attention for doing something outlandish and transgressive, and in no way represents anything of lasting impact. The media furor just highlights how freakish and idiosyncratic her act is. The elevation of shocking individuals is always, in the long run, merely tiresome.

This goes into my mental file folder with the art student at OCAD who was going to crush a rat with a concrete painting canvas, and pretty much everyone in the radical body modification community. Okay, I know where you are, so I can now mentally filter you out.
posted by fatbird at 9:07 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

While I have no issue with a person who chooses to remain a virgin until marriage for whatever personal reasons they may have, I couldn't help but get annoyed at the second article in the same way I sometimes get annoyed when I hear people on the opposite end of the spectrum (people in polyamorous relationships, for example) tout their beliefs. There was a tone to her article that seemed to imply the writer had somehow achieved a level of enlightenment and understanding about sexuality far beyond the rest of us hoi polloi.

It's not just that she has made the right choice for herself, but that the choice she has made is the objectively correct one, and anyone who behaves/believes differently is either wrong or deluding themselves.
posted by The Gooch at 9:09 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

my subversive commitment to virginity serves as preparation for another commitment, for loving one man completely and exclusively

I wish I could get someone to rationally explain this without getting into a religious tangent. I can't, obviously, turn back the clock and know for sure, but I sure don't feel like I love my husband any less because neither of us were virgins on our wedding night. I barely remember the guy to whom I lost my virginity.
posted by desjardins at 9:10 AM on January 30, 2009

I think he's confusing "snag a wife" with "spilling seed on stony ground".

Yes, there's a vas deferans.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 9:11 AM on January 30, 2009 [16 favorites]

Here in Germany virginity went for 6650€.
Wasn't me of course ;-)
posted by vertriebskonzept at 9:11 AM on January 30, 2009

Four million bucks? That thing better have one sweet-ass toy surprise inside it.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 9:12 AM on January 30, 2009 [6 favorites]

Let me rephrase that, is somone who is smart enough to earn 3.8 million going to be so stupid as to spend that much money to get laid one time by a marginally good looking woman?

In what sense does inheriting millions of dollars make you 'smart'?
posted by delmoi at 9:13 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm struck by two things. First, in South/Central Asia, there are such things as a "bride price" whereby a man's family gives a woman's family x many traditional resources for the woman. It's not empowering. It's wrong, and things worse than rape happen to women there. There's an important reason why something that formal doesn't happen in Western cultures. I'll give you a hint: look up "ala kachuu" and bride burning. The US is almost there.

Second, Stonewall Jackson, there's an important difference between a football player and a woman who sells her body. Do you know what it is?

For my part, I don't believe that a system of values that seems to have more in common with the 14th century in Constantinople is anywhere near acceptable for a society like the US. We glamorize pornography and excuse immoral action as expression, but this leaves us unable to look each other in the face, having removed even the basic tenderness of the first, scary, short time. We'll need burqas if this keeps up.

Way to go, USA.
posted by electronslave at 9:13 AM on January 30, 2009

I tried reading the Christian essay, I really did, but it's so badly written and just so fucking dull that I couldn't. And then I read the salesgirl essay. I only got as far as this:

Like most little girls, I was raised to believe that virginity is a sacred gift a woman should reserve for just the right man.

Really? You were really raised to think this? That virginity is a gift to a man? Then I realized that both of these women were raised by people with fucked-up attitudes. It is possible to step away from these attitudes and not take such a radical stance as to still be a victim of these things. But that wouldn't be shrill enough, I suppose.

*Sigh*
posted by ob at 9:17 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't get the hate here. I find them both to be fascinating, feminist choices. Not for me, certainly, but worthy of respect anyway.
posted by lunit at 9:20 AM on January 30, 2009

> Second, Stonewall Jackson, there's an important difference between a football player and a woman who sells her body. Do you know what it is?

I'm guessing you're thinking that the two are not equivalent because many prostitutes are forced into the profession against their will, and of course my arguments do not apply to cases such as those. If that's not it, enlighten me.
posted by Stonewall Jackson at 9:23 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I was under the impression that she doesn't get the full $3.8 million -- the Bunny Ranch gets half.

I basically learned virginity was totally overrated during one of those Catholic school "don't give your presents out before Christmas!" lectures, but I'd be lying if I said I'm not disappointed about losing it for free. Actually, I would like to get paid for every time I ever had to endure bad sex, thanks.

And uh, don't get me started on saving yourself for "the right man." So women who only have sex with women are always virgins? Give me a break.
posted by giraffe at 9:24 AM on January 30, 2009

Hoax! Hoaxity hoaxity hoax hoax hoax.
posted by LarryC at 9:24 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't get the hate here.

Poorly thought out essays delivered as smart thinking are never very popular.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:24 AM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

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. [...] But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that?

Well, um, maybe you desire gender equality and would want to change the status quo?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:31 AM on January 30, 2009

Second, Stonewall Jackson, there's an important difference between a football player and a woman who sells her body. Do you know what it is?

We have cameras!

Wait, that's not right...
posted by Justinian at 9:31 AM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

No one can engage in extramarital sex and then control it.

what
posted by uncleozzy at 9:32 AM on January 30, 2009

That girl should make sure she has one of these before sealing the $3.8 million deal.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 9:33 AM on January 30, 2009

"It became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place."

Riiiiiiight. Cuz, ya know, men are always sitting around plotting how to preserve a woman's virginity.
posted by Hovercraft Eel at 9:33 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

That girl is not a virgin.
posted by jabberjaw at 9:33 AM on January 30, 2009

From one of the comments on the daily beast:

Interesting premise for a social experiment.
But at $3.8m for a night and no experience...

It makes me wonder why 'deflowering' virgins is such a valued experience by some men and about the only reason I can think of is exactly the opposite of what this girl is about -- it's about male ownership and dominance over women... It can't be for good sex -- you can get that a lot cheaper from a real hooker.

Anyway... just found a couple of youtube videos from the Tyra Banks Show. One (8min) of the lady explaining herself and another (4min) where she meets one of her 'bidders' both NSFW audio of course... They do say the camera adds ten pounds, and that photoshop removes 20...
posted by nielm at 9:36 AM on January 30, 2009

In what sense does inheriting millions of dollars make you 'smart'?

The original comment has the word 'earn' in it. I don't think 'earn' equates with 'inherit'.
posted by spicynuts at 9:44 AM on January 30, 2009

Perhaps virginity seems a bit cold, even haughty and heartless. [...] Promiscuity offers a significantly worse fate.

Perhaps hermithood seems a bit cold, even haughty and heartless. Taking your morning walk in a minefield offers a significantly worse fate.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:46 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Valuable to whom?
I think any guy who thought my virginity was valuable would have nothing of value to me.
posted by pointystick at 10:05 AM on January 30, 2009

Let me rephrase that, is somone who is smart enough to earn 3.8 million going to be so stupid as to spend that much money to get laid one time by a marginally good looking woman?

Heh...you're equating smart (and successful) with rationality. The two don't have to go hand to hand.
posted by 7life at 10:06 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

Who wants to take bets on whether the salesgirl has been saddlebacking?
posted by Caduceus at 10:12 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

The original comment has the word 'earn' in it. I don't think 'earn' equates with 'inherit'.

I think the point was that there are a lot more people with that kind of money who inherited it (e.g., GWBush) than who earned it (e.g., WHGates).
posted by Mental Wimp at 10:12 AM on January 30, 2009

The only way you're getting 3.8 mil out of me for a night of nookie is if I get to party with a really, really experienced megaslut, a master of a thousand delights, who knows the magic of the flesh better than anyone this side of divinity. No way would I pay an amateur that kind of money.
posted by Jilder at 10:16 AM on January 30, 2009

@DU: I think the idea in practice focuses more on how the virginity is precious to the person who owns the virginity, as well as those who are close to the person and fear losing it would hurt the person's reputation or purity in a metaphorical or religious sense. To many Evangelicals, I think it's precious in that they fear losing the virginity in the wrong context will be a sin and possibly keep the person from getting saved. And I'm guessing some guys like taking it in that they were able to convince a girl who was saving herself to give that up for them, meaning their handsome, charming, or whatever enough to do such things.

I still don't entirely understand why the Evangelicals tend to focus on making sure the girls in particular take virginity oaths? Is it based on the assumption that most, if not all, men are animals and can't be expected to control their sex drive when there's a willing woman around? Is it a reflection of sexist attitudes? Is it based on biblical scripture I haven't seen? Do they think getting every girl to pledge abstinence and follow through will keep all the guys from having sex? And what does this mean in context of the anti-gay stance many of the groups take? And I'm just curious about this... If a teenage boy and girl are seen having intercourse by one of these groups, or there's an accidental pregnancy, who gets the brunt of the blame? The guy or the girl? Do they act like the girl had more of a choice than the guy?
posted by mccarty.tim at 10:16 AM on January 30, 2009

Besides the genetic angle for virginity being prized there is the curing of disease (modern) and (older). So 3.8 million to cure a contagious disease? Well then, that might be a reasonable price.
posted by jadepearl at 10:21 AM on January 30, 2009

And I’m even naive enough to believe in permanent, exclusive, divinely ordained love between a man and a woman, a love so valuable that it motivates me to keep my legs tightly crossed in the most tempting of situations.

She's demanding the man be a virgin too, right? Because otherwise all this hemming and hawing about how wonderful and enlightened it is to be a virgin is BS.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:29 AM on January 30, 2009

Second, Stonewall Jackson, there's an important difference between a football player and a woman who sells her body. Do you know what it is?

The football player is on steroids?
The football player was drafted?
If he's lucky the football player will end up doing hemorrhoid cream commercials?
College and professional lea- no wait, that's not a difference.
The football player will have his actions filmed for- no, that's not different either.

No seriously, what is it?
posted by happyroach at 10:29 AM on January 30, 2009

What's the word for people who don't believe in virginity? Aparthenist? Cause seriously, I'm waiting to be convinced that virginity is a real thing, out there in the wild, and not just some crazy hangover from pre-prophylactic/birth control times. Anybody care to define what a virgin actually is without alienating some non-trivial section of the female population?

Needless to say, I didn't read the essays to the end, just like I wouldn't read some scrit about a god or my immortal soul.

I wish the woman selling sex all the best of luck, though just like this one from a while back, you bet it's a hoax.

The other woman, you know, Bride of Jonas? That page was from 1998, I want an update! I just *know* she's in a sexually fulfilling marriage by now, with the one.
posted by Sova at 10:29 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think it's funny that anyone would that that there's someone out there who would pay $3.8 million dollars for someone's virginity.

Breaking News: No one wants you that badly. We are not short on people who are willing to have sex. The market is flooded. We already have a surplus on sex organs, and we're making more of them every single day. On a good day, the possibility of sex with you can convince someone to pay for dinner and a movie, but that's a long fucking way from $3.8 million dollars.

If you want to sell something, sell something that's in short supply. Decent essays would be a good place to start.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 10:29 AM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

on non preview:

I mean BS in the sense she's deluding herself if she's complaining about feminism (and inaccurately) and yet doesn't apply these beliefs equally.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:31 AM on January 30, 2009

"We glamorize pornography and excuse immoral action as expression, but this leaves us unable to look each other in the face, having removed even the basic tenderness of the first, scary, short time. We'll need burqas if this keeps up."

Not sure I really agree with this. Repressed sexuality is a much bigger issue in the US than openness about it. Pornography and burqas are sort of along the same continuum; i.e., suppression and exploitation of women's sexuality are part of the same problem.
posted by krinklyfig at 10:34 AM on January 30, 2009

I'm betting that the buyer will be "goldenpalacecasino.com", making her the first person to lose her virginity to a corporation.
posted by jenkinsEar at 10:34 AM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

mccarty.tim: Is it based on the assumption that most, if not all, men are animals and can't be expected to control their sex drive when there's a willing woman around?

I might quibble with the phrasing, but speaking as a male who remembers highschool, I have some reason to suspect that there is merit to this assumption.
posted by brennen at 10:34 AM on January 30, 2009

I prefer the approach that involves making a personal decision without needing it to be a universal moral imperative that everyone else is getting wrong.
posted by nanojath at 10:35 AM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

Oh, and the woman behind door number 2? Yes, I will attend to her wisdom, because she has such a healthy view of sex as evidenced by her own words in the link, viz.:

She and another pal had been delving into the gruesome specifics of their past sexual encounters.

posted by Mental Wimp at 10:36 AM on January 30, 2009

I don't believe anyone would pay that much. You can get a pretty first baseman for that. Also, I guess she's planning to do the entire transaction somewhere where prostitution is not illegal? And I hope she pays her taxes on the money.

Finally, a little advice: Don't take a check, girl!
posted by Mister_A at 10:38 AM on January 30, 2009

Virgin my ass.

I'm really tired of these girls marketing their virginity. How many times have we seen this? It's like those Ivy League strippers and call girls with blogs. Enough already.
posted by grounded at 10:41 AM on January 30, 2009

It's a male myth about feminists that they hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise. But unfortunately there are some people--it is called satyriasis in men, nymphomania in women--who engage in it compulsively and without joy.
posted by Sandor Clegane at 10:44 AM on January 30, 2009 [4 favorites]

I don't believe anyone would pay that much.

I do and that it would be the sort of man she wouldn't want to have sex with. She does say in the article that the highest bidder isn't necessarily going to be The One.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:46 AM on January 30, 2009

"No way would I pay an amateur that kind of money."

Indeed. I honestly can't fathom why someone would go to that much trouble for what is practically guaranteed to be an awkward and totally unsatisfying experience.
posted by mullingitover at 10:58 AM on January 30, 2009

Stonewall Jackson: "Millions of dollars for (maybe) an hour's work? Good on her, and anyone who thinks she's somehow debased by this transaction has more in common with religious puritans than they might care to admit. If you're a guy and you disapprove of her actions and have jerked off to internet porn you're a hypocrite. When she's a millionaire I hope she hires one of the guys bitching about her "loose morals" to mow her lawn or something."

I would like to enlist under your command, General.

Best of the web.
posted by Joe Beese at 11:02 AM on January 30, 2009

Keep your virginity and give mje endless blowjobs...we both win.
posted by Postroad at 11:02 AM on January 30, 2009

See, if the story was of an unattractive 22 year old male with virginity intact such as myself, that would not mean jack squat to anyone and it wouldn't be worth anything, because apparently my virginity isn't worth anything in society and shouldn't be treasured and or held onto, soooo.... sexist?
posted by Del Far at 11:11 AM on January 30, 2009

$3.8 mm seems like a lot to pay for an entry-level position.
posted by malocchio at 11:30 AM on January 30, 2009 [5 favorites]

What I'd really like to see is an ensuing lawsuit, when the "lucky" guy says that he did not, in fact, receive her "virginity." That it was neither taken, nor given, and at no time was he in possession of her virginity. While they engaged in sexual intercourse (good or bad), he did not receive the good promised.

I'd have to imagine that the court would rule in favor of the plaintiff, as much like a "soul," "virginity" cannot really be defined as a legal quality, and selling it is pretty much impossible to enforce as a legal contract. I mean, I'll "sell my soul" for 3.8 million dollars, but I'd have a hard time convincing a court of law that I rendered delivery of said "soul."
posted by explosion at 11:39 AM on January 30, 2009

More proof that no one knows what the word feminism means anymore.
posted by threeturtles at 11:45 AM on January 30, 2009

Hi, naive guy here: is being a virgin at 22 really that aberrant?

I mean, I've got a friend who's a 30+ virgin and...OK, well, she collapses into neurosis whenever she brings it up, but...um, never mind.
posted by kittyprecious at 11:47 AM on January 30, 2009

Hi, naive guy here: is being a virgin at 22 really that aberrant?

It's not aberrant but it's certainly pretty high on one end of the bell curve.
posted by Justinian at 12:01 PM on January 30, 2009

What ever happened to 3. Stop worrying so much about it and lose it when and if you want to with the right person?
posted by Pollomacho at 12:10 PM on January 30, 2009

$3.8 mm seems like a lot to pay for an entry-level position.

MetaFilter's "Best of" for the day. Cracked me right up.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:11 PM on January 30, 2009

to explosion: You really fucking scare me

to everyone else: I honestly cannot think of ANYTHING that I'd pay $3.8 million for (assuming I had $3.8 million)
posted by ElvisJesus at 12:15 PM on January 30, 2009

...just hang on to it, why don't you? I certainly don't want it.

...give mje endless blowjobs...we both win.

That whole making MetaFilter more woman-friendly thing? You're doing it wrong. Seriously, please stop – this thread is already in enough danger of descent into pure idiocy without helping it along by making "jokes" whose implicit premise is that every woman's existence revolves around your personal libido.

Also, hoax is right. I only wish the "First Things" crowd was as imaginary as that multi-million-dollar bid. I mean, I love priggish pseudo-intellectual moralists, blissfully unaware of how funny they sound, as much as the next P.G. Wodehouse fan – "Of course I want to-what a strange question!-but mere wanting is hardly a proper guide for moral conduct" – but, here in the real world, they still scare me.
posted by RogerB at 12:16 PM on January 30, 2009

I think he's confusing "snag a wife" with "spilling seed on stony ground".

Yes, there's a vas deferans.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 11:11 AM on January 30

Clever.

As far as this goes, meh.

First, it is quite unlikely she is a virgin. Not that it really matters, as this is all theater anyway.

Second, it is 95% likely to be a fake bid.

And, if it isn't a fake bid, there's a 75% chance it is goldenpalace.com or whatever that casino is that spends on outlandish publicity stunts like this.

Does that mean she has to have sex with everyone at goldenpalace.com? If so, that's not quite such a bad investment.

The smart marketing move would be for a porn company to buy it. Although this girl might be a little unprepared for what the typical porn actor might have in store for her.
posted by Ynoxas at 12:26 PM on January 30, 2009

I'd have to imagine that the court would rule in favor of the plaintiff, as much like a "soul," "virginity" cannot really be defined as a legal quality, and selling it is pretty much impossible to enforce as a legal contract. I mean, I'll "sell my soul" for 3.8 million dollars, but I'd have a hard time convincing a court of law that I rendered delivery of said "soul."

Courts don't work like that. If the contract is clear, it probably wouldn't even need to use the word 'virgin', just state that participants X and Y will have sexual intercourse, X having sworn that she has never had intercourse with any other human, and after said act, Y will pay X 3.8 million dollars. Words have meaning, courts routinely recognize this fact.
posted by bluejayk at 12:34 PM on January 30, 2009

Of course, there have been some women who have attempted to claim this independence from men by turning in on themselves and opting for lesbian sexuality instead. But this is just another, perhaps deeper, rejection of their femaleness.

Fantastic! Sounds like just the kind of young person we need in journalism today.
posted by sid at 12:39 PM on January 30, 2009

Someone ought to buy that girl's virginity and then never cash in on it. I know, I'm just being cruel, but I think it would make a great story. Would you never have sex if someone paid you $3.8 million?
posted by idiotfactory at 12:50 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

Wow. Two parenting threads (one about multiple births, no less!) and THIS, all in one day.

It's like a Perfect Storm for snarking about other people's reproductive choices!

De-claw them all! I mean... yeah.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:54 PM on January 30, 2009

I think both stories shine a light on the obsolesence of the value of virginity in modern terms.

There's the woman who's offered her virginity for sale, and the retirement-level bid placed on breaking this woman's hymen, and naturally it strikes us as beyond the pale. I think our reaction can't be explained away as puritanism alone. After all, how many men here consider "virginity" an important quality for a woman to possess? How many think less of a woman who's had sex before marriage than one hasn't? Given the reaction to Virgin #2, I'd say not many. By the same token, while probably many women here were raised to "wait for the right one", probably far fewer were raised in a household where there virginity was guarded as a commodity to be offered to a potential husband.

I think that's what's really at the root of why we consider an enormous price tag for virginity absurd. Not (solely) due to feeling icky about a woman selling her body, but because we don't see virginity as possessing that much power or value anymore. Which is contributing to why Virgin #2 is frustrated with how people react to her position. And all I can say to that is, sexual liberation, as I understand it, should also include the freedom to abstain, if that's your sincere will. So I can appreciate why she'd feel annoyed for being regarded as some sort of frigid prude. I just don't think she ought to be surprised that in the 21st century, virginity is no longer regarded as possessing much power.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 12:57 PM on January 30, 2009 [3 favorites]

Would you never have sex if someone paid you $3.8 million?

Would I? Hell, right now I never have sex for free!
posted by Justinian at 1:25 PM on January 30, 2009 [2 favorites]

Does that mean she has to have sex with everyone at goldenpalace.com?

It's bullshit, of course. I mean, how many incremental bids would there have to be before the bidding reached $3.8m? When you consider that for a fraction of that sum, a man who was *that* interested in deflowering virgins could fly off to some third world country and snag himself a dozen or so, it hardly seems likely that anyone would pay that kind of premium for a brief taste of US unruptured hymen.

I mean, I know that you Americans have a high opinion of yourselves, but anyone rich enough and sick enough to want to do this shit surely already knows where they can get their needs met at the going market rate, and almost certainly knows the value of a dollar.

However, in the unlikely event that it really is true, then I really do hope that goldenpalace.com is the buyer, and they're buying the rights for some modern day elephant man. Somebody who looks like Pascal Coler before the surgery.

And then I hope they film it and stick it on YouTube.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:32 PM on January 30, 2009

put my own virginity up for auction on the Moonlight Bunny Ranch website

How radical or original does she think this act is? The fact that a web site already exists to broker such transactions should be her first clue that it isn't.
posted by selfmedicating at 1:42 PM on January 30, 2009

Moonlight Bunny Ranch wasn't primarily in the virgin-selling business.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:46 PM on January 30, 2009

I honestly cannot think of ANYTHING that I'd pay $3.8 million for (assuming I had $3.8 million)

I prefer to think of it differently: How much money would I have to have in the bank to consider paying $3.8MM for a chance to have a really lousy sexual encounter with someone who thinks they're much more profound than they really are? How much money would I need to feel like $3.8MM pissed away is no big deal?

Well, certainly more than $3.81MM. Probably something on the order of billions, and at that I'd probably be thinking I'm really just rewarding someone for doing a Jackass-level stunt very publicly in which I get to ejaculate.

[what do you mean, ejaculation's not included?]
posted by fatbird at 1:47 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

It's bullshit, of course. I mean, how many incremental bids would there have to be before the bidding reached $3.8m?

Online auctions don't work like that. It could be two bids for all we know; you generally enter a "maximum bid". If the minimum bid was $10,000 and the first person put in a maximum bid of, say, $5million the initial bid will be $10,000. Then if a second person puts in a maximum bid of $3.7million or whatever the first bidder will automatically have a bid of $3.8million entered.

In all likelihood there are a considerable number of bids but the size of the current bid says nothing about how many bids there are, only about how high the individual bidders are willing to go.
posted by Justinian at 1:54 PM on January 30, 2009

Call me when a guy's virginity is on sale for 3.8 million.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:12 AM on January 30 [3 favorites +] [!]

On sale for 3.8 million? Sure that can happen. Sold for 3.8 million? Not gonna happen.
posted by Green With You at 2:38 PM on January 30, 2009

I would honestly just advise Natalie Dylan from the first link to find herself a good therapist now and have them on hand for later, just in case.

Not that I think there's anything wrong per se with this particular take on feminism, whereby she's going to capitalize on women being valued as sexual objects to the tune of several million dollars and a book deal for herself. But, assuming this is indeed not a hoax, she obviously assigns some importance to her virginity since, at age 22, she still somehow hasn't lost it in what for most people just ends up being a fortuitous alignment of hormones and circumstance one special or not necessarily special night. And it's likely that once that moment comes, her painstakingly constructed wall of rationalizations based on a very one-sided understanding of Feminism 101 (and really, how many of us haven't gone through a phase like that when we're in high school or college and suddenly discover this subversive and oh-so-intellectual philosophical grand theory of life that we later look back on as a "phase") might come crashing down hard, and she may regret it and wish she'd just fought for a kick-ass scholarship to pay for grad school instead, like a feminist of a different take would do.

I guess all I'm saying is, I hope it doesn't mess up her ability to enjoy sex and have a healthy approach to it after this, or if does, that it was worth the 3.8 mil and the notoriety for her.
posted by wretched_rhapsody at 3:04 PM on January 30, 2009

...just hang on to it, why don't you? I certainly don't want it.

That whole making MetaFilter more woman-friendly thing? You're doing it wrong.

posted by RogerB at 12:16 PM on January 30 [+] [!]

I guess I don't see how what I said offended all women, or most women, or even a sizable minority of women. Perhaps with your more finely honed sense of outrage, you could help enlighten me?
posted by Mental Wimp at 3:20 PM on January 30, 2009

I'm betting that the buyer will be "goldenpalacecasino.com", making her the first person to lose her virginity to a corporation.

Well, my bank has been fucking with me five ways to Friday since well before I got any human nookie...
posted by Skeptic at 4:21 PM on January 30, 2009

Mental Wimp, on the off chance you're serious in asking for enlightenment (though the "outrage" framing suggests you're not), the problem is, of course, that a woman's publishing an essay on her sexual choices ought not to be taken as a public request to the men of the Internet to announce whether they're sexually interested in her. The joke, and the problem with it, are more or less equivalent to the irrelevant chorus of "I'd hit it" that was (rightly) the subject of much recent discussion about sexism here. The mere fact that a woman is talking about her sexuality is not an automatic invitation to every man to involve himself in it.
posted by RogerB at 6:27 PM on January 30, 2009

One can certainly do (heh) many more things with $3.8 million* than with one's virginity. I think I'd prefer to have the money.
posted by casarkos at 6:44 PM on January 30, 2009

She's not "talking about her sexuality," she's talking about selling it. A comment stating that one wouldn't be interested in buying it is not out bounds in that context.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:48 PM on January 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

After watching her on the YouTube link, I was struck by three things
1. She sounds as vapid as hell. Her speech was liberally peppered with "honestly" "you know" and "like" as in, "Like, honestly, you know, I am not, like, a prude."

2. She admitted that she has both given and received oral sex. So we are talking about a technical virgin, only. She's been intimate with men, just hasn't broken her hymen. And these days surgery can replace a broken hymen.

3. She makes it clear that she will be sleeping with her choice regardless of the winning bid. So presumably that 3.8 is only in theory and in actual fact she (and the brothel) may choose someone who ends up paying a lot less. After paying taxes on her share, I'm guessing she may come out with a few hundred thousand. Whatever she ends up receiving, it won't be the price for her virginity, it will be the price for media whoring.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:38 PM on January 30, 2009

kittyprecious: I was a virgin till I was 22, and even then I only had a go at sexual activity for a year and a bit before that. No opportunity, no interest. I don't see what's the big deal, really. Why does it matter how long you were a virgin for?

Stonewall Jackson: Your comment was the only good one on this thread. Well done. I too would like to serve with you.
posted by divabat at 10:48 PM on January 30, 2009

grounded: How many times have we seen this? It's like those Ivy League strippers and call girls with blogs. Enough already.

Re: the call girls with blogs - perhaps it's just me but I frequently find the blogs of call girls, and the blogs of other people whose occupation is marginally or entirely illegal, rather interesting. There's the titillation factor and all but apart from any lurid details I think there's also an appeal in reading about someone whose life is almost incomprehensably radically different from mine - it's almost like reading a Civil War diary or Captain Cook's log book or something. Even though they're often describing something that verges on the tediously mundane for them - what they've got to do on a daily basis to avoid getting arrested for example - it can end up being pretty interesting to me even if it's mediocre or crappy writing.

On the other hand the vast majority of the other blogs I come across are in no way interesting, usually even most ones based on a subject that I'm connected to or involved in.
posted by XMLicious at 2:53 AM on January 31, 2009

What I'd really like to see is an ensuing lawsuit, when the "lucky" guy says that he did not, in fact, receive her "virginity." That it was neither taken, nor given, and at no time was he in possession of her virginity. While they engaged in sexual intercourse (good or bad), he did not receive the good promised.

Yes. And for that reason, if the whole thing isn't just a hoax, she will have a law firm draw up a contract saying something to the effect that the buyer will pay the money into escrow in advance and that she receives it as a "gift" in appreciation of her "companionship" for the night and that under no circumstances will the gift be returned yadda yadda ... and in the end the guy will run away screaming if he has any brains left, which is doubtful if he got that far in the process.
posted by sour cream at 3:30 PM on January 31, 2009

She's not "talking about her sexuality," she's talking about selling it.

Wrong article.
posted by RogerB at 8:34 PM on January 31, 2009