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Back in September 2008, a 22-year-old woman who used the pseudonym Natalie Dylan decided to auction off her virginity in order to raise money to attend college. She did this completely within the confines of Nevada state law and hoped to raise more than one million dollars after the entire auction was over.
In an interview on the Tyra Banks show, which she appeared on with the highest bidder, Dylan said that one of her intentions was to do a social case study on how people would react to her taking control of her body by using her virginity as a means to an end. She even claimed people don’t like when women take control of their bodies. So has she really taken control, or has she made female objectification a commodity?
My first instinct is to criticize her morals and ethics. I have a hard time justifying prostitution as a way to say one now has control over one’s body. Which is essentially what the action was – a high-level prostitution transaction. Courses at the University of Maine generally teach that women are forced into prostitution due to economic reasons, but it isn’t a way of obtaining empowerment.
Even if Dylan truly felt empowered by her virginity sale, I can’t help but remember there are two parties required for this transaction. While she might feel good about her choices, one must still consider the male who bought her virginity. He bought her body as if she were a slave or a street-walking prostitute. He now has claim to her body and all of the parts required for sex. Were his intentions as pure as hers?
The man involved explicitly stated he wanted to take her virginity because he had “never had a virgin before.” His sole goal was to fulfill a fantasy by taking an “innocent” woman’s virginity at the age of 59 because he had never had that experience before. Both partners in this money-for-sex swap saw her virginity as a commodity, but she saw it as empowerment while he saw it, at least in my opinion, as objectification.
What if by selling her virginity, Dylan really was taking control of her body, but society hasn’t reached the point of it being socially acceptable, at least not in the other 49 states? Maybe she really is on a path that will help liberate women sexually. Maybe double standards will be dropped and men will see women as powerful and not a commodity for sex, beauty and pleasure.
I do commend Dylan for doing something she feels makes her more liberated and empowered. I do think she might have had the right intentions behind the sale of her virginity, but I think she might have missed the boat on that one. I think her good intentions will just perpetuate the idea that women are objects of pleasure and that men are to “have” as many as possible in their lifetime.
Rebekah Rhodes is photo editor for The Maine Campus.
