Natalie Dylan Continues To Believe Virginity Auction Is New Feminist Act

Natalie Dylan, the pseudonymous woman who is auctioning off her virginity at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, has a piece in the Daily Beast today explaining herself (again) from a “feminist” perspective.

Dylan would like the world to know that even though she’s auctioning off her virginity to the man who gives her the money she thinks her maidenhead deserves — disregarding, of course, the possibility that there is no guy worth sleeping with who would actually give a woman money to take her virginity — she’s not stupid.

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.

Oh, well, if it’s a school project… Please insert your own “Therapist, heal thyself” joke here.

Anyway, it was her education in women’s studies that led her to determine that selling her body was the best way to self-determination for her.

At the university level, I was given permission to think differently and form a moral code of my own design. College opened my eyes.

Sounds like someone took a couple of philosophy classes, too, and paid really close attention when moral relativism was described (but not critiqued).

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.

Ok, actually, lots of women are still traded in the world like chattel, and virginity remains fetishized throughout the world. And owning and selling one’s own isn’t a feminist statement, though it is a capitalist one, which she recognizes.

I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.

A introspective moment! That introspection, though, lasts for all of a line break.

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.

Um, so, basically, she’s a women’s studies major who ,rather than acknowledging, studying and working to end patriarchal systems, has decided her brand new value system works best when she accepts all the patriarchal norms and uses them to make money while valuing her own body only in terms of what its labor, so to speak, can provide to a male.

Ms. Dylan, however, recognizes that there are some problems with what she’s doing:

These days, more and more women my age are profiting directly from their sex appeal, but I’m not sure other women should follow my lead. One conclusion my experiment has already borne out is that society isn’t ready for public auctions like mine—yet.

Actually, I don’t think it’s that we’re not ready. It’s that it’s nothing new, and never has been and pretty much every other women’s studies major in the country can’t believe she passed her classes if she thinks this is feminism.

Why I’m Selling My Virginity [The Daily Beast]

Earlier: Tyra: Woman Auctioning Off Her Virginity Says It Is A Feminist Act
Radio Host Laura Ingraham Tries, Fails To Rattle Virgin Natalie Dylan
Area Woman “Empowered” By Auctioning Her Virginity