That said, there are several wonky things within the article itself. Let's start with the ridiculously uninformed interview between Natalie, the girl in question, and Tyra Banks embedded within. OK, I know Tyra's audience is primarily composed of the little sisters of Oprah's audience members. By and large, it's clear that the show makes the inference that they are mostly ignorant of the sex work trade, so I have minimal qualms making the same assumption. In other words, it's not surprising that Tyra's audience acquires a collective look of slack-jawed horror at the merest whiff of something that suggests hookerdom... such as selling one's virginity to the highest bidder. The idea that selling sex could be something other than utterly morally reprehensible is a wholly foreign notion to those sweet white girls. I take that for granted.
But god, Tyra's questions! They all sound like tiresome school-girl gossiping. But Natalie! What if he's, you know, icky? What if he wants you to give him a beeeee-jay? What if he wants to see your butthole? Or show you his? The girl's 22 years old, for heaven's sake. What Tyra's audience will learn about sex or feminism or Natalie herself or anything else from such an insipid, infantalizing line of inquiry, I'm not real sure.
But then the article quotes Jezebel: "So does this make Natalie the first official virgin/whore?" Now, to me, this is a truly hilarious question. The first official virgin/whore? Aren't these Jezebel writers supposed to know a thing or two about sexual politics? Honestly. The history of prostitution is fraught with the auctioning off of girls' hymens. The entirety of the geisha culture was built upon ceremonial deflowerings-- bought by only the wealthiest of men. And up until the last few decades, marriages were not much more than glorified exchanges of goods: unsullied pussy for farm animals, plots of land, cold hard cash-- you name it. I'll name it, for ease of reference, "dowry." It's certainly not like this Natalie girl coined some new idea under the sun-- that's for sure. True, it might be slightly more rare that Natalie herself will profit from this transaction, as historically the recipient of the payoff for virginity has not been the woman herself, but rather, her daddy, her pimp, her madame, her household--whatever. But even at that, she's hardly the first girl to get dollar signs in her eyes when she first held a hand mirror between her legs.
Ultimately, however, so what if the article and its accoutrements are generally uninformed? A badly written article doesn't make the source story less baffling. The truth is, the article says that Natalie's highest bids are topping $3.5 million. Just last month, I posted this
Wait, no... there must be more to it. Please! Someone! Sign me up for bad, clueless sex with a virgin. And please don't let the bad, clueless virgin sex be free! God forbid.
Yeah, does that sound as stupid to you as it does to me?
And then there's poor Natalie herself. Toiling away on her potential master's thesis on "the dichotomous relationship between virgins and whores." As if this topic hadn't been the written into the ground by every newly feministic college fresh(wo)man who ever lived. But poor Natalie is pursuing her Master's in marriage and family counseling. Yeah, that's right. A virgin wants to coach you through the rough spots in your marriage. A virgin wants you to put all your trust in her that she will lead you through the dark and foggy path of sexual discord within your long-term romantic relationship. Given, assuming the highest bidder has his way with her before her degree is complete, she'll no longer be quite so ill-equipped. But nonetheless? If I ever find myself in dire need of help in the boudoir, I want the sluttiest girl (or boy) available to help me out of my rough spot. Or maybe more precisely, to help me find my rough spot.
Above and beyond all this, though, the article poses the question as to whether or not putting your pussy on eBay conflicts with either general morality or feminist thought. Now, I think I can summarily dismiss the morality question, as I've stated a million times on this blog that I cannot fathom how consensual sex and morality are even related. Morality doesn't even come into play here as it doesn't seem like anyone's rights are being infringed upon. The feminism question, however, is a little dicier for me. On one hand, I heartily resent anything that perpuates putting valuation on something so meaningless as a grown woman's virginity. I can't, for my life, see how this does any favors for any of us. On the other hand, I heartily endorse any woman's decision-making process with regard to her own cunt. It's hers. If she wants to smack a price sticker on it, that's her right. I don't feel comfortable expressing any opinion that would oppose her. And to that end, I suppose I come out siding with the latter hand.
Of course, that doesn't mean that I don't secretly hope she fucks somebody else, say, the night before her date with Mr. Moneybritches, just to make a statement that would undermine the whole money-for-hymen dynamic completely. That would be sweet.
6 comments:
Oh come on, M, who doesn't want bad clueless sex with a virgin? ;)
I like all the naysayers who commented that she's probably not a virgin, anyway... I wonder will the winner of her lottery take any steps to find out for sure?
Well, she said she'd "submit to a gynecological exam," but anyone who knows anything about female anatomy knows that can't prove anything. Three cheers for the resilient capacities of the vaginal canal... and the flimsiness of the hymenal membrane that probably broke when she fell off the monkey bars when she was 8.
However, I think the whole questioning of whether she's a virgin in the first place is really indicative of why virginity was ever valued in the first place. I mean, back in the olden days, the laws of primogeniture put an incredibly high premium on paternity. And prior to they days of DNA-paternity testing, the only way any dude could be reasonably sure that he was raising is own babies was for him to bear witness to a splash of gore on the sheets on his wedding night.
Of course, this was not a fool-proof system. A lot of girls break their hymens through some sort of physical activity when they're very young children. And also, it's not that hard to fake a spot of blood.
So, all of the doubt about the veracity of the virgin marriage gave rise to a general distrust of women in general. If you can't trust a hymen, then what part of a woman CAN you trust?
And so, those commenters' doubts about the authenticity of poor Natalie's virginity seems to me MUCH like another instance of the essentially misogynist stance that women aren't to be trusted-- that we can't take their word for anything.
Some things never change. Much to the detriment of all of us, I think.
If you can't trust a hymen... now THAT is a phrase you don't hear every day. That should be the title of a book, I think.
ha!!!
Perhaps I will title my next book just that! Intriguing, no?
So picture the crazy Robert DeNiro character chatting up Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear. He's hot for her innocence, which he wants to steal in the worst way. Transport him to the table with Juliette and her dad in From Dusk Till Dawn, let him watch Salma Hayek do the snake dance, and who's he gonna hit? You are saying it's the erotically pyrotechnical wizardry Hayek, who has obviously been around the block a few times. But I say if he still thinks Lewis is hot, he will ignore Hayek. Why? Imagination, or rather, the intensity of the emotion, the passion that goes with that experience. Technical virtuosity is no substitute for that, IMHO.
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