You’re a 22 year old girl who’s been saving herself for that special guy. You’ve managed to get through college ‘intact’, most of your friends having had their flower picked by various frat boys while wasted on appletinis and one by the entire football team on a sports trip to Wisconsin. You now feel ready to take that final step to womanhood and you’ve thought of a way it can pay for Grad school too!
What does everyone else do when they have something they don’t want anymore, the third toaster you got for your wedding, that Ricki Martin CD you never listen to, a gubernatorial jet? They EBay it. So, why not your virginity?
This is precisely what ‘Natalie Dylan’ (She’s not using her real name for some inexplicable reason) is doing. A Woman’s Studies graduate from Sacramento State, she is hoping to become a marriage councillor once she’s auctioned off her hymen to pay for school. The media circus now surrounding her extends from CNN to Howard Stern, who has gallantly offered to promote the auction on his radio show. She is being wrangled by Dennis Hof, infamous owner of the Bunny Ranch where the auction and the deflowering itself will take place and her sister is already gainfully employed paying off her student debt.
Despite this oh so obvious male control, ‘Dylan’ sees putting her bride’s pride under the hammer as some sort of post feminism act of empowerment. Burning your bra is so 20th century. What we should all be doing is selling ourselves to the highest bidder so he can be internationally known as a cherry popper. If that isn’t going to close the wage gap, I don’t know what is.
Take note Palin, this girl’s a true women’s rights icon.
She even has a better grasp of the American economy: “We live in a capitalist society. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to capitalise on my virginity?” If only Lehman Brothers had thought of that! Hell, if the winner’s from overseas, surely that will count as foreign policy experience. ‘Dylan’ in ’12!! ‘Dylan’ in ’12!!! She’ll break through your glass ceiling, after someone’s broken through hers!
But ‘Dylan’ is not only a woman’s rights activist and potential world leader, she’s also a romantic: “Through this process I’m not just looking for the highest bidder. I’m looking for someone who is a genuine, overall nice person.” Aww, she’s just a single girl looking for love. Nobody thought it would work but when her eyes met his wallet it was...magic. They’re optioning the movie rights to Miramax, Jason Biggs and Katie Holmes are going to star.
What’s really going on here? Once you get through the jokes, the media and the questionable viability of a girl actually finishing college with her virginity, what does all this really mean? Is this the culmination of 60’s free love attitudes fused with the ultimate capitalist ethic? Is it the last bastion of sexual morality slipping away? Is it proof that sexual impropriety now rules and we are truly an anything goes, anything is up for grabs society? Are we all damned? Or is it all about one girl who is so desperate for her fifteen minutes of fame she is willing to shock the world the only way she feels she can? Andy Wahol would be proud.
The problem is nobody really cares. Whether she goes through with it or not, whether she ends up with Colin Farrell or Ron Jeremy, whether it’s a hoax, whether she makes a million or whether she makes a hundred, within a matter of months she will just be a name and if she’s lucky everyone will soon forget that too.
Going once...going twice... sold.
2 comments:
you have an interesting and unique take on things (that in a few mere months, she'll be forgotten, instead of remembered and attached to the stigma of what she's doing forever). i think you're probably right. this girl is a nobody, made famous by media hype, and will soon fade away into obscurity after every one is bored with her. i don't know who is to blame - her (for being a shame to women) or the media (for taking the time of day to cover this). either way, you made some great points and made me laugh along the way. well done.
The writer almost got me to spray the Earl Grey on the screen several times here.
But now that I know the writer - which is way columnists get popular, people LOOK for their work - I can see the setups most of the time and put the cup down before I let out with a laugh.
The writer uses lot of humor to make solid points:
"Burning your bra is so 20th century."
Yet she manages to get her opinion translated in an easy-to-read manner.
I think the column ends a little abruptly, but still, when you use Colin Farrell and Ron Jeremy in the same sentence, it's pretty funny, and effective.
Nicely done.
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