Most women hold onto their own virginity for religious reasons, or selective preference.
Other women, like 27-year-old medical school student who goes by Elizabeth Raine, keep it for the sole purpose of auctioning it off online on her website elizabeth-raine.com. The highest bid reached $801,000 before she backed out of the deal, according to The Post-Standard.
But she’s not the only one. Raine is one of at least eight women on record who have auctioned off their virginity online, according to The Frisky.
Men have bid as high as $3.7 million to pop a girl’s cherry, as one man did for the opportunity with Natalie Dylan, who held another online auction through bunnyranch.com, according to the New York Daily News.
Some women view the sale of virginity as a clever way to profit financially from something that society is so desperate for — sex.
Besides, selling sex often has unparalleled economic rewards, according to the Kinsey Institute at Cal State University, Northridge.
The act itself is a form of prostitution, which is illegal in all states except Nevada, according to procon.org.
But even so, the fact that a woman can even auction off her virginity says a lot about the society that we live in.
Raine realized that most of the criticism she received was about her immorality, as she explained in a blog post that was connected to the auction site.
“It is no longer about the money,” she wrote. “Instead, very broadly, it is about how society continues to exercise control over female sexuality by chaining it tightly to female morality.”
But putting a price on a woman’s virginity is comparable to an argument of quality versus quantity. Most women lose their virginity to someone who means something to them, which would therefore make for a “quality” first time.
With these women, who auction their virginity off for money, though, it is about quantity, or the highest bid. There is likely not going to be a high “quality” in that situation for the woman involved.
Virginity auctions should not be permissible because it is commercializing and exploiting an event in a woman’s life that is intended to be a meaningful and personal memory.
While women like Raine fight to separate female sexuality and female morality, I feel that in some instances, it is necessary to link the two together.
If our society and the media continue to value women solely on sex appeal, then there are bound to be a lot more “virginity auctions” in the future.