The XX Factor: What women really think.

When Economies Are Tight, Virgins Go to Auction

Regarding the news that Natalie Dylan, a 22-year-old women's studies major, is selling her virginity to the highest bidder (currently, the top bid is at $3.7 million), Samantha wondered how selling one's virginity is, as Dylan claims, "empowering." For the expert opinion on the tricky relationship between sex, money, and empowerment, I asked Audacia Ray, a former sex worker and author of Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration, to weigh in with her thoughts on the matter. 

I'm a former sex worker (the put-myself-through-graduate-school kind) and a vocal advocate for sex worker's rights and the ability of women to make their own choices about their bodies and sexual expression both inside and outside of the sex industry. That said, I find the trope of "empowerment" a bit tiresome and oversimplified. The spectrum of conversations about female sexuality (commercial or otherwise) doesn't seem to actually be much of a spectrum: women can either be empowered or degraded about their sexuality. When I get asked about whether or not I felt empowered by my work in the sex industry, I always feel compelled to say yes, but I say it without much conviction. If I don't affirm that I'm empowered, that means I've been a victim—or that I'm about to hit the inquirer with a heady dose of semantics.

Jobs in the sex industry are often seen in a roughly hierarchical way by both people inside and outside the business, depending on the degree of nudity and sexual interaction and the amount of money one gets paid for the work. Stripping and modeling (sometimes even including porn) work seem to be increasingly acceptable, perhaps because they give the impression of flirting with naughtiness while the woman doing it is a good girl in bad circumstances. The stigma and the social price of crossing the line into sex for money is a bit different—and also viewed differently by law enforcement. The hierarchy tends to be enforced by "Never would I ever..." statements that sometimes enforce norms that aren't even all that logical but are driven by emotional reactions.

I'm all for people making money off of their assets and a bit of cunning marketing. If a girl can get $3.7 million for her virginity, why the hell not? But let's also step back a minute and separate sex and money. When the sex industry gets discussed, it's usually the sex part that is emphasized. The notion of empowerment that gets kicked around is solely about the sex act, not about the money. Maybe this is part of a cultural seduction that people want to buy into: the idea of the prostitute who is compelled to do her work because she's brimming over with sexual desire and the money is a nice side benefit. But the reality is that most sex workers, like other members of the work force, do their jobs because they get paid. So if you want to talk empowerment, maybe it's time to talk about money, too. Do Wall Street workers feel empowered? Well, maybe not in this economy.