Sold to the Highest Bidder—My Virginity!

If you’re one of the millions of people who believe that you can buy just about anything online, then you now have proof. A 21-year-old college graduate from Sacramento, Natalie Dylan, is offering up her virginity for sale to the highest bidder.

The sale is being handled by the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, a brothel in Carson City, Nevada. So far there have been more than 10,000 bids on this priceless commodity. Although some religious groups are outraged and complaining loudly to the authorities, there isn’t anything the local police can do, and not even federal authorities such as the FBI or the U.S. attorney can do anything about it. That’s because Natalie is marketing her virginity in Nevada. And prostitution is legal in Nevada.

Critics say that they are concerned that the influence of auctions such as these may reach beyond Nevada’s borders and have an effect on other states. Some hope that because the sale is advertised on the Internet and bids are being taken online, that federal law may be able to prevent the auction from coming to a climax, so to speak.

But a spokesman for the Las Vegas field office of the FBI said that only local authorities would have any jurisdiction because prostitution is legal in Nevada, Dylan is over the age of 18, and the end result would be consensual. Some illegal online auctions are monitored by the Postal Inspection Service, but a spokesman for the Postal Service said there currently is no federal prohibition against auctions such as Dylan’s. The U.S. attorney’s office in Nevada has prosecuted more than 200 online solicitation cases in the past five years, but those cases involved minors.

Legal experts claim that the sale can’t be thwarted because of Dylan’s First Amendment’s rights. Although a prosecutor may want to disagree, there is no law against advertising illegal services anywhere, if they are legal where they are being performed. Commercial free speech is protected by the government.

The auction is scheduled to take place on September 9 at the Moonlight Bunny Ranch, with shock jock Howard Stern officiating. Dylan, who already has an undergraduate degree in Women’s Studies, will use the proceeds from the auction to pursue a graduate degree in marriage and family therapy. Bidders will be assured of her chastity by the results of a lie detector test as well as a gynecological exam.

This isn’t the first time virginity has been advertised on the Internet, and it most likely won’t be the last. One particularly noteworthy instance was in 1999 when 17-year-old honor student Francis D. Cornworth held an eBay auction to sell his virginity to the highest bidder. Francis told potential bidders that he was the president of the computer club and the audiovisual club at school, played lead trumpet for the jazz band, and was in the top 5% of his class. Being the accommodating chap he was, Francis, who lived in Miami, offered to meet the winner halfway if they lived in Florida. Unfortunately the auction was yanked within 24 hours, and bidding had already reached a cool $10 million, with 17 bids.

Luckily Dylan’s auction broker is located in Nevada, not Florida, so her auction will proceed as planned. Of course Natalie Dylan isn’t her real name, but the bidders probably don’t care because she’s attractive, young, and intelligent. Intelligent enough to realize that offering up this unique item for sale will finance graduate school for both her and her sister. She hopes to make at least $1 million from the winning bidder, but sources say that bidding has already surpassed the $3 million mark. If she manages to snatch that much money for her special item, she and her sister could probably buy a graduate school.