Virginity A Tool To Keep Women In Their Place

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
[url="http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-01-23/why-im-selling-my-virginity/full/"]so says the woman who sold her virginity to the highest bidder:[/url]
[quote]“When I learned this, it became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that? It is mine, after all. And the value of my chastity is one level on which men cannot compete with me. I decided to flip the equation, and turn my virginity into something that allows me to gain power and opportunity from men. I took the ancient notion that a woman’s virginity is priceless and used it as a vehicle for capitalism.[/quote]
from the article, she says that 'the value of virginity' is her thesis project.

[Hassan]

I doubt those bids up to 3.8 million are real. With all due respect to her she's just not that good looking.

I wonder if her parents know about this?

[missionseeker]

How can they not... ?

[Lil Red]

+J.M.J.+
i think her actual thesis topic is an interesting one, and would be from a Catholic perspective.

[philothea]

If I remember correctly, some female saints are honored as "virgins" whereas men never are? I always wondered about that.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

Edited January 25, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote][b]The Article[/b]Are you rolling your eyes? I knew this experiment would bring me condemnation. But I'm not saying every forward-thinking person has to agree with what I’m doing. You should develop your own personal belief system—that’s exactly my point! For me, valuing virginity as sacred is simply not a concept I could embrace. But valuing virginity monetarily—now that’s a concept I could definitely get behind. I no longer view the selling of sex as wrong or immoral—my time at college showed me that I had too blindly accepted such arbitrary norms. And for what it’s worth, the winning bid won’t necessarily be the highest—I get to choose.
...
I might even be an early adopter of a future trend, if the ads that clutter Craigslist are any indication of the direction we’re headed in. These days, more and more women my age are profiting directly from their sex appeal, but I’m not sure other women should follow my lead. One conclusion my experiment has already borne out is that society isn’t ready for public auctions like mine—yet.[/quote]

She disregards the transcendent and speaks of the only value as being monetary. She speaks the truth when she says that people are using their sex appeal for physical profit but she does not understand they only receive spiritual harm as a lasting result. It just saddens me when people, especially women who are always deserving of a place of respect and thus should demand it from others around them, reduce themselves to just objects to be used for their own gratification or for the gratification of others. It is truly a sad day when the idea of the transcendent and anything higher than the materiality of this world dies in the heart of another.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='philothea' post='1761224' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:18 PM']If I remember correctly, some female saints are honored as "virgins" whereas men never are? I always wondered about that.[/quote]
I have too! "Virgin and Martyr" for instance.
Why is chastity (seemingly) not as highly valued for men?

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote][quote](philothea @ Jan 25 2009, 02:18 PM)
If I remember correctly, some female saints are honored as "virgins" whereas men never are? I always wondered about that.[/quote]
I have too! "Virgin and Martyr" for instance.
Why is chastity (seemingly) not as highly valued for men?[/quote]

I think it might have something to do with the understanding that women hold life within them when they are pregnant. Just as the tabernacle is veiled or the chalice veiled when they do not hold the body and blood of Christ out of respect for the fact that they will hold life within them, so are women be respected for within their bodies they shall hold another life. Once they have a child their glory is present to all in the form of another but until then their virginity is respected as a gift and honor that they have the ability to aid in the creation of another being within their very bodies. How great is the gift to take a special part in the divine creation of another being! I think that is why virginity in women is so highly respected and not in men, because women play a special role in God's creation of another life that we men do not. And so we honor that ability and praise them when they honor it too. That is just my understanding.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' post='1761232' date='Jan 25 2009, 12:26 PM']I have too! "Virgin and Martyr" for instance.
Why is chastity (seemingly) not as highly valued for men?[/quote]
I just started think of this after you mentioned it.
It immediately brings to my mind the story with St. Maximilian, where Mary appeared and offered him the martyr's crown and the purity crown, asking which he would take, and he said both...

[sweens8403]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' post='1761227' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:21 PM']She disregards the transcendent and speaks of the only value as being monetary. She speaks the truth when she says that people are using their sex appeal for physical profit but she does not understand they only receive spiritual harm as a lasting result. It just saddens me when people, especially women who are always deserving of a place of respect and thus should demand it from others around them, [b]reduce themselves to just objects to be used for their own gratification or for the gratification of others[/b]. It is truly a sad day when the idea of the transcendent and anything higher than the materiality of this world dies in the heart of another.[/quote]

I personally find it irritating that these same women will then sit around and wonder where all the good men are. First, they aren't looking for good men. Second they are actively taking part in corrupting good men.

[MithLuin]

Oh, and also, St. Anselm wrote one of his meditations on one's 'Virginity Evilly Lost', so it's not like virginity was only valued for female saints. I do agree, though, that the virgin martyrs of the early church are all female (though not all the female martyrs are virgins )

[Hassan]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' post='1761227' date='Jan 25 2009, 02:21 PM']She disregards the transcendent and speaks of the only value as being monetary. She speaks the truth when she says that people are using their sex appeal for physical profit but she does not understand they only receive spiritual harm as a lasting result. It just saddens me when people, especially women who are always deserving of a place of respect and thus should demand it from others around them, reduce themselves to just objects to be used for their own gratification or for the gratification of others. It is truly a sad day when the idea of the transcendent and anything higher than the materiality of this world dies in the heart of another.[/quote]


Well, I mean Christianity as an intelectually viable system of thought more or less died in the 19th century with Darwin's "public murder". At least in the minds (for the most part) of the Western intelligentsia. As Nietzsche said the murder occured long ago but "The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."


I think Shabbir Akhtar put it in aninteresting way
"It is a subtly musing irony that modern Christian writers, such a Swinburne cited in note 22 above, are condescending towards both the Christian apologists and their secular critics of the nineteenth century: the apologists had misdirected their hostility while the secular critics had failed to keep target in focus. One army had missed the mark while the other was fighting in the wrong battlefield. With the benefit of hindsight, however, we realize that the Christian apologists took the right side in the right battle. But they lost; and they knew it and we know it."

Natural theology has shifted from a project to show that atheism was simply the childish whims of stubborn individuals trying to resist the will of God to an attempt simply to justify the preheld beliefs of the faithful. This is fine for Christians but I don't think you can then say those who reject it are simply "disregarding the transcendent". The "transcendent" has no longer become a viable option for many people and that is not just a result of their moral corruption but that there is very little reason to look at the "transcendent" as any thing more substantive than a "pious wish".

[CatherineM]

Virgin or not, if you are selling yourself, there isn't any difference between her and the 16 year old standing on the corner across from our church getting in to strange men's cars.

[Hassan]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1761381' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:19 PM']Virgin or not, if you are selling yourself, there isn't any difference between her and the 16 year old standing on the corner across from our church getting in to strange men's cars.[/quote]


I was thinking that too. I wonder how this is legal.

[Apotheoun]

The female saints referenced as "virgins" in the liturgical books of the various Churches made vows (private or public) of virginity, and were consequently enrolled (while living or after their martyrdom) into the Order of Virgins.

[Saint Therese]

If anyone thinks that she's really a virgin, they're not that bright.
Basically, she's a prostitute who's found a new way of selling herself.

And traditionally, societies that have valued virginity have the greatest respect for women.

Edited January 25, 2009 by Saint Therese

[Lil Red]

[quote name='philothea' post='1761224' date='Jan 25 2009, 11:18 AM']If I remember correctly, some female saints are honored as "virgins" whereas men never are? I always wondered about that.[/quote]
+J.M.J.+
a book i have talks about that - maybe it is Alice von Hildebrand's "The Privilege of Being a Woman"? not sure though.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1761342' date='Jan 25 2009, 03:58 PM']Well, I mean Christianity as an intelectually viable system of thought more or less died in the 19th century with Darwin's "public murder". At least in the minds (for the most part) of the Western intelligentsia. As Nietzsche said the murder occured long ago but "The tremendous event is still on its way, still travelling - it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time, the light of the stars requires time, deeds require time even after they are done, before they can be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than the distant stars - and yet they have done it themselves."
....
Natural theology has shifted from a project to show that atheism was simply the childish whims of stubborn individuals trying to resist the will of God to an attempt simply to justify the preheld beliefs of the faithful. This is fine for Christians but I don't think you can then say those who reject it are simply "disregarding the transcendent". The "transcendent" has no longer become a viable option for many people and that is not just a result of their moral corruption but that there is very little reason to look at the "transcendent" as any thing more substantive than a "pious wish".[/quote]

I am currently double majoring in Biology and Theology and taking Honors classes and will end up with a philosophy minor and have read much on these ideas. I do not think that Darwin's "public murder," this is the first time I have heard anyone call it that, has in fact killed Christianity. I do not see Evolution as in conflict with theology and Christian understanding since St. Augustine argued that animals change along with their environment to better suit their surrounding long before Darwin ever did. St. Augustine argued that the literal interpretation of Genesis was the wrong road but rather argued for a metaphorical understanding.

I think that Nietzsche's understanding is actually closer to why people have rejected Christianity. From what I can understand from having read him, Nietzsche notes that " we have unchained ourselves from our sun" and are floating through space lost. This seems to denote to me that Nietzsche is speaking of the Enlightenment when the thinkers of the time tried to create an ethical system without mentioning God and tried to place human reason and humanity at the center of society, thought, and motivation, thus unchaining ourselves from our sun which kept us focused and ordered our lives ( in a similar way to which gravity from the sun orders our solar system). From this focus on humanity and removal of God from political and sociological thought comes people like Francis Bacon, who while speaking of using Nature as a guide, is actually trying to persuade people that science is the true salvation and that through it we can conquer sickness, pain, and eventually death. He notes that eventually even Nature will become a slave of science. He then attacks the syllogism which had held up the logic of people's transcendental ideas and replaced it with deductive reasoning thus making science the only true mode of understanding and knowledge. Bacon does not try to kill the transcendent but rather ignores it pretty much. To ignore the transcendent, focus on the material, and offer people a bunch of scientific goodies that take pain away will attack the trascendental idea within the hearts of men.

Ultimately, one of the great reasons that the transcendent is such a powerful idea is that it gives meaning to pain and suffering. With the exclusion of the traditional understanding of faith as a type of knowledge in favor of only objective scientific knowledge and the all encompassing desire to remove pain from life, the idea of the transcendent has suffered in the hearts of men. People move from fleeting pleasure to fleeting pleasure and focus simply on the material and I think Nietzsche noticed this and that is what he was speaking of in "The Gay Science." The loss of the idea of the transcendent is not caused by moral depravity but by the trying to disregard all faith and even inductive reasoning as just a pious wish, that all universals are just pious wishes and that physical pain is just an inconvenient negative feedback reaction associated with the spinal chord and that the pains of the heart are just hormonal and will go away soon enough. No one looks beyond the physical or for meaning and that is why the idea of the transcendental suffers.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='Hassan' post='1761388' date='Jan 25 2009, 04:24 PM']I was thinking that too. I wonder how this is legal.[/quote]

Prostitution is legal in Nevada. They call their brothels "Ranches." She mentions one of them in the article.