The high bids seem easy to explain. I doubt there’s any deeply rooted evolutionary artifact in play. Rather, virginity has value for the same reason many other saleable resources do: its rarity. There’s no practical limit on the total number of sexual experiences available in the world, but there’s only one virgin for each person born — and of those, the vast majority are unwilling to sell their virginity at all.

Second, I have got see a sellersville theater show. In fact, I may be too late.

Third, ironically this may make teenage girls less sexually active. If they perceive a value to their virginity, they may be less likely to waste it on a teenage boy. I mean really! Have you seen the current crop of teenage boys?

Assuming all the stated facts are accurate, why is virginity seen to have such value? In terms of technique, experience ought to be worth a lot. But it’s not. I suspect some instinctive behavior is in play here. A virgin is more assured to give birth to the male’s child, carrying forward his DNA.

I make no claim at all that she’s now unfit to earn such a degree or to pursue such a career.

I find Fox’s outrage to be funny specifically because it’s so curiously misplaced. Here’s an adult — by any definition ever employed anywhere in the country or indeed anywhere in the world — legally advertising a service she can legally offer where she intends to perform it, and impinging on the morals of others only to the extent they bid in virginity auctions (or read Fox News).

Most importantly, I assert that a woman who can honestly say to a teenager in a family counseling session, “Ya know, I waited until I was 22 to have sex, and then I sold my virginity for millions of dollars,” could become the only human being in the whole of recorded history to successfully stop a determined teenager from becoming sexually active.

None of these facts, however, make so unusual a remark as Mr. Hof’s any less hilarious. Likewise, Google is entirely justified to have recommended such a popular search string to me in the first place, but its presence in the auto-complete list is no less absurd.

Incidentally, I just noticed this line in the Fox article, which is just completely fantastic:

“One time only she will appear at the bunny ranch and give up her virginity to the highest bidder,” says the brothel’s Web site in a needlessly repetitive statement.

A marriage counselor who engages in sex work is only an oxymoron if you buy into a pretty limited interpretation of what makes a functional family (and it bears noting that this one-time transaction is a far cry from true “working girl” status).

Do this girl’s choices make her any less qualified to dispense relationship advice than people who had their grad school paid for by mommy and daddy and never experienced a day of adversity? Or than a therapist who happened to have slept around?