For two days I have been trying to reach Matthew Archbold of National Catholic Register. And, for two days he has chosen to ignore my request for an explanation/interview on a bizarre opinion piece he authored for NCR.

As I blogged earlier, an Australian reality show is allegedly planning to auction off the alleged virginity of self-proclaimed virgins at a Nevada brothel. There are plenty of reasons to find this disturbing. And, I also think it is unlikely to ever take place. I find it significant that no brothel has been named, and I suspect getting Australians licensed to work at a brothel in Nevada for this purpose will be virtually impossible.

But to me the theoretical auction is no more disturbing than any other sold sex act. The obsession on the part of those who are bidding and the offense taken by people like Archbold seem to me tainted by an anachronistic notion of ‘purity.’  Think about it: These virgins could have done so many things, Bill Clinton things, that aren’t technically THE sex act (as well as viewed so many sex acts of all kinds on the net)— what innocence is there really in a single act of a certain type?   “Virgin auction” sure stands out to the national media, but isn’t this idea more silly than offensive?

All that is really going on here is that unlike surgery or landscaping, apparently, some customers would prefer to hire a beginner rather than a worker with experience. That is a matter of eccentric preference.

But what is stunning about Archbold’s column is that he takes this silly publicity stunt, and makes a convoluted argument blaming legal abortion.

Random? I know.

That is why I wanted to speak to him.

Archbold writes:

“This is America. Home of ‘my body, my choice.’ If we allow the killing of a human being because a woman can do with her body what she wants then how can we argue that a person can’t use their [sic] body to have sex for money if it’s their [sic] choice?”

So, the supposed virgin auction to Archbold is a natural consequence of a nation allowing a certain medical procedure to be legal?

One thing I’d hoped to ask Archbold about was if he realized he is chronologically wrong? Brothels were running and licensed with health checks in Nevada years before Roe  V. Wade (decided January 1973). In fact, brothels in Nevada go back more than a century. But even if he did not know that, surely, Archbold  is aware that prostitution predates the existence of all medical abortion. Prostitution is called “the oldest profession,” after all.

Further Archbold must know that since Roe. V. Wade, legal prostitution has not swept across  the United States or expanded at all.  Legal prostitution has not even grown in Nevada, where brothels remain illegal in Las Vegas and Reno.

Finally, I am sorely tempted to take a parting cheap shot at the moral authority of the Catholic Church, at this time, to be passing  judgment on how Nevada’s laws protect innocent youth; or, perhaps that is as much a bogus argument as tossing abortion into a virgin auction? (Photo: Richard Abowitz of Chicken Ranch)