What’s the price of virginity?

Catarina Migliorina’s chastity made $780,000 at auction last week. But why did a man’s virginity sell for just $3,000, asks Caroline Delaney

IN first-world cultures where comely young women aren’t typically sold off by older men (and to older men), headlines were made recently when an Australian documentary auctioned the virginities of a young man and woman.

Twenty-year-old Brazilian ‘maiden’, Catarina Migliorina, fetched $780,000, while Alexander Stepanov initially made $3,000. Yes, initially. His winning bidder, Nene B, wasn’t all ‘she’ seemed. But more of that later.