“Good afternoon, Alice, please sit down,” I told her, motioning to a sofa in front of me.”I see you are wearing a modest blue dress that suggests your curves without flaunting them. That is the image we want our models to project. So far you have passed our selection process excellently. Only one test remains, and we are sure you can pass.”

“Thank you so much,” she said with relief. “I was afraid you called me in here to tell me I did not pass.”

“That is hardly the case,” I began. “Your loveliness, poise, and charm were praised. Now that I can look at you I think the praise of you was understated.”

Alice smiled nervously, and giggled a bit. “Why did you decide to become a model?” I asked.

“It wasn’t my idea really. Two of my girl friends suggested it. I am very shy, and do not think I am pretty enough. On my eighteenth birthday party a week ago they talked about it again. I decided to give it a try. If I failed, they would stop pestering me about it.”

“We are certainly glad you tried. Why did you choose our modeling agency?”

“I like the way you only work with virgins. I would not want to work with an agency with a hostile environment that expected me to have sex with men. My parents would not allow that.”

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“Not really. I have been on a few dates. It was nothing serious. I am shy, so I have difficulty talking to boys.”

“It may not have been serious for you. I am confident that each of those boys has a crush on you. They will remember the time spent with you forever.”

“They are nice like you, but they are not eloquent like you.”

“They will become eloquent when they get older. You will inspire them. If I may ask, why are you still a virgin?”

“I am not interested in casual sex and sexual variety. The girls I know who have had sex with guys tell me it was disappointing. The man I want to get married to will want me to be a virgin. He might be one too. If he loves me he will be willing to wait.”

“Some girls enjoy casual sex and sexual variety,” she continued. “Most girls don’t, but we are told that we should, and that if we don’t, there is something wrong with us. An older friend of mine told me that the more men a woman has sex with the harder it is to say ‘No’ to the next one, and the less likely he is to stay. I don’t want to get trapped into that.”

I replied, “Because our models are known to be virgins, men ask to be introduced to them. We screen the men before introducing them. Several of our models have married men who first saw them on our website. By accounts those marriages are working. I have read in The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind that in marriages where both partners are virgins, only ten percent of the marriages result in divorce. Children raised by both biological parents living together in matrimony tend to have many fewer problems in life. “We fund the weddings of our models who get married.”

“I want to be married in my church,” Alice said.

“We would not want it any other way. How does it feel to be eighteen?”

“I’m not sure. Kind of good, I guess. Sometimes I feel like I am still a little girl. In my bedroom I have two large stuffed animals that my parents gave me when I was little.”

“We would like to take some photos of you with those animals. Would your parents mind?”

“I do not see why they would. They know I am applying for a position as one of your models. They like the atmosphere you create for your models.”

“You will still need to undress for me so I can verify your virginity. Will that be a problem for you?”

“I am nervous about it. So far the only man who has seen me naked is my father. When I was little he told me to stop walking around the house naked, so I did. I have always gone to women doctors. The few boys I dated never saw me that way.”

“We pay our models extra if they pose in the nude for our photographers,” I said. “They are never required to. As you have seen from our website, the photos are not pornography. They are erotic art. Our photographers study the photographs of Jock Sturgis and David Hamilton. Toward the end of his life a woman accused Hamilton of raping her when she was his teenage model. He committed suicide as a result, so I think he was guilty. That shocked and disgusted me, but his photographs are still beautiful. I would never do something like that, but a man accused of that will never come clean. He will always be suspected. A scandal like that would destroy our agency.”