Howard Stern in virgin territory

Tuesday, September 9th 2008, 4:00 AM

Look for Howard Stern to shock again on Tuesday morning when he's due to kick off the auction of a 22-year-old beauty's virginity.

Expected to step on the block, so to speak, of Stern's Sirius radio studio is a San Diego woman who says she wants to sell her maidenhood to pay her college tuition.

"I don't have a moral dilemma with it," says the pretty brunette, who's using the pseudonym of Natalie Dylan "for safety reasons."

"We live in a capitalist society," she tells us. "Why shouldn't I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity?"

Dylan was introduced to Stern by Dennis Hof, proprietor of the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, Nevada's famed legal brothel (seen on HBO's hit series "Cathouse.")

Hof says the auction will be conducted online via bunnyranch.com, and that the deal will be consummated at the Bunny Ranch, where Dylan's sister already works. "I think it's a tremendous idea," he says. "Why lose it to some guy in the backseat of a Toyota when you can pay for your education?"

There won't be any questions about Dylan's virtue: The lass says she's willing to submit to a polygraph test and a gynecological exam to confirm her virginity.

According to Dylan, she and her sister were forced into the skin trade partly because their stepfather allegedly took out student loans in their names without their permission, leaving them unable to finance their education.

She says she's already earned her bachelor's degree in women's studies at Sacramento State and that in January she'll start her master's work in marriage and family therapy there. She hopes to get a doctorate.

Meanwhile, her mother, a "conservative" fourth-grade teacher, doesn't approve of what she's doing, "but she supports me."

More worrisome is the potential media storm. "I understand some people may condemn me," Dylan says. "But I think this is empowering. I'm using what I have to better myself."

Dylan told us she got the auction idea after reading about a Peruvian woman who needed to pay for her mother's medical bills. A Canadian man made a whopping $1.5 million bid, but the woman reportedly decided not to go through with the sex.

Dylan says the winner won't necessarily be the highest bidder. "I want someone with chemistry. We'll take bids until I find a suitor I'm happy with.”