Erotic Capital Research Articles

STRATEGIC USE OF EROTIC CAPITAL IN CHALLENGING PATRIARCHY: THE CASE OF KURIYEDATH THATRI AND ITS CINEMATIC REPRESENTATION IN PARINAYAM

The article examines the concept of erotic capital and its use by women to fight against the patriarchal system, with a focus on the historical figure, Kuriyedath Thatri (also called Thatrikutty) from the Namboodiri community in Kerala. The study aims to understand Thatrikutty’s strategic deployment of erotic capital, which marked an end to the chastity trial of smarthavicharam within the community. Additionally, it critiques the 1994 Malayalam movie Parinayam, which is based on Thatrikutty’s life, for its lack of portrayal of erotic capital. Employing a qualitative analysis, the study begins with an overview of the condition of Namboodiri women and the concept of smarthavicharam. It then delves into how Thatrikutty used her erotic capital as a weapon against the oppressive system. Subsequently, the article shifts focus to the movie Parinayam, detailing the film’s failure to depict erotic capital. The findings reveal how women can use erotic capital as a powerful weapon to challenge patriarchal oppressions, as exemplified by Thatrikutty’s actions. The study also finds out that the lack of portrayal of erotic capital in the movie Parinayam, accounts to the attempt to suit the movie to societal thoughts, concerning the response of a wide audience.

Hypersexualisation and racialised erotic capital in sex work

Eight people, including six women of East Asian descent, at three massage spas were killed on 16 March 2021 in Atlanta, USA by a 21-year-old White man who sought to eliminate ‘temptation’ for a sex addiction he claimed to experience. This mass killing compelled public discussion about the hypersexualisation of Asian women in White, Western contexts and the risks faced by Asian women in ‘intimate labour’. This occurred alongside a dialogical shift towards sex worker rights in public and media discourses, yet these public dialogues appeared to occur alongside each other, rather than in interaction with each other. In between these dialogues remained questions about the legacies of hypersexualisation and what this means for Asian women in sex work, an industry that resists convenient understandings of desire and power and where hypersexuality may be simultaneously contested and deployed. This article bridges these dialogues to explore how a sex worker rights framework can engage with questions of race, hypersexualisation and erotic capital for Asian women in sex work. This is followed by an analysis of responses to hypersexualisation within Asian diasporic communities, and the implications for a more inclusive sex worker rights movement.

Erotic capital and erotic dividends

Sexualities scholars have developed the idea of erotic capital, that is the characteristics that make someone sexually desirable in specific contexts. While much of the literature focuses on those who either possess or lack erotic capital, and how erotic capital manifests within sexual and dating situations, few studies pursue what happens after erotic capital is used to attract a partner or how individuals feel about others’ interpretations of their erotic capital. Therefore, we advance the literature by developing the concept “erotic dividends,” which we conceptualize as the yield or outcome generated from erotic capital. By exploring erotic dividends, we highlight the importance of recognizing that erotic capital is highly situational/dependent and we complicate assumptions that erotic capital routinely engenders beneficial sexual experiences. To explore erotic dividends, we draw on in-depth interview research on the development of sexual selves with samples of straight-identifying U.S. men and women in their 20s–60s conducted with straight men and women in the United States. We suggest that while some might possess erotic capital, this does not automatically guarantee they will produce benefits, and may ultimately reinforce broader structural inequalities, particularly those related to gender and race. Overall, we argue that the concept of erotic dividends helps to clarify how power, desirability, and inequalities operate within sexual situations.

The effect of luxury brand erotic capital on luxury brand consumption value and purchase intention - focus on VIP customers

ABSTRACT In today’s society, individuals invest considerable effort into enhancing their physical appearance for socioeconomic success. Despite significantly expanding the boundaries of luxury brands, there has been limited academic exploration into the analysis of luxury brand value from an erotic capital perspective. This study explores the effect of erotic capital on the consumption value and purchase intention of luxury brands. We surveyed 148 VIP customers of major luxury brands and ascertained key elements of erotic capital, notably finding that factors such as pleasure, beauty, and arousal positively influence consumer behavior. Additionally, we confirmed the moderating effects of age and VIP level. Our findings suggest that luxury brands should incorporate the concept of erotic capital into their designs and marketing strategies while maintaining their brand identity to effectively navigate rapidly changing market environments and expand their customer base.

Emma Coronel y la feminidad buchona en redes sociodigitales. Formas de resignificar a la mujer en el narcotráfico

Este texto analiza discursos sobre Emma Coronel, esposa de Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, y la feminidad buchona en Instagram y TikTok. Empleando la netnografía, se aproxima a las redes sociodigitales para abordar la relación entre la narcocultura y el género, implicando componentes socioculturales, económicos, políticos, históricos y tecnológicos. Se identifican prácticas y discursos que participan en la construcción de la feminidad buchona. Sin embargo, se cuestiona el capital erótico como una forma de resistencia en el narcomundo.

The Solution for Girls with No Sex Appeal: The Ironized Yeast – A Multi Modal Discourse Analysis of Vintage Advertisements

This paper presents a discourse analysis of three vintage advertisements for Ironized Yeast using Multi Modal Discourse Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis. Drawing on the concept of erotic capital by Hakim (2011), the study explores how these advertisements exploit women’s insecurities about their body shape while offering a solution that goes beyond physical attractiveness. The analysis reveals that the advertisements promote the idea that women can leverage their erotic capital to enhance their sex appeal, thereby increasing their chances of success in the dating and marriage market. This research examines the construction and perpetuation of the seductive power associated with a curvy figure. The findings highlight the intricate interplay between discourses of attractiveness, power dynamics, and societal expectations, urging critical reflection on the influence of such representations on individuals and broader social dynamics.

Erotic capital and its role in the assessment of candidates and employees: scale development and validation

Inspired by the concept of erotic capital, we claim that candidates’ and employees’ erotic capital is one of the factors that may influence on the decisions related to human resources management. Hakim’s concept is however criticized for being too extensive, too incoherent and lacking empirical studies to support it. Therefore, we have conducted empirical studies. They aimed at validating the construct of erotic capital in the context of its role in the assessment of another person, assessment that is intrinsic to HR decision-making. An additional goal was to develop a tool (questionnaire) for estimating the impact of the candidate's/employee's erotic capital on decisions being made concerning recruitment and appraisal in the organization.Research was split into 3 stages. Stage one consisted of studying the literature. At the second stage, we proceeded with the assessment of content and face validity of the research tool. Within the third stage of the research, the construct was subject to theoretical validity check. Validation proved that the obtained model of erotic capital fulfilled the requirements of: reliability, validity (divergent and predictive) and unidimensionality.

Fields, features, and filters: how dating applications construct sexual fields and romantic and erotic capital

Young adults have gone from consulting matchmakers to app-makers, as they seek ways to meet sexual and romantic partners. Each dating application is constructed in a distinctive manner, creating unique “sexual fields” on each platform. In this study, I consider the affordances of four dating applications—the structure of profiles, available search filters, and application features—in order to understand how dating applications construct sexual fields and emphasize different forms of erotic and romantic capital. I find that which qualities constitute capital differs depending on the platform politics of the application, and the sexual fields vary according to the intended audience and outcome of the rules for interactions on the app. Such an analysis reveals how forces of heterosexism, racism, and classism operate in modern partner-seeking, both romantic and sexual.

From the Lingerie Girls to the Legends Gladiators: Exploring Erotic Capital and Media sexualization of the LFL’s commercials

This study explains how women’s football strategically transfers the sports league’s image from hyper-sexualized women’s sports entertainment to the real football league. By focusing on the commercial messages from the Lingerie Football League and the Legends Football League, the author could understand the nature of the sexualized culture as the unique entertainment women’s sports league. By adopting reading sport critically (McDonald & Birrell, 1999), the purpose of this study is to understand the difference between the Lingerie and Legends Football League (LFL). This study further examined how women’s erotic capital performed in the LFL. Thus, in what follows, the author explores the extent to which the LFL strategically manages the mediated athletic bodies—in terms of adornments, types of movement, and media framing—presented to its viewership. In so doing, this analysis looks at the mediated feminine body as it is transformed, made into a site for maximum erotic capital. The findings indicate how the critical perspectives explain the LFL context and provide suggestions for further exploring a newly formed women’s professional sports league.

About the Contributors

About the Contributors

EROTIC CAPITAL: IS IT EXIST ON THE WORKFORCES IN INDONESIA?

This research was conducted to see the attitudes of student-employees at the undergraduate level towards the implementation of erotic capital in their workplaces and without a large implementation of this erotic capital is built up in the world of work, especially the recruitment of an employee. The literature review in this study originates from the concept of erotic capital or sexual capital from Hakim (2010), namely: beauty, sexual attractiveness, social skill, liveliness, social presentation, sexuality, and fertility. A descriptive survey research was used for this study with 295 student-employees as respondents who answered the questionnaire proposed by the researcher. Simple percentages are used for data analysis. The findings of the study revealed that of the 7 indicators of erotic capital, only liveliness was addressed by student-employees both cognitive, behavior and affective. Meanwhile, social skills are only addressed in a cognitive manner and sexual attraction is addressed in an affective manner. The rest is treated as something that is not needed in an employee. So erotic capital actually exists and is considered when recruiting an employee at a company in Indonesia.

Trata, prostitución y capital erótico

El principal escollo del modelo neoabolicionista es su incapacidad para explicar por qué muchas mujeres desean permanecer en una situación de explotación sexual o retornan con quienes las explotan después de ser liberadas. Esta investigación, sustentada en una metodología cualitativa que incluyó entrevistas en profundidad a 155 mujeres centroamericanas que fueron víctimas de trata con fines de explotación sexual, parte de la siguiente pregunta de investigación: ¿por qué las mujeres migrantes prostituidas continúan en el comercio sexual cuando podrían escapar de la situación de explotación que padecen? Este artículo concluye que las mujeres migrantes prostituidas no son siempre víctimas pasivas que buscan ser rescatadas e introducidas en empleos dignos. En muchos casos, después de valorar otras alternativas, consideran que el comercio sexual es más rentable que otras actividades porque el recurso personal más importante que poseen es su capital erótico.

The Trailer as Erotic Capital. Gendered Performances—Research and Participant Roles during Festival Fieldwork

This article examines different roles and field relations of the researcher in studies of young people at Christian festivals. The main questions are how the researcher gains access to the “flirtation field,” which flirting roles the youth participants engage in, and how the researcher copes with flirtation in the field. The article’s theoretical approach draws on feminist methodology on how positions, roles, and relations are negotiated in fieldwork, and discusses the notion of erotic capital. Christian festivals in Norway attract among 100,000 people every year. One of the main activities that was brought to my attention by a car trailer was the importance of flirting between the young boys and girls at these festivals. At the Christian festivals, flirting takes place within a heterosexual framework. In order to be part of this game, the girls are supposed to be feminine and available. The boy’s role is to be active and take initiative. Both sexes work hard to become participants in this game of winning attention that represents two different worlds for boys and girls, and in which there are both male and female losers. The rules of the game seem doubly strict for the girls since they are expected to administer both their own and the boys’ lust.

Constructing Eroticized Latinidad: Negotiating Profitability in the Stripping Industry

Through the analysis of an 18-month ethnography at an exotic dance club located in the Northeastern United States (referred to as Playpen), I uncover how Latina exotic dancers manage their participation in exotic dance by deploying constructions of Latinidad as embodied cues. I focus on Playpen’s weekly event, “Latina Night,” to demonstrate how racialized, sexualized, and gendered constructs relative to Latinidad are produced and regulated in this exotic dance setting. Study participants draw on embodied markers to negotiate how their bodies are read. Those markers include nationality-based appeals, time elapsed since migration, and the ability to express constructions of Latinidad through dance performance. I draw on intersectionality as a conceptual tool, filtered through a sensibility to Latina/o/x lives and experiences, to analyze the nuances of racialization as experienced by Latinas. This approach destabilizes the U.S. black–white racial binary and opens intersectionality to a more nuanced understanding of the production of Latinidad. By approaching racialization as an embodied phenomenon, I elucidate how bodily markers, beyond skin color, become imbued with racialized meaning and condition racialized erotic capital. No less important is how participants draw on racialized, gendered, and sexualized tropes to benefit racialized erotic capital.

Physical attractiveness and managerial favoritism in the hotel industry: The light and dark side of erotic capital

Abstract Erotic capital is the combination of aesthetic, visual, physical, social, and sexual attractiveness to other members of the society, in particular, to the opposite sex. Despite its importance in the workplace, little is known about its influence on organizational politics, including favoritism. Drawing on elegance theory, which suggests that physical attractiveness can confer status in social settings, this article examines the way possession of erotic capital may influence managerial attitudes in the hospitality industry. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted with a dyad of managers (n = 5) and employees (n = 20). Our findings indicate that erotic capital can have both positive and negative organizational outcomes. Research and practical implications of these results are discussed.

Honesty in Indonesian Literature: Its Social and Cultural Factors

As an important life value, honesty is well reflected in Indonesian literature. It appears in a large number of talks and events, which involve the characters of many of its literary works. This paper is a report on a corpus study of the social and cultural factors that influence the characters' honesty as shown in the use of the words jujur (honest), sejujurnya or sejujur-jujurnya (most honest), and kejujuran (honesty). The result reveals that social position, intimacy, life and work norms, and erotic capital may affect a person's view of honesty and its practice. A person with a high social position may influence a person with a lower social position to be honest or dishonest, and the person finds it difficult not to obey him. A person having an intimate relation with another person does not hesitate to talk about matters which may threaten the addressee's negative face or his own positive face. In real life and work place, honesty is required as a norm for a person to be fully accepted. A person with a big erotic capital may gain trust from other people more easily and be considered honest. The study also reveals that the words jujur (honest) and sejujurnya or sejujur-jujurnya (most honest) are often used as a hedge to avoid a negative face-threatening act to the addressee and maintain the speaker a positive face. The speaker requests the addressee's understanding that he is a position which requires him to say something the addressee does not like.

Beauty still matters: The role of attractiveness in labour market outcomes

The main objective of the study is threefold: first, to examine the role of attractiveness in the Czech labour market; second, to assess gender differences in returns of attractiveness; and third, to show that the positive association between attractiveness and earnings does not disappear even when cognitive skills, social background, occupational status and individual characteristics are controlled for. The study uses data from the first large-scale sociological survey focusing on attractiveness carried out in the Czech Republic. The results provide strong evidence for the hypothesis that, in general, more attractive people have a better chance of higher socioeconomic occupational status as well as higher incomes than less attractive individuals even when controlling for cognitive skills, social background, occupational status and personality. However, the analysis also shows that the relationships are different for men and women. The study finds that the income premium for attractiveness is markedly higher among prime-aged women than men. The authors conclude that there have been profound changes in the last 30–40 years in the Western world and that the importance of physical attractiveness and erotic capital has been increasing, especially for women.

The Effects of Erotic Capital on Occupational Selection A Comparison between Men and Women

This paper examines erotic capital’s effect, a composite measure of beauty, personality, grooming, shape, liveliness and sexuality, on occupational selection between 1994 and 2009 by estimating a multinomial logistic model using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). My results find a different effect of erotic capital between men and women. In particular, beauty and grooming show a partial significant influence on women’s occupational selection. The combined effect of six types of erotic capital is also substantially significant for women. This paper contributes to the occupational choice literature by providing evidence of the importance of erotic capital accumulation to women’s career attainment.

Talent alone does not suffice: erotic capital, media visibility and global popularity among professional male and female tennis players

Following Catherine Hakim’s notion of the increasing significance of ‘erotic capital’ in contemporary society, this paper addresses the effects of erotic capital in the realm of professional sports. Erotic capital may be closely related to popularity and thus represents a key marketing asset, in particular for female athletes facing a predominantly male audience. These ideas are examined here through analysing the media visibility of top tennis players in the German print media, as well as their global popularity (measured by search engine queries). The results provide further evidence of gender discrimination in sport since they show that the popularity of female athletes depends on their physical attractiveness whereas such a relationship does not exist for male athletes. Given gender-discriminatory consumer and print media preferences, female athletes face strong incentives to adapt to a sexualized sports culture that reinforces hegemonic masculinity.

PL-32 Sexual Markets and Erotic Capital in the 21st Century: The Impact of the Internet

PL-32 Sexual Markets and Erotic Capital in the 21st Century: The Impact of the Internet