“Erotic capital,” broadly defined by Catherine Hakim, the senior research fellow in sociology at the London School of Economics who coined the term, is:
a nebulous but crucial combination of physical and social attractiveness. Properly understood, erotic capital is what economists call a “personal asset,†ready to take its place alongside economic, cultural, human and social capital. It is just (if not more) as important for social mobility and success.
Erotic capital goes beyond beauty to include sex appeal, charm and social skills, physical fitness and liveliness, sexual competence and skills in self-presentation.
You can see how this idea could be easily manipulated … how it could be twisted on its head to mean something crass or exploitative, but at its core, the idea of erotic capital is just chemistry, it’s magnetism, it’s charisma, it is the incorporation of sex appeal into a person’s cache of positive qualities. It refutes the idea that sex appeal can be extracted from our general affect and made to sit in the corner and wait until its presence is appropriate. Erotic capital is integral to our lives and the ways we relate to each other, and it might be that je ne sais quoi that helps some people be more successful than others, however they define success.
Check out these articles (the second written by Hakim herself), and then read Violet Blue’s addendum. Really fascinating stuff.
