The Phenomenology of Erotic Capital: A Qualitative Study of the Middle-Class Young Women in Mashhad City

People have different sets of capital and use them in their everyday lives to achieve their interests. There is a competition in society on the achievement of social advantages. One of the forms of capital, which is recently discussed in the literature, is the erotic capital. This kind of capital includes any aesthetic attractions used in interactions with other members of the society. To have the erotic capital and to try to increase it and paying time and money for it by social agents can open a new horizon for people who do not have high levels of other forms of capital. Besides, indices of this kind of capital are different among men and women. Of course, women have a long tradition of cultivating in using this kind of capital in comparison to men. This study aimed to formulate the constructed concept of erotic capital among young women in Mashhad. To achieve this goal, we tried to answer these questions based on the agents’ experiences: What is erotic capital? What are its properties?

We took a qualitative approach and used empirical phenomenology. Participants in this study aged from 20 to 35; they have had an experience of interfering in their bodies, from soft to hard levels. The participants were selected based on the intended (purposeful) sampling method. Interviews were semi-structured and were 15 in sum. The scripts of interviews have been coded through 7 steps of the descriptive phenomenology.

Erotic capital is an important asset for women, which helps them to achieve their goals. This is the reason that they pay different kinds of costs to attain a level of erotic capital. The interviews in the present study showed that erotic capital has common characteristics with other kinds of capital.The findings of this research showed that the erotic capital in the inter-subjectivity of the social agents has had the following characteristics. The first characteristic is the erotic attraction as the basis for evaluation so that any interference in the body is for increasing the attractiveness, whether intended or unintended. This property is not individual and it is a social reception that gets meaning in social interactions. The second characteristic is the attachment of the erotic capital to the body. This means that all inferences, from limited to extended ones, are based on the body.   The third characteristic is its transformability to other forms of capital. This means that erotic capital is interchangeable to other types of capital. This is a significant factor in achieving goals successfully among young women.The other property is that it is quickly dividable and accumulative. This means that people can invest in the erotic capital step-by-step. The other point is that this kind of capital can run different qualities on the body. The relative standardization is another characteristic of erotic capital. It means that in any society there are different definitions and criteria for beauty. Even inside a society, the descriptions and criteria may change. The main point is that members of a society at any time try to attain the beauty of the time. Interchangeability means that people who do not possess other forms of capital or are disadvantaged in this respect, can employ their erotic capital and transform it into other forms of capital.Differences in social agents’ experiences of formation, accumulation, and interchange of the erotic capital are the product of different levels of these properties. Finally, it can be said that erotic capital has the role of a facilitator in interactions and can be changed to other forms of capital easily. This capital helps women and young people to achieve their goals specifically.