Theories of Sexual Stratification: Toward an Analytics of the Sexual Field and a Theory of Sexual Capital

Abstract

The American tradition of action theory failed to produce a useful theory of the possible existence of trans-individual consistencies in sexual desirability. Instead, most sociological theorists have relied on market metaphors to account for the logic of sexual action. Through a critical survey of sociological attempts to explain the social organization of sexual desiring, this article demonstrates that the market approach is inadequate, and that its inadequacies can be remedied by studying sexual action as occurring within a specifically sexual field (in Bourdieu's sense), with a correlative sexual capital. Such a conception allows for historical and comparative analysis of changes in the organization of sexual action that are impeded by the use of a market metaphor, and also points to difficulties in Bourdieu's own treatment of the body qua body.

The institutional logics of love: measuring intimate life

“…8 Friedland, 2013;Thornton, Ocasio and Lounsbury, 2012. 9 Useful extensions of Bourdieu's ideas about field theory and the social organization of sexual capital have been developed by Martin (2003, 2014, Martin and George, 2006) and also in a somewhat different fashion in a series of works by Adam Green and colleagues (2011;2014;Leschziner and Green, 2013). While we find much that is admirable in this work, we also see some of the same limitations that we complain of in Bourdieu, including a tendency to define the field primarily as a site of hierarchy, competition and contestation that is constructed around the use and accumulation of sexual capital.…”

Culture and the Sociology of Sexuality: It's Only Natural?

“…Moving toward a more cultural understanding of sexuality, these critics import Pierre Bourdieu's concepts to generate what they see as more promising models of the relationship between society and individuals. John Levi Martin and Matt George (2006) respectfully point to fundamental flaws in the logic of the market metaphor itself, which they see as revealing more about the metaphor's foundational assumptions than about the social conditioning of desire. Martin and George locate a tautology in market approaches to sexual pairing, given the unobservable and incomparable nature of the so-called utility functions-such as physical attractiveness, talents, personality, or earning potential-that the market approach assumes people seek to "maximize" in selecting sexual partners.…”

“…8 In Bourdieu's framework, the value of any form of capital is set by those with control over the field, but it seems in this case that particular qualities of sexuality and eroticism-such as the complex and contradictory relationships between desire, desirability, and hierarchical privilege-might challenge the broader trend in sociology to define ever more types of capital, inspiring different metaphors for thinking about social hierarchies and how they come to seem natural or inevitable. As Martin and George (2006) argue about the market metaphor, sociologists should also be careful not to let the metaphor of capital consume the object of inquiry. While we should of course resist the temptation to mystify the erotic as presocial, we should also attend to ways that it defies neat analogies to other social arenas.…”

Exploração ou gratidão? Patronagem íntima e a gramática moral das trocas sexuais econômicas entre jovens curtidoras e europeus mais velhos, expatriados, em Maputo – Moçambique

“…It was nice to feel that I could have him if I wanted to." So occasionally men's obligation to give women money in compensation for sexual intimacy did not apply, especially if they had good looks, and a status based on beauty, youthfulness and fashion, or what Hakim (2011) and others would call erotic or sexual capital (see also Martin;George 2006;Groes-Green, 2009). In these cases sexual capital and the status that curtidoras received from being able to "catch" or "score" them was enough to make monetary aid less important.…”