Honey Money shows how men and women can do better in the workplace and life by boosting their attractiveness. Why are some people a success at everything? Why do doors open for them wherever they go? The answer, Catherine Hakim shows, is the power of erotic capital: a magic combination of attractiveness and charisma that is at the heart of how we work, live and conduct our relationships. She reveals why erotic capital is just as influential as how rich, clever or well-connected you are in life - often more so. And how reading this book can help you boost your potential. 'Should be read out to young girls because it states that you can be a feminist, you can be strong and independent and clever, and you can wear a nice frock and high heels while you do this' Bryony Gordon, Daily Telegraph

In 2010, pioneering sociologist Catherine Hakim shocked the world with a provocative new theory: In addition to the three recognized personal assets (economic, cultural, and social capital), each individual has a fourth asset—erotic capital—that he or she can, and should, use to advance within society. In this bold and controversial book, Hakim explores the applications and significance of erotic capital, challenging the disapproval meted out to women and men who use sex appeal to get ahead in life. Social scientists have paid little serious attention to these modes of personal empowerment, despite overwhelming evidence of their importance. In Erotic Capital, Hakim marshals a trove of research to show that rather than degrading those who employ it, erotic capital represents a powerful and potentially equalizing tool—one that we scorn only to our own detriment.

Investigates race and racism in the U.S. exotic dance industry.

A daring collaboration among scholars, Black Sexual Economies challenges thinking that sees black sexualities as a threat to normative ideas about sexuality, the family, and the nation. The essays highlight alternative and deviant gender and sexual identities, performances, and communities, and spotlights the sexual labor, sexual economy, and sexual agency to black social life. Throughout, the writers reveal the lives, everyday negotiations, and cultural or aesthetic interventions of black gender and sexual minorities while analyzing the systems and beliefs that structure the possibilities that exist for all black sexualities. They also confront the mechanisms of domination and subordination attached to the political and socioeconomic forces, cultural productions, and academic work that interact with the energies at the nexus of sexuality and race. Contributors: Marlon M. Bailey, Lia T. Bascomb, Felice Blake, Darius Bost, Ariane Cruz, Adrienne D. Davis, Pierre Dominguez, David B. Green Jr., Jillian Hernandez, Cheryl D. Hicks, Xavier Livermon, Jeffrey McCune, Mireille Miller-Young, Angelique Nixon, Shana L. Redmond, Matt Richardson, L. H. Stallings, Anya M. Wallace, and Erica Lorraine Williams

This book does to sex what other sociologists did to culture: it shows that sex, no longer defined by religion, now plays a role in the economy and can yield tangible benefits in the realms of money, status, and occupation. How do people accumulate sexual capital, and what are the returns for investing money, time, knowledge, and energy in establishing and enhancing our sexual selves? Dana Kaplan and Eva Illouz disentangle the current cultural politics of heterosexual life, arguing that sex – that messy amalgam of sexual affects and experiences – has increasingly assumed an economic character. Some may opt for plastic surgery to beautify their face or body, while others may consume popular sex advice or attend seduction classes. Beyond particular practices such as these, the authors trace an emerging form of “neoliberal” sexual capital, which is the ability to glean self-appreciation from sexual encounters and to use this self-value to foster employability, as exemplified by Silicon Valley sex parties. This highly original book will appeal to students and scholars in sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and cultural studies and to anyone interested in the nature of sex and how it is changing today.

How San Francisco became America's capital of sexual libertinism and a potent symbol in its culture wars

“A dark comedy of manners packed with urgency” (H. W. Vail, Vanity Fair), The Capital is an instant classic of world literature. A highly inventive novel of ideas written in the rich European tradition, The Capital transports readers to the cobblestoned streets of twenty-first-century Brussels. Chosen as the European Union’s symbolic capital in 1958, this elusive setting has never been examined so intricately in literature. Translated with "zest, pace and wit" (Spectator) by Jamie Bulloch, Robert Menasse's The Capital plays out the effects of a fiercely nationalistic “union.” Recalling the Balzacian conceit of assembling a vast parade of characters whose lives conspire to form a driving central plot, Menasse adapts this technique with modern sensibility to reveal the hastily assembled capital in all of its eccentricities. We meet, among others, Fenia Xenopoulou, a Greek Cypriot recently “promoted” to the Directorate-General for Culture. When tasked with revamping the boring image of the European Commission with the Big Jubilee Project, she endorses her Austrian assistant Martin Sussman’s idea to proclaim Auschwitz as its birthplace—of course, to the horror of the other nation states. Meanwhile, Inspector Émile Brunfaut attempts to solve a gritty murder being suppressed at the highest level; Matek, a Polish hitman who regrets having never become a priest, scrambles after taking out the wrong man; and outraged pig farmers protest trade restrictions as a brave escapee squeals through the streets. These narratives and more are masterfully woven, revealing the absurdities—and real dangers—of a fracturing Europe. A tour de force from one of Austria’s most esteemed novelists, The Capital is a mordantly funny and piercingly urgent saga of the European Union, and an aerial feat of sublime world literature.