Do you think erotic capital is a kind of capital to achieve upward mobility in today’s China? Use the SPA tourism in China from your fieldtrip to illustrate your answer. In general, erotic capital is not just for marriage, but also be so important in different aspects, such as labor markets, the media, politics, advertising, sports, arts and in everyday social interaction. It can be simply shown as several ways, first is beauty, it is the main component of erotic capital.
However erotic capital is not just about beauty or facial attractiveness, but also sexual attractiveness or a sexy body. Sexual attractiveness is not equal to classical beauty, it consists of sexual body, gesture, lips, figures and emotional expression. To make it clearly, it can be said as this way, beauty is static and it can be seen from a photo or capture. However sexual attractiveness is not, it can be only observed by daily life. Also, social skill is also one of the main elements, it is commonly said as fashion sense, that is how they dress up themselves and how they carry out a special style.
Liveliness and social skills also act an important role, making people more unique. This is a kind of power which makes people being addicted to them deeply and easily. In this essay, I will only focus on female having erotic capital instead of male, since women always have a big advantage on it. And I will have a deep discussion on the relationship between physical appearance plus social skills and labor markets because it is so crucial in industries and different occupations. Women having erotic capital are always charming, they have a beautiful face and good body shape, that is physical appearance.
To modern people, ‘big bust’, ‘white’, ‘young’, ‘good body shape’ are the four basic elements of beauty. Women will have a large charisma if they got these four elements, that is they have the ability to make people like them, make people want to know them and desire them. Besides, women also have social skills, in addition, they may even have flirtatious skills, this can be learnt, and it sexually attracts the opposite sex so much. These skills simply said as social skills and those are so valuable.
On the other hand, for mobility in today’s China, formally is the time that a resident of a secure unit is allowed to spend outside the unit, that is the ability to move. It can be rephrased as the pace of people achieving their goals. From the point of view, I totally agree that erotic capital will achieve upward mobility in today’s China. As Catherine Hakim said, ‘erotic capital is so essential to be successful’. So it absolutely implies that it is a kind of power helping people to move upwards and leading the whole China to move.
In addition, labor market is one of the major assets of China, so erotic capital will make the mobility in China goes upwards. Firstly, a good physical appearance, that is beauty and sexual attractiveness, brings female a nice first impression, and makes their future better, especially salesperson and artists, a good looking does very good to themselves. According to Michel Foucault, ‘ beauty reflects a kind of power and control’, he also mentioned beauty is a dominant culture, that is the customs and traditions that maintains the control of social class over the societal institution and wealth.
It makes people become the ‘soul’ of the party and it is a kind of competence, energy, imagination which all make for sexually satisfying partners. Frankly speaking, all people will love pretties and smart people. As a study shown, ‘Attractive people were rated as socially successful’. So women will always try their best of best to achieve the standard of beauty by enlargement of breast, cosmetic laser treatment, chemical peel, skin care products, among other things. In common, girls and women always love having make-up in order to attract others.
They all have the same concept on beauty, that is big eyes, sharp nose, small mouth, white skin and slim face. Apart from having make-up, they will also have medicine or wear push-up bra for having a deeper intermammary groove, so-called ‘career line’. As they think that a good body shape or slender body can absolutely make people remember them easier, since people nowadays will always have comparing, it leads women to think in this way. So honestly, physical appearance can really achieve their goals in a faster way.
Hu Junhua, a 28-year-old Chinese woman, who looks like an 80-year-old woman, she had a plastic surgery and she felt so happy afterwards. She pointed out that physical appearance affects relationship in many ways, such as family, romance and labors. From survey shown, plain people earn less then average-looking people, and who earn less than good-looking people. It simply shows that physical appearance is so vital for women’s lives as they think that better physical appearance creates a better situation and brings a better labor market.
Furthermore, sex appeal can also be about personality, and style, femininity or masculinity. Personality is always important in many assets, different people have different personalities, and everyone is so unique that no one can be replaced. We can understand the thought, belief, behavior and feeling of a person. It is sure that you feel comfortable with a person with good personality, especially in a job promotion, how we treat the co-workers with same skilled level will be a crucial part in our labor markets.
For the point of , according to LaMont Campbell, ‘We internalize who we are as men and as women. Depending on your values this can be good and this can be bad’. It simply shows that he thought that no matter how femininity or masculinity you are, or you are female or male, it is not a big deal to all. However, I partly agree this only. Since in China, there is always gender inequality. No matter in workplaces or in families, there is. For example, some employers or enterprises will only hire female migrant workers, such as SPA tourism, for the foot-massage services, there is no male workers.
Female should be said as not masculinity, they should obey their partners and bosses. There is always no objection for them, no right for them to choose. So, masculine female will seldom get a good pay or treatment, only obedient and docile female can step forward to achieve the mobility in labor market. Secondly, social skills create more chances for women. For example, Martha Stewart is one of 50 most powerful women, she put her passion for cooking and stylish living into multimedia empire and she has become a force to be reckoned within every form of media.
It is a kind of social skills, which make more people desire to know her by her interpersonal skills. Another special and common example is Barack Obama, the President of USA, although he is a blacks, but there are still a lot of citizens including blacks and whites admire him and support him so much. It is because of his good social skills, his eloquence and his ability. By applying it into Chinese female, the idea is same. It shows that social skills can increase labor market. Thirdly, flirtatious skills will bring the distance between people closer.
Since real relationship is built up by time and trust. If a person wants to desire from someone, the fastest way should be discreet flirtation or even sexual activities. As it may also be involved in all walks of life, from streetwalkers or even employers and employees, sexual relationship appears easily. All the employees will grasp their chances in order to achieve a better position and welfare in work. For example, in the period of time, many migrant workers did sex work in order to get more money.
Since they have to earn a living and childrearing, they must achieve their ‘goals’ by some unusual methods. From the statistic shown, the average number of sexual partners over a lifetime is 2 to 3 times higher among men, so the female much more easily to use their valuable skills. Forthly, physical appearance and flirtatious skills can be beneficial to both male and female. For female, they can achieve their goals. From SPA tourism in Dongguan, Xiaoyu, a 18-year-old girl from Szechwan, who provides foot-massage service.
She said there are a lot of girl will do the same job as her after they graduated because of the Hukou system which directly makes unfairness out and the competition is too high in China, many students need to work if they are not ‘lucky’ enough. So they can only choose to leave the hometown and earn money for their families, that is breadwinner. They have non-stop working everyday for more than 12 hours. Xiao pointed out that some customers will give more money if they think that the worker did a good service for them. Also the possibility of earning more money depends on their appearance and job performance normally.
So if they are good-looking, they can always earn a bit more. Moreover, Xiao also said that some customers will desire some special activities for excitement. And this is a common way for workers to earn much more money, since they can only receive little from company, the money from customers means the world to them. So they will try their best to do a service for the customers, even it is not a moral and legal action. In sum, erotic capital means a lot to female, this is the only way for them to get more they want. To male, it can be said as a leisure time for them.
According to survey, in the sample of 16,000 workers from 80 countries and regions, 75% of the workers reported feeling more stressful in 2012, which implies that people need relaxation in all senses. The cheapest way to get relaxed is sexual trade, it will make them feel happy and released. From reference, efficiency depends on happiness, if people are joyful, they will do their jobs better. On the other hand, it is shown that a male feels the same way after one day without sex as a female after 20 days without sex. It implies flirtatious skills are always useful to men.
So erotic capital does good to both female and male to achieve upwards. Erotic capital is special capital, which is totally different with others, such as economic capital, cultural capital and social capital. Especially in labor market, it acts a main role for people to be successful and move upward position. Some people will have all the elements of erotic capital, but some may just have a little, such as flirtatious skills but others are all incapable. Still they are all valuable in all senses and are main components of being powerful. In sum, erotic capital is absolutely a kind of capital to achieve upward mobility in today’s China.
