Sexual Capital, the Sexual Field, and Youth Stratification: Toward a Cross-Cultural Sociology

Building on Bourdieu's concepts of symbolic capital, field (champ), and habitus, recent sociological scholarship has theorized attributes such as physical attractiveness, erotic appeal, and sexual experience as distinct forms of capital — variously termed "erotic capital," "aesthetic capital," or "sexual capital" — and has proposed the "sexual field" (champ sexuel) as a site of struggle in which such capitals are valorized and converted into social distinction (Hakim 2012; Kaplan & Illouz 2022). These frameworks have demonstrated analytical purchase across a range of contemporary phenomena, from the self-entrepreneurial logic of amateur pornography platforms (e.g., OnlyFans) to the ways in which model-coded female bodies sustain the homosocial bonds of the ultra-wealthy in global party culture (Mears 2020). Crucially, the use-value and exchange-value of sexuality are most intensely mobilized during youth, rendering these dynamics particularly salient at the intersection of beauty, desire, class, and neoliberal capitalism in turbulent times.

Notwithstanding their theoretical fertility, these frameworks remain grounded in Euro-American scholarly traditions, and their cross-cultural applicability is underexplored. In East Asian societies marked by compressed modernization and the co-presence of pre-modern and late-modern logics — their adequacy warrants critical scrutiny. Equally, in Central and South Asian contexts shaped by enduring religious norms, the mediation of sexual commodification by locally embedded institutions may exceed what existing frameworks can capture.

This session invites papers examining youth stratification through the lenses of sexual capital and/or the sexual field, with attention to contrasts between Euro-American and non-Western contexts.