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RSSThis “erotic” book is about as seductive as a balance sheet
An anti-feminist book so bad it's good for the cause
By Laurie Penny Published 27 August 2011 10:40
Catherine Hakim, senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and staunch anti-feminist, is my new hero. With one book, she has done more to advance the cause of women's liberation than months of worthy campaigning could achieve.
It's not that Honey Money: the Power of Erotic Capital - in which Hakim argues that women should be taught to use their sex appeal to exploit men - is a bad book. It's that it's such a bad book, so poorly researched, so woodenly ill-written, so crassly offensive in its argument that all men are randy beasts and more women should become prostitutes, and so drearily hateful in its conclusions about human nature, that it's a
highly effective advert for feminist revolution.
Using sex surveys 20 years out of date, Hakim explains to the unfortunate reader that "erotic capital", like social or financial capital, has "six elements" and can be used to "bargain" and "negotiate" at work, at play and - most tragically - in relationships. The arguments are a mixture of cod psychology and ugly Daily Mail stereotypes: men always want more sex than women ("the universal male sex deficit"), and the proof of this is that gay men are all shallow, shag-crazed hedonists. Men will always be more powerful and better paid than women, so women can and should manipulate them for social, financial or professional gain using sex - sorry, "erotic capital". Discouraging them from doing so is an evil feminist plot
to deny women the only real advantage they have in the "gender war" - their physical charms - although Hakim does not enlighten us as to where this leaves unattractive women, older women, women who can't afford the strict beauty and grooming regimes she recommends, or those of us who forget to wash because we've been up all night watching Buffy, eating cheese and scratching ourselves.
Honey Money is a manifesto for female social and sexual capitulation, presented with all the wit and charm of a company stock report. The language is clinical and calculating, the mysteries of lust and seduction reduced to a bloodless balance sheet in which "laws of supply and demand determine the values of everything, in sexuality as in other areas".
With her leaden argument that "the male sex deficit allows women to leverage the exchange value of women's erotic capital to a higher level", Hakim writes like a hedge-fund manager who's been put in charge of a brothel. The staggeringly unseductive prose is almost forgivable, though, because Honey Money manages to make the most tenaciously sexist bits of cultural detritus sound as pig-headed and embarrassing as they really are. For that reason alone, everybody should read this awful, awful book.
Neurotic capital
Last week, I went on Newsnight to debate with Dr Hakim, and was all set to be angry with her. I had geared myself up to remind her that women of principle fought for generations for her right to earn a PhD in scabbing to the patriarchy. Instead, I found myself overwhelmed by the desire to give her a hug. Given the amount of store Hakim's own research sets in "the social magic of smiles", one might have expected at least a soupçon of social flirting, but you could have sharpened a pencil between her lips, and she refused a cup of mediocre BBC tea with the sort of ill-grace normally reserved for suspected poisoners. She snapped that she "didn't want to talk" and sat glaring at everyone for half an hour. I could make some cheap crack here about neurotic capital, but actually I just felt sad for her.
Because it is sad. The worst thing about Honey Money and the notion that female sexuality is just another resource to be flogged off to drooling men is not that it's demeaning to both genders. It's that it is a horribly cynical way of understanding relationships, and one that currently rings true for too many people.
This paranoid, reptilian book, with its promotion of a brutal free market in female flesh, is a glimpse into a lonely future where profit has been permitted to force its dull, Gradgrind hand into every last cranny of human interaction.
In Honey Money there is a great deal of discussion of returns, assets and sexual bargaining. There is almost no talk of compassion, seduction
or love. That should tell you all you need to know about "erotic capital".
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64 comments
You know InNegative, you only come out when sex is the topic or Murdoch. Why is that? To me both subjects have been that flogged to death and all I want to do is take the piss out of it all.
You and Laurie should get together as both of you appear to be sex starved ... I am right aren't I? The frustration and pent up sperm seeps from your computer keys and spinkles its confetti on your mouldy cheese in yer undies.
Scratch it out said the man with the biggest donger this side of Manhatten, for that is not place for Cheddar to reside. It should be in the gorge with a thousand riveting kayaks sticking their pointy ends up the bums of peaceful paddlers whose trousers are only up to their knees, and their hankies in knots around their temples.
Get down on your knees and pray shout the kayakers as they stream down the rapids of the gorge with cheese and crackers on the menu washed down by gallons of homemade mouldy mild youghort.
Awake there is no end to this silly story about sex. The next installment will be with you sometime in the future with the same underlying message. Someone is frustrated by not getting enough and has to make do with cheese and scratching themselves.
Enjoyed this review. It sounds as if Hakim's position is unfalsifiable, therefore uninteresting. If you believe that everything boils down to the exchange of money and power, then it's unsurprising that everything will do precisely that; but since her system doesn't allow for any act that does NOT exchange money or power, there was no way for her to come to any other conclusion. Which is sad.
Its the usual drivel by the Princess of drivel about a sour old Queen of drivel and you all grace it by your own breaking down of a dodgy article to suit your own prejudices. Sad, meanwhile in the real world the war continues in Libya, tens of thousands are dying of famine the Euro continues to flounder!
In all likelihood, those who advocate sexual interactions as merely matters of utility and trade have never experienced, witnessed and received unconditional love -- as in the kind that would compel them to see otherwise.
But rather than argue the superiority or lack thereof of one or another, the elegantly pragmatic Lord Chesterfield pointed out the difference: "If you marry for love, you will certainly have some very happy days and probably many very uneasy ones; if for money, you will have no happy days and and probably no uneasy ones."
We all do what we can live with until it gets unbearable!
Pseudo-controversial-kindle-friendly-unit-shifter
Use just once, and destroy.
Cobain would have dug that title if he were still about.
In all likelihood, those who advocate sexual interactions as merely matters of utility and trade have never experienced, witnessed and received unconditional love -- as in the kind that would compel them to see otherwise.
But rather than argue the superiority or lack thereof of one or the other, the elegantly pragmatic Lord Chesterfield simply pointed out the difference, and left it at that: "If you marry for love, you will certainly have some very happy days and probably many very uneasy ones; if for money, you will have no happy days and probably no uneasy ones."
And we all do what we can live with until it gets unbearable -- if that!
In all likelihood, those who advocate sexual interactions as merely matters of utility and trade have never experienced, witnessed and received unconditional love -- as in the kind that would compel them to see, choose and decide otherwise.
But rather than argue the superiority or lack thereof of one or the other, the elegantly pragmatic Lord Chesterfield simply pointed out the difference, and left it at that: "If you marry for love, you will certainly have some very happy days and probably many very uneasy ones; if for money, you will have no happy days and probably no uneasy ones."
And we all do what we can live with until it gets unbearable -- if that!
Personally, I'm a BIG believer of true love. Huge.
The standard of 'debate' on here is truly apalling. Makes the Guardian's CIF pages look erudite and witty. I can only imagine Laurie Penny being somewhat confused about what on earth's going on! Incoherent off-topic ranting about John Pilger? Check. Personal judgements about the appearance of the author? Check. Leftist/Rightist boundary-patrolling? Check. Crude sexual stereotyping of both genders? Check...
For my tuppence: the notion of 'erotic capital' is entirely facile - just like 'social capital'. Taking the core of the social capital concept (the extension of utilitarian rationality to interpersonal 'affective' relations in the context of market failures or informational imperfections) and extending it to gender relations is simply a call to shut oneself down - close off all emotion and prostitute oneself to members of the opposite sex. Cynical, joyless, cruel - how many other adjectives could we throw at this? I think the most important one would be 'degrading'.
I don't think this advances any cause - either feminist or patriarchal: it's her personal bid to become a Kindle-Friendly-Unit-Shifter.
It's the pseudo-academic equivalent of standing at Speakers' Corner and screaming 'PROSTITUTE YOURSELF! IT'S THE ONLY WAY'
The empirical fact is that sex appeal may get a woman ahead. But the defense of it can only resort to conservative 'common sense', not a moral justification or one by an permanent, amoral nature (the ahistorical theology of biological determinism). The sexual objectification of women is a disgusting form of discrimination against them as human beings. This pinhead Hakim's time would be better spent advocating a more rational system rather than attempting to legitimate and prove the efficiency of the current misogynistic structures of our society.
I actually find it very funny that so many of the men writing in the comments here, are defending so vigorously the idea that yes, they is a "sex deficit" and yes, they like being "exploited" by women for money/power/whatever. So I guess the idea of living in a world where women want to have sex with you because they are actually attracted to you, and not as a means to an end, is not really appealing huh? My god.
Something sensible from Laurie,
Another thing to criticse is women who say that Men arrested of rape should be named and When It's pointed out that they are Innocent till proven guilty, and that Vigilantes tend to deal with those arrested of rape beofre they are charged, Some Femenists say
"Aahh, I was sexually assaulted,I know aobut htese things NAME those arrested of rape they don't get beat up by vigilantes, If you don't name tehm It means that when us Women say we've been sexually assaulted and the person isn't Named on arrest it then Inplies we are Liars"
Quite. I haven't read her book, but have looked at a few reviews in confusion and horror. Is that really what she's saying? Surely not. [reads another review] Yeah... that's what she's saying.
What a horrible set of ideas, and very ill thought through. I'm not sure I can agree that it's good for any kind of feminist agenda, though, or indeed gender relations as a whole. It's offensive idiocy, but unfortunately we can't rely on everyone to see that.
Did Dr. Hakim credited Jane Austen in her book? LOL
Some things are sacred and should remain so. I suspect, unfortunately, that many sexual relationships are formed and governed by an economic calculus. Is it not in Pride and Prejudice that "a man with money is thought to be in need of a wife" to paraphrase.
Economic equality between the genders would assist in removing the economic calculus from the mating game. Nor should sex, or the prospect of it, govern who should get promotion at work.It often does, though, at least in organisations whose survival is guaranteed for one reason or another.
"Given the characteristics of the modern era, love can scarcely manifest itself anymore. Yet the ideal of love has not diminished. Being, like all ideals, fundamentally atemporal, it can neither diminish nor disappear.
Whence a particularly striking discordance between real and ideal, and a particularly rich source of suffering.
The adolescent years are important. Once you have developed a sufficiently ideal, noble, and perfect sense of love, you are done for.
Nothing, henceforth, will suffice.
If you do not date women (whether through shyness, ugliness, or for some other reason), read women’s magazines. You will experience suffering that is almost equivalent. Go right to the bottom of the absence of love. "
Is referencing the Daily Mail the new Nazis-on-forums-end-of-rational-argument point?
Another of Ms Penny's articles fails to pass the So-Fuckin-What Test.
Although it's becoming evident from..."She snapped that she "didn't want to talk" and sat glaring at everyone for half an hour. I could make some cheap crack here about neurotic capital, but actually I just felt sad for her."
...and her recent admission that her part in the recent riots consisted in cowering in her flat watching the events unfold on the BBC, that she's actually a bit of a shrinking violet when faced with grown-ups or, basically, anything which doesn't involve impressionable middle-class teenagers playing at being radicals.
She didn't feel sorry for this woman...she was intimidated...terrified that her rampant attention-seeking might not carry much weight with an adult human-being more than capable of dealing with a petulant tantrum.
Flashbuck,A not Guilty verdict is found by a jury of 12 who have to decide whether there's no reasonable doubt, even if there's enoguh evidence that hasn't been tarnished people who are guilty can "rightly" be found "not guilty" of rape if the jury decides, Bringing a false rape charge isn't always the same as being someone who say's rape, teh police prosecute based on"reasonable evindece" and then the jury righly clears them as they feel they can't see enough evidence,
Would the polcie who prosecuted OJ sompson for Nicoles murder ,be later prosecuted for malicious prosecution, when the jury cleared OJ.
"It's offensive idiocy, but unfortunately we can't rely on everyone to see that."
Indeed...that's why we need such large numbers of wealthy, over-privileged, Oxbridge, public-school, wealthy, middle-class progressive feminists to keep us on the straight and narrow. There's a whole psycho-sexual-cultural jungle out there and the only thing stopping us helpless proles from becoming ensnared in the steely mesh of the corporate-patriarchal-capitalist-misogynist paradigm is the thin red line of liberal feminist 'journalists'. Thank God we've got Laurie, Zoe Williams, Bidisha and all those other products of our private education sector to remind us about equality and diversity.
Either refute the evidence she cites or accept it Laurie.
Resorting to desperate name calling and ad-hominem attacks does not convince.
There is a wealth of compelling evidence pouring in from evolutionary psychologists that would verify what Hakim is arguing.
Indeed anecdotal real world evidence would bear this truth out - that women barter sexual access and flaunt signs of fertility to access male resources.
It is hard-wired in our DNA. To deny this is to deny your own humanity.
I am very, very left-wing and progressive yet I can sit comfortably with our innate gene orientated nature, that according to Robert Trivers (who supported the Black Panthers) males and females and different and competing reproductive agendas. Sexual selection is ruthless and amoral and is largely beyond our conscious control.
Why get angry about it?
Yes Laurie, Dr. Hakim sounds like she could do with a hug. I'd be interested to know about her love life, and what has made her seem so cold and haughty and cynical. There are quite a few people like that around and it is more noticeable when they get older.
Best to ignore academic 'research'/'opinion' into these matters .. they are all opinion eventually. There is romance Laurie.
In all likelihood, those who advocate sexual interactions as merely matters of utility and trade have never experienced, witnessed and received unconditional love -- as in the kind that would compel them to see, choose and decide otherwise.
But rather than argue the superiority or lack thereof of one or the other, the elegantly pragmatic Lord Chesterfield simply pointed out the difference, and left it at that: "If you marry for love, you will certainly have some very happy days and probably many very uneasy ones; if for money, you will have no happy days and probably no uneasy ones."
And we all do what we can live with until it gets unbearable -- if it does come to that.
Personally, I'm a BIG believer of true love.
Huge.
(P.S. I wish they would allow edits on these threads. Cheerio!)
Mr D
You fancy Laurie don't you?
Give it up mate...you're just a middle-aged white male misogynist exploiter to her...she'll never acknowledge your poetic soul.
Stick to slagging her off. It's much more fun...and it's in a good cause.
Ridding the media of know-nothing, stunt-pulling, public-school 'commentators' is a worthy goal.
Oh I just found out that Dr.Hakim is a academic Sociologist! They are the biggest bullshitters going. What pisses me off is that taxpayer's money pay for these guys to bullshit about life.
Anyhow..I'm off...the hills are alive with the sound of people falling off bikes etc
Check ya later
I am very, very left-wing and progressive yet I can sit comfortably with our innate gene orientated nature, that according to Robert Trivers (who supported the Black Panthers) males and females and different and competing reproductive agendas. Sexual selection is ruthless and amoral and is largely beyond our conscious control. http://www.furniture101.net/
"In my view, if anyone accuses someone else of rape, then if the accused is subsequently found not guilty, that should mean that those pointing the finger should be charged and be dealt with severely."
And tell me, sweetie, why on earth would we listen to the pronouncements on the workings of the justice system from someone who cannot even distinguish between acquittal and exoneration?
But no, let's follow it through. Should we also see shopkeepers jailed for making false accusations of shoplifting? How about executing grieving relatives for misplaced accusations of murder? Perhaps you should have to do community service for misidentifying the child who keyed your car?
No, of course not. The justice system doesn't work that way. And there's a good reason from that - at least part of the intention of the justice system is to protect criminal and victim alike from people like you.
Oooh, badly written. Breathless and over-eager.
Confession- I am a male "randy beast" and some women choose to manipulate me. Sometimes I choose to let them.
Why does Laurie feel the need to insist everyone live the faux worthy and sanctimonious life she chooses for herself?
FlashbuckI menat that a judge can tell a jury to fnd someone not guilty becuase evidence can be tarnsihed, yet there may even be video evidnece of someone commiting a crime ,it's just the evidence the prosectuion are using isn't legal to let that jury give a guilty verdict, When have i ever said anythiung different to innocent till proven guilty, and for you to say that a women who says rape and the Jury finds that person innocent has lied so she she be prosecuted for making a false claim ,isn't that assuming that every woman who's rape allegation is thrown out is lying, hat of those where the case collapses ,becuase the women is too scared to give evindence etc.
come to think of it ,Feminists wnat raped accused names to be in the lime light,if someone who remains unknown makes a rape allegation and is cleared, then there name should be put in the limelight after the accused is clear, as the former accused are as innconet as the alleged fomer victim,so they should have their name in the limelight too.
You sit up all night eating cheese and scratching yourself? Damn. I used to think you were hot but that is just disgusting. I'm completely disengaged now, what a turn off, I'm never reading this column again.
@William
Eldirdge Cleaver was a member of the Black Panthers n he was a serial rapist.
And man do I hate the theory of evolution. A giant leap of faith dressed as a fact. There are no real scientists in evolutionary psyche.
More castrated than frustrated Mr D.
Glad you dig my skills ;)
There are some seriously emotive issues here, and many of the comments seem to tackle them head-on with.... well, emotiveness....
This is a shame, because it seems to me Ms Penny has lambasted Dr Hakim so good-naturedly. I laughed a lot while reading the article.
Could it be that Ms Penny's indignation at Dr. Hakim is really no more than the rage of Caliban?
Flashbuck writes: "In other words, women can and do exploit natural differences between the sexes. So what? Selling such a well known and widely established viewpoint in book form is hardly controversial."
No, but even you admit it is tedious old-hat, so really your position is the same as Laurie's.
Poor victims. Females can no longer lie back and think of England. Such advice doesn't make much sense in multi-cultural Britain, does it?
Thank goodness for Eastern European youth now there is an escape route provided by the European Union.
They may be more amenable to such advice having been subjected to long years of Communist and Roman Catholic oppression.
And what if females begin to occupy positions of power? They are out-doing their male counterparts in most arenas of competition.
Male gigolos, not R-boys, may make a comeback. Valentino, Navarro and Gilbert made the girls swoon and they didn't even have to raise their voice.
Bistander
How do you dare to accuse someone else of "scabbing", after what you said about Charlie Gilmour? Even your amended article was uncomradely.
Flashbuck,
You even admit to playing 'silly games'(not mine, yours), and if you meant anything at all it was that Hakim was saying nothing new. It is not a far jump to say it is tedious (my words, but not a game); it is a farther jump to compare her book with The Origin of Species. Come off it, you're pulling my leg, aren't you?
Good article Laurie. We need more pop cultural conversations advocating empathy and tenderness between the sexes.
To the haters: you're a guy, you're horny, therefore all guys are horny all of the time and by default, more so than women? Yikes, your logic is busted.
Is it just coincidence that the the phrase "total crap" is contained within most of the letters if "erotic capital"?
Astonished at the vitriol and ignorance of the bulk of the comments here. You must wonder why you ever decided on a career as a public intellectual, Ms. Penny; but I encourage you to please keep it up - you're doing an excellent job. I hope you don't read your comments; if you do, please take heart from this one at least.
She does indeed have an ugly, yet committed following. Funny old world.
In and around the 16th and 17th centuries various sultans ruling the Ottoman Empire had a lot of erotic capital on hand. We believe one sultan had 2000 women in the harem, or women's quarters.
The logistics of maintaining such a menage was awe-inspiring.
Of course the male guards had to be emasculated but setting aside this eye-watering detail, the provisioning and furnishing of this wing of the palace must have taken immense planning.
And yet the most effective access to the ruling sultan was through his mother.
Other influential figures were those who held the post of Chief Eunuch.
The track record of ladies who tried the charm approach is not too good.
Helen of Troy helped to thrash a city and its people.
Cleopatra assisted in losing an empire.
Messalina and Agrippina between them did for Claudius.
Marie Antoinette - lost her head.
Just look at Hollywood. Leading ladies have half the star-span of their male equivalents.
And some Hollywood heart throbs have been quite impervious to female wiles.
And their agents! In fact some male stars pretended to be what they were not.
Do wrinkles really make the mature male sexy?
No, don't look in the mirror, ladies
Nature Boy
I think there's something a bit hot about Catherine Hakim, but I didn't buy her book. Does that prove or disprove anything?
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I felt similarly about her appearance on Newsnight - that she seriously needed a hug. Sometimes, the love deficit just screams at you.
I feel the same too when I see words like 'patriarchy' and phrases like 'the cause of women'. This mostly makes me want to give men a hug.
I dunno about reading the book - you've probably already imagined what's in there. I doubt it's so hard. It feels like a symptom more than anything that should find its way to being treated seriously at the level of critique. Hardly something you'd need to read in its entirity to be able to analyse the sickness it stands for.
I don't know if the thinking is 'old hat' or not new though. Just because it's easy to think in a culture underlain by free market truths and a repugnant 'social darwinism' don't mean it's old or a truism. If you think she's telling a truth, you really are lost.
It's a line of thought bound up in neo-libralism, Darwinism and the ever multiplying strands of modern feminism more generally - the conceptual disappearance/self-destruction of women themselves. Nothing spins in the lawless air like the modern feminist and without her there as a fixture in space and time, she'll take the rest of us with her.
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