Brian Crombie interview British sociologist Professor Catherine Hakim about her controversial book, Erotic Capital.

Catherine Hakim states that erotic capital is an asset in many social and economic settings such as media and politics.. Hakim defined erotic capital as the concept that an individual's beauty, sexual attractiveness, enhanced social interaction, liveliness, social presentation, sexuality, and fertility can provide opportunities to advance in life. Most important and most controversial of these seven components would be sexual attractiveness, as her studies indicated that family men tend to crave sex more than women, a phenomenon she named the male sex deficit. She encouraged young women to use this asset to earn a more respectable position in society. Hakim believes that erotic capital has gone unacknowledged for far too long because of our patriarchal society and moral constraints of conservative communities.

Catherine Hakim is a British sociologist who specializes in women's employment and women's issues. She is currently a Professorial Research Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Civil Society, and has formerly worked in British central government and been a senior research fellow at the London School of Economics and the Centre for Policy Studies. She has also been a Visiting Professor at the Social Science Research Center Berlin.