Sexual freedom becomes a market value serving work relations.

Evidence

It has often been noted that advanced industrial civilization operates with a greater degree of sexual freedom—“operates” in the sense that the latter becomes a market value and a factor of social mores. Without ceasing to be an instrument of labor, the body is allowed to exhibit its sexual features in the everyday work world and in work relations. This is one of the unique achievements of industrial society—rendered possible by the reduction of dirty and heavy physical labor; by the availability of cheap, attractive clothing, beauty culture, and physical hygiene; by the requirements of the advertising industry, etc. The sexy office and sales girls, the handsome, virile junior executive and floor walker are highly marketable commodities, and the possession of suitable mistresses—once the prerogative of kings, princes, and lords—facilitates the career of even the less exalted ranks in the business community. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 330

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Supplements ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’: where the moral panic narrative treats exposure as rebellion, Marcuse reads bodily display in the workplace as a commodification that serves the status quo — both stories are true at once.
• SEED: Angles an essay on ‘why the open-plan office bared the body’: the flat-file of twentieth-century corporate display as a market value, traffic in appearance as managerial capital.
• XREF: connects to: The courtesan’s physical freedom masks a total economic dependence on masculine desire — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1687; Even liberated sexuality is absorbed into the system of exploitation — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 340; Industrial rationalization of production requires rationalizing the sexual instinct — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1102 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Even liberated sexuality is absorbed into the system of exploitation #corroborates (0.85) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 340
• Even the quest for liberating Eastern sex became a regulated mass-market commodity #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 488
• Advanced industrial society channels erotic and aggressive instincts into socially controlled outlets. #expands (0.80) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 61
• Industrial rationalization of production requires rationalizing the sexual instinct #expands (0.78) — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1102