Entre o fitinspiration e o sexinspiration: mulheres influenciadoras da cultura fitness e a produção do capital erótico na rede social Instagram

Abstract

Instagram, with its countless ways of sharing images, has become a fertile ground for the display of enviable body architectures, with digital influencers of fitness culture as examples. In this scenario, under the discourse of the movement called #fitspiration, which seeks to inspire bodies by displaying models that built these architectures, an intention emerges that produces the emergence of a discourse aimed at #sexinspiration, that is, sexy bodies that inspire others to acquire such architectures body. Erotic capital is multifaceted and presents six distinct categories that intersect, namely: “beauty, sex appeal, social skill, social presentation, vivacity and body sexualization” (HAKIM, 2012). This qualitative research aimed to analyze the images and videos posted on Instagram by fitness culture influencers, from the perspective of erotic capital, in an attempt to understand how #sexinspiration emerges in the publications of their profiles, under the nickname of #fitspiration. The data sources were captured between August 1, 2021 and July 31, 2022 in seven Instagram profiles and analyzed using the image analysis method (ROSE, 2002), which understands that every image produces meaning and significance in the given historical context in which it is inserted. The analysis of the images of the digital influencers of the fitness culture on the prism of the categories of erotic capital, pointed out characteristics that have shaped the way #sexinspiration has been worked on the profile of the analyzed influencers, thus seeing the possibilities that these bodies have developed in the production from the self-conception of businesswomen (LANDA, 2012), while reinforcing and maintaining its position as a digital influencer of the fitness culture, displaying a sexy body that enables mechanisms that inspire the creation of other eroticized female bodies.