I have spoken before about the four-level scale I use for physical female attractiveness, but I’ve never fully described it or explained it. In this article I will do so as well as explain why I use this scale rather than the usual and highly inaccurate 1 to 10 scale.
Before I get started, I need to be clear that this four-level scale only rates physical attractiveness. It has absolutely nothing to do with anything else. It has absolutely nothing to do with her personality, age, intelligence, education, style of dress, hygiene, culture, socio-economic level, amount of drama she has in typical relationships, and so on. We’re purely talking about how hot (or not) she is, that’s all. I will publish a future article about a separate scale that I sometimes use to rank non-physical traits, but that’s not the topic for today.
Why The 1 to 10 Scale Doesn’t Work
The reason I try to avoid using the 1 to 10 hotness scale most used by other men (“She’s a seven,” “She’s a perfect 10,” and so on) is because of the reasons and data I describe here. The summary is that there is absolutely no consensus whatsoever among men when you point at a woman and ask them to assign a 1 to 10 number to her attractiveness. Some guys will say she’s a seven, others an eight, others a nine, some even a 10 or a six. You see these arguments all the time in guy forums all over the internet when discussing pictures of women. The arguments you see regarding this stuff often gets extreme.
What a man can do is give you an accurate 1 to 10 assignment for what he thinks that woman is. Joe looks at a picture of a hot girl on the internet and declares to the world that she’s an 8.5. That’s a very accurate ranking for him. His friend Larry looks at the exact same photo, even using the exact same screen, says Joe’s insane and that she’s really a seven. That’s 100% accurate for Larry.
This is why doctors ask you to rank your pain from 1 to 10. It works well and is usually an accurate gauge. But that’s just it; the doctor is asking you to rank your pain. If the doctor asks you to rank the pain of the guy in the hospital bed across from you your answer isn’t going to be accurate at all. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you point at a girl and declare her 1 to 10 attractiveness ranking. It only works for you and is not likely to apply to lots of other men. This is why men who declare women as “objective 10s” are completely full of shit. There is no such thing. (I talk about that here.)
Nerds often respond with stuff about facial symmetry and hip to waist ratio. Yes, women with those ideal ratios tend to be hotter to most men; that’s a scientific fact. The problem is that you could post pictures of several women with perfect facial symmetry and ideal hip-to-waist/hip-to-bust ratios, ask men to rank them from 1 to 10 and you will still get no consensus on the exact numbers. You will get consensus that all the women are attractive and that’s an important point I’ll get to in a minute.
Therefore, while the 1 to 10 attractiveness scale is a good way for you to measure what you think of women, it’s nearly useless when trying to describe how hot a woman is to both you and most other men. For that, we need a different system.
The Four-Level Hotness Scale
I use a different system that is far more likely to produce consensus over a broad spectrum of men, which is very unlike the 1 to 10 system.
Instead of a 1 to 10 scale, I use a very simple four-level scale that is much broader. It is simply this:
– Ugly
– Average
– Cute
– Hot
This looks overly simple, but that’s exactly why it works. If I posted a picture of a random girl right now and asked all of you to assign her a number from 1 to 10, we would get very little consensus. However, if I just asked you all if she was ugly, average, cute, or hot, we’d get massive consensus. Sure, there would still be a little disagreement, but it wouldn’t be nearly the segmentation achieved with the 1 to 10 scale.
If a woman is ugly, most men are going to identify her as such. The same if a woman is average and mostly the same if she is cute. If a woman is hot, you’ll still get most guys indentifying her as such, but you’ll start to get a few dissenters who will identify her as cute. That’s the worst disagreement you’ll get under this four-level scale; a few guys saying a hot girl is cute.
It’s true that a few women ride the line between average and cute and you’d get some disagreement there, but these women are somewhat rare. Again, most men will distinguish between (and agree with each other regarding) a woman who is average and who is cute.
The four-level scale is more objective. The 1 to 10 scale is far more subjective. No, the four-level scale isn’t 100% objective or perfect, but it’s much better at getting a basic consensus than the 1 to 10 scale.
Look at these two statements:
A. “I fucked an eight last night.”
B. “I fucked a cute girl last night.”
If someone makes statement A, most guys react with immediate suspicion. Is she really an eight? Well, what do you consider an eight? And so, the stupid argument ensues.
If someone makes statement B, there’s an immediate understanding and acceptance. There is unlikely to be any argument, discussion, or suspicion since most guys both understand and agree upon what “cute” means.
See the difference?
It’s even true if we drop the hotness drastically. Look at these two statements:
C. “I fucked a five last night.
D. “I fucked an average-looking girl last night.”
Again, statement D makes much more sense to you than statement C ever will.
It is somewhat unlikely that a man would not have sex with a woman another man identifies as cute or hot. The exception to this would be those very few men who are extremely picky. Despite the fact that sometimes you hear from these men in the comments on this blog, those men are extremely rare. In fact, the opposite is true; as I’ve said and demonstrated many times on this blog, men will fuck just about anything.
The four-level scale even accounts for the different “types” of women. As I empirically show here, men find various female body types as most attractive (skinny, curvy, hourglass, athletic, etc) even though most men clearly prefer the hourglass/curvy type.
Yet, if you think the athletic body type is ideal and I think the curvy type is ideal (which I do), I would probably have sex with a woman you think is hot with an athletic body type. She won’t be my favorite, but I’ll probably admit she’s hot rather than cute. The reverse is also true with a curvy woman I say is hot; you’d probably agree with me even if you prefer athletic girls (unless, again, if you were one of those rare super picky guys).
Since I know this topic will be brought up in the comments, I need to address the issue of rankings inside each level like a woman who is on the “high end of cute” or the “low end of hot.”
If you start doing that, you are basically reverting back to the 1 to 10 scale and now we’ll have no consensus again. I could map out a visual scale of four colored blocks of ugly, average, cute, and hot then put a separate scale within each block. But if I did that, I might as well just use the 1 to 10 scale since that’s exactly what it would be.
We’ll get a lot of consensus on whether or not a woman is in the “cute” category, but if we start talking about exactly where she is inside that category (low end, middle, or high end), the arguments and disagreements will begin.
The four-level scale works precisely because it’s less specific than the 1 to 10 scale.
Lastly, the four-level scale doesn’t address the level of hotness in regard to who guys would actually have sex with. As I said, most guys will fuck anything, and most men reading these words will have sex with any women who are hot, cute, and average. Many of you, perhaps even most of you, will go down to ugly, particularly if you’re feeling really horny or bored and you know you can keep it quiet from your friends.
As I’ve talked about several times before, back in 2007 I made a pact with myself that I would only go after women who I considered an eight or higher. Since it was about what I considered an eight, the one-to-ten scale worked for me. If I were to extrapolate that into the four-level scale, it would be women who were only cute or hot (and, in my opinion, on the mid or high range of cute). With only a few exceptions, I’ve kept with that standard for the past 12 years. About two years ago I upped my standards and now I only have sex with hot women, but that took me a while.
That’s just my example. Many of you guys have sex with tons of average women and really enjoy it. That’s fine. My point is that I can now use the ugly/average/cute/hot scale and the vast majority of you will not only understand it, but will agree with it, at least for the most part.
That is why I use the four-level scale instead of the 1 to 10 one. My scale isn’t perfect, and disagreements can and will happen regarding it, but it presents far less problems than the 1 to 10 scale, which doesn’t create any real consensus at all.
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Indeed this is the system I use to decide if I go after a girl or not and I am sure most guys do also without realizing:
– clear no
– a maybe (depends on what other options I have or perhaps if she comes to me and offers herself, also might depend on whether there are some other things about her that make up for what she lacks in other ways)
– a clear yes (happy to fuck her even if I do have other options and I do not require anything more than just pure fuck)
– very yes (this is very much my type and the kind of girl I am (at the moment) very much into; also the kind of girl I wouldn’t mind to pay money for, though that is hypothetical since I haven’t done that, but if I do sugar daddy one day then this would be my criteria perhaps)
What in your definition is then a difference between curvy and hourglass? Do you mean the girls who have a flat ish body but are clearly not skinny (but perhaps also not fat or even chubby) but maybe have bigger boobs as curvy? I am not quite sure what you mean here.
I totally agree with the fact the 1 to 10 scale is subjective. But yours *is* subjective too, although a little less (and you even seem to admit it).
Sure, an 8 to me might be a 6 to you, or vice versa, but it’s very unlikely a 8 to you would be a 3 to anybody else (or then your 4-level scale wouldn’t work either), so the fact it’s an 8 to you tells me I’d find her at least cute anyway.
But it’s the same with your system. If you tell me “this woman is cute”, I know it would be probably cute to me, too, but (even if it’s less likely) I could also well find her hot or average.
Basically, your system is 1-4 Ugly, 5-6 average, 7-8 cute, 9-10 hot.
It’s less subjective because there are fewer ranks, but it’s subjective nonetheless.
Now, what I like with your system is that it’s simple. I never use the 1 to 10 even for myself, because I can’t tell what’s the difference between an 8 or a 7 to me, and I can’t tell the difference between a 3 or a 4 (and I wouldn’t see the point anyway). But a cute girl or an ugly one? That definitely makes sense.
Read this.
Correct, as I said. It’s much less bad.
Irrelevant to my point. She’s an 8 to me and a 6 to you, so now we argue about whether she’s a 6 or an 8. Communication is damaged. If we just both say she’s cute, then no argument, no major disagreement, and the system works.
Completely incorrect. Those numbers only apply to you and no one else. I think you might need to re-read the article.
Then according to you the difference is that curvy has slightly bigger boobs than hourglass. This just proves that they are the same, even to you.
I use the same system for women, except it goes like this:
Ugly and average – no go
Cute – cuddleable, not really fuckable
Hot – fuckable, not really cuddleable
I think these men should straight up just grow a pair, learn to make some good money and use that money to bang hookers instead of gaming uglies when they are super horny and on a dry spell, and tell their friends they pay for pussy. I tell my friends that I bang super hot hookers and while some of them shat on me for it at first, they now commend me since I kept on going.
This is the same way I think about it. I’ve always hated the 1 – 10 scale. In addition to the subjectiveness from one person to another, it’s also an example of false precision – trying to assign an exact value to something that can’t be expressed in exact terms. If I say a woman is an 8.5, does that mean she’s an 8.5 to me? No. The instrument I use to measure hotness isn’t that precise. 😉
People over-complicate these things, same as with film/music/game review scores. Deep down, it’s actually very simple: it’s either a negative, a neutral, or a positive. Then you can add modifiers, as in very negative, negative, slightly negative, neutral, slightly positive, positive, very positive. This is closer to what a star rating looks like than a 0-10 scale, and the reason why those tend to be a better measure.
Your rating is like that (ugly=negative, average=neutral, cute=positive, hot=very positive), but excluding the very negative. But again, what’s the point of that when it comes to women’s attractiveness?
Yeah seems like a good rating scale.
I can bang an ugly chick as long as I am not disgusted by her and I have a good incentive to do so.
For example she has an ugly face but a big fat ass, or maybe she’s known to be very good at sucking dick, or maybe I know that I can treat her like my slut and make her do whatever I want not caring about the consequences.
The point is that there must be something that turns me on. Otherwise it’s pointless.
The best to fuck though are upper averages and cute ones
I don’t care for scales and ratings as far as looks goes, they are worthless.
As far as I am concerned there are 3 types of women I see everyday:
1. women I am not interested in (they can be slim, fat, sporty, big etc)
2. Fuckable (can be slim, chubby, big, normal etc)
3. Hot/Pretty ( cury, sporty)
I am not so sure. When CH used to do polls of women’s looks, the overwhelming consensus was within +/- one point from the median.
In other words, a who got a consensus of 8 revealed were almost no votes outside of 7-9. The ratings were pretty objective and tightly distributed.
The only consistent exception was that black men tolerated (or even preferred) a level of female obesity that non-black men would completely reject. But that was the only noteworthy exception.
Nerds waste time arguing about words and meanings. It’s probably the number one reason they lack social skills. Spend the time improving yourself learning game and getting dates.
The best advice I’ve gotten from this site is to stop screening women, and instead classify them. Thank you BD for that. A less pretty woman can be a very valuable FB, or even just a non-sexual friend. You keep a few of them in your life so you don’t get oneitis for the attractive ones.
I’m one of the rare types that would dispute what my friends or customers describe as “cute” or “average” or “hot”.
I am picky as I am accustomed to a certain level.
However, the methodology narrows things down vs the 1-10 system.
It’s better thinking.
I dig this, 1-10 is not only relative, but it’s also convoluted af… i always said perfect 10’s dont even exist, the highest rating is 9.5, otherwise you are getting into the air-brushed cartoon cgi world where you cant even tell if it’s real.
I feel this scale keep it simple and can lead to a lot LESS overthinking and unnecessary judging. Thanks fro sharing man!
I like looking at the pictures of women used to illustrate these blog posts. I always make my own subjective ranking. Of course, it would be dumb if Caleb used anything other than a picture of a woman he considers hot. The blond wearing the hat for this post is definitely hot. The one on “First Dates – Let HER Do the Talking”? Meh. I don’t like her nose. Too much make up. I don’t like obvious lipstick. The one on “Two Desires: Sexual Variety or Sexual Newness”? Well, she’s really only cute, but I’d take her over the previous one, even though I could see some guys would take the opposite view. Then we go back to the soft, feminine blond on “What’s Possible for Older Men with Younger Women.” Well, she’s too … soft and feminine for me.
So, it may not be all subjective. But it’s pretty much mostly subjective.
Ha very similar to my own rating-I also don’t do the 1-10 thing. I have:
Hard Pass -fugly/fat/etc… I wouldn’t bang on my worst day
Would Bang – girl that has at least some attractive quality what I’d bang if she threw herself at me, but I wouldn’t put effort into getting it
Cute girl next door – girl I’m attracted to in general that I will put some effort into banging
Hot/freaky – the peak physical type for me jaw dropper, I’ll put in the most effort for
That is not consensus. “Consensus” means that the vast majority of men solidly say a woman is an 8.
If only a third says she’s an 8, another third says she’s a 7, and another third says she’s a 9 (along with a few outliers who say she’s a 10 or a 6), that’s not consensus and that’s the problem with the 1-10 system.
You’ve essentially just proved my point.
Agree.
There’s another scale for how good a woman is in bed, which is completely separate than the scale of how she looks.
I was once with a 9/10 who was absolutely horrible in bed and I was thoroughly turned off, and I have been with a 7 who was mind-blowingly amazing in bed who I couldn’t wait to see again. Etc.
Bigger boobs and bigger hips. The curviness is much more pronounced. That is not the same.
This is covering only looks. A woman facially might be in the 6, 6.5, 7, 7.5 range, but I’d rate her great body a 9, 9.5, or 10, because she’s fit and/or regularly works out. You can get women who are very beautiful facially, but I’d rate their body a 1-3, because they’re very overweight.
For a woman to be in the 9, 9.5, 10 range facially and to also have a body I’d rate the same is much rarer, not unless the woman earns full time income from her looks (model, porn performer, actress, TV presenter, athlete).
I am slightly derailing topic but it’s at the intersection with your next post about personality scale. One very good article by Roosh is The Girl Score (A System For Rating Individual Girls)
It’s not an objective score, it’s subjective: for managing one’s own rotation. I find it useful in when ramping up the number of women in my rotation, then after reaching saturation, continue ramping up the average quality of the rotation. It helped me deciding which women I want keep and which I want to ditch. Though it’s kind of a standalone thing, and ideally I would have liked to use instead something that is more plugged in BlackDragon’s system. I just modified the weights to suit my tastes better and it gives a score on a 100 points scale:
Attractivenes*5
+
Sex*2
+
Nurturing+WomanFactor+Personality
It’s a solid start but one big draw back of this score for me is Nurturing, Woman Factor and Personality kinda intersect too much, and it’s really hard for me to give a solid rating in those categories. I’d much rather have Attractiveness and Sex and then something more rigorously defined and based on obeservable and quatifiable facts à la BlackDragon style: plug in some statistics of how many times she made some demands, how much I spent on her, how many times she made a drama that necessitated soft nexting, etc… those kinds of stats and have a formula that gives a proper
BlackDragon System Woman Score™®
for my rotation.
Why is there a need for any scale at all? What problems does it solve?
A huge aspect here seems to be validation from other men. To enter a formal gathering accompanied by a hottie, to brag to internet strangers etc. But how does any kind of scale benefit me, specifically?
OT: Whatever happened to that dominant argumentative mid twenties lady who was all set to traditionally marry her alpha-yet-submissive love of her life? Haven’t seen her in a couple of months, miss her persistent advocacy for having it both ways and/or trolling.
https://alphamale20.com/blackdragonblog/2015/07/20/body-vs-face/
Need? No.
Want? Yes.
Communicating the hotness of women to other people during dating and relationship topics.
Correct.
I need it because I’m a public figure communicating dating advice. You probably don’t.
Sabrina. She’s over commenting at my other blog at the moment.
I thought you just said you don’t like drama in another thread? Hmmmmmm???
Probably just submissive. Ignoring the contradiction in the statement, remember that most women seem to think, though perhaps only outwardly, that they’re boyfriend/husband is alpha. Not many will admit this is not the case even when it clearly is. If she is dominant and he is submissive then that is likely to work very well actually. This guy will do the house work while shes banging with some guys secretly on the side. Why would she have any problem with this? She might get bored of him later and say something vague and irrational like that he wasn’t the right guy or that he turned out to be a jerk (not submissive enough) or something like that.
One benefit to numbers is you can subtract a couple numbers between photos and real life. Ive been stoked to meet someone and been very surprised by their looks in person.
In my experience it works both ways, I have many times been on the fence whether to meet the girl or not and did and was impressed. Most girls just have terrible zero effort photos which can go one way or the other. If its an issue for you consistently you can ask to see more. I often get to see more anyway – am able to find them online somewhere or when we switch to watsapp her photo there is often different.
Mine as well, sometimes extremely so, both ways.
I don’t enjoy drama one bit if it effects me, but it’s fun to watch other peoples sometimes. Especially over the internet.
Kinda like I do everything I can to avoid police, but I absolutely love watching LivePD on occasion. Live sports is kinda the same.
Which is exactly what I said in the other thread when I say I enjoy telling over 3o year old women about my dating life – likewise it involves other people (assuming she isn’t my date or mother, though my mother nowadays has accepted it so I can tell her too without drama).
It’s just go or no go for me. I have a thing for the plain ones tho.
YMMV.
good stuff.
I’ve always liked the idea of turbo hotties when you were talking about Panama City.
If I guess a girl’s astrological sign (birth month) then I have a random 1 in 12 chance of being right. I have a 1 in 4 chance of being +/-1 on that. If I guess her birth season – spring, summer, fall, winter. . .however you define those – then I have a 1 in 4 chance of being right and a 3-in-4 chance of being only one off.
Does shifting from a 12-point scale to a 4-point scale give us any more information, or is it any more useful even if you have increased your “accuracy” or a “near miss” by 3 times?
Does shifting from a 10 point scale to a 4 point scale give us anything more?
The disputes over who is hot vs. who is cute compared to the 7 vs. 8 debates are only cut by 4/10 by simple numbers rather than any increased accuracy or objectivity.
Personally, the WB/WNB: 0-1 scale rules. Intellectually, a 12-point scale might offer something given that it defines TIME. Given intersubjectivity, the 10-point scale still rules.
No, there is no objective way to measure many of the most important things in human existence. However, we have – as a group – given substance to certain ephemeral things, and now that is the HB10 scale that we have to live with.
I understand what you’re saying, but another consideration is communication between human beings. The 1-10 scale makes smooth communcation on this topic almost impossible. The 1-4 makes it much easier.
Extremely rarer in real life than in blog comments… they are.
Wow, that’s Alpha 20.0. 18 times too advanced for us, I am afraid…
Hi BD
over time have you ever seen a fb move from cute to hot?
..for you is chemistry and attraction there i first hour or not ever?
thanks
Since this scale is based only on physical appearance, no. (Women tend to get less physically attractive as time goes on, not more.)
No, nonphysical chemistry/attraction can increase with me for a woman over time. It’s just not the norm.
Plus, with FBs it’s usually a physical attraction only. I’ve had numerous FBs who were super hot but their personalities thoroughly unattractive. Perfectly fine with me. I have the type of personality where I can easily separate the two. (Many men can’t do that though.)