In this post I am going to discuss the subject of attraction floors and ceilings. While some of my posts have alluded to the subject before, I’ve never addressed it head on. If I had to guess, this post is likely to generate at least a small measure of controversy. The natures of male and female attraction and preferences are bound to do that. Plus these topics are really touchy for some folks. Because, and lets be honest here, the system is broken and a lot of men and women, good men and women, have been hurt by that. So, without further ado…
Introduction: The Nature of Male and Female Attraction
Before I can go into depth about ceilings and floors, I need to clarify a few things about attraction. For my regular readers, this will be a short recap and summary of everything I have discussed on the subject before, so you can skip ahead to the next part.
Men and women are attracted to very different things. As I have explained before, men are attracted to beauty:
The principle feature which men look for in women to determine attractiveness is easy enough to figure out: Beauty. Age factors into Beauty, as Beauty will diminish over time as age increase. Now, ideal Beauty can vary depending on culture, but there are still certain physical features in women that carry across most cultures: a feminine face with strong facial symmetry, large breasts, a low waist-to-hip ratio, smooth and unblemished skin, etc. Beauty is essentially a purely visual attribute, indeed well over 95% of that which men use to determine the attractiveness of a woman falls under visual Beauty. Therefore it is usually quite easy for a man to quickly gauge a woman’s attractiveness on the standard 1-10 scale. The remaining features which determine attractiveness include how the woman smells, what her voice sounds like, and what her body feels like to the touch.
An example of this 1-10 scale, with my own thoughts on what each number means, is found below:
A few notes on this:
One thing to keep in mind is that a woman’s “score” is somewhat subjective. One man might rate a woman a 7, another a 6, and another an 8. Each man has his own preference in what he wants in a woman. But if you average together enough men, you will get a fairly accurate measure of how attractive any given woman is.
Also, there is a difference between a woman being attractive and a woman being unattractive. Anything “6” (cute) and up is attractive. Anything below a “4” (homely) is unattractive. So a “Plain” woman, or a “5”, is not attractive, but also not unattractive. [At least, that is how I use the system] This will be relevant later.
Matters are somewhat different for men:
Male attractiveness is much more complicated. While visual features do play a part, and other physical features have their role as well, there are other things which can make a man attractive to women. It is well established throughout history that money is something which women find attractive in men, along with that undefinable characteristic known as charisma, and women have long been known to be drawn to men of high station. When all of this is analyzed in the context of female behavior like hypergamy, it is possible to discern the triggers for male attractiveness to women, and categorize them based on their nature. There are three principal categories under which male attractiveness is analyzed: Appearance, Personality, and Externalities, or APE for short. Under these three categories are five more specific subcategories which contain the sets of attributes which determine male attractiveness: Looks, Athleticism, Money, Power, and Status, or LAMPS for short.
For a more detailed explanation, see here.
Unfortunately, a similar 1-10 chart for men doesn’t really work. At least, not quite in the same way as it does for women. There are several reasons for this:
1) Assessing male attractiveness is much more difficult than assessing female attractiveness. Because Money, Status and Power aren’t visual in nature, you can’t really assign hard values to them on the fly. Perhaps the best measure of male SMV is the SMV of women that the man can regularly “pull.”
2) Male attractiveness is on weighted curve, while female attractiveness is not. A female “7” is a “7” no matter how the other women around her look. But male attractiveness is measured against the attractiveness of other men, because Status varies for each man. As men are added or removed from any given population, their respective Status in the group will shift. And with it, their attractiveness.
3) Context can impact male attractiveness. Because Status can shift depending on where the man is, his attractiveness is fluid. This makes it impossible to assign him a universal number like you can with a woman.
One possible attempt to create a male 1-10 scale might look something like this:
Its not exactly great, as you can see.
And that wraps up the differences in Male and Female attraction.
Boundaries
While this should surprise no one, people react differently to individuals of the opposite sex depending on how attractive they are. And those reactions differ depending on whether someone is looking for a short term relationship (STR), a one-night stand (ONS), or a long term relationship (LTR), which for the sake of this post I will equate with marriage.
The Floor
One significant manifestation of this is the so called “Attraction Floor.” The general concept is that people won’t choose as a (either sexual or marriage) partner someone who is below a certain rank. As with most interactions involving sex, attraction and desire, individual preferences vary wildly. In addition, men and women are each quite different in where their floors are located.
Lets begin with men. As I mentioned earlier, a woman is not necessarily “unattractive” if she doesn’t happen to be “attractive.” There is that grey zone of “not unattractive” where a woman may not repel a man like a “2” would, but neither does she excite him like an “8” would. Here is a visualization of this dynamic:
To describe the zones more completely:
1) Attractive means that a woman has no unattractive features and a number of attractive features, or that her many attractive features more than offset her few unattractive features.
2) Not Unattractive means that a woman either has no major unattractive and attractive features, or she has some attractive features which are balanced by some unattractive features.
3) Unattractive means that a woman has no attractive features and a number of unattractive features, or that her few attractive features are more than offset by her unattractive features.
Now, how might this “Attraction Floor” work in practice? An example of this might be a man who would not be willing at all to sleep with a woman who is not attractive (which under my system means someone below a “6”). Another man might be willing to sleep with a woman how is “not unattractive”, but only as part of a ONS, and would insist on an “attractive” woman for his wife. A desperate man or a man with a low SMV himself might be willing to go so far as a “2”. And then you could have an Apex Alpha who wouldn’t associate with a woman who isn’t an “8” or higher. It all depends on the man in question.
So what about women? Well, it has long been argued that women are much more “discerning” when it comes to attraction thanks to Hypergamy. Some manospherians like to bandy about 20% as the percentage of men that women can/do find attractive. Personally, I have no idea if that percentage is right or not, but I do agree that far fewer men fall into the category of attractive than women. An interesting question though, is whether or not there is a similar category of “Not Unattractive” for men. I’m not sure that there is, but the toxic hypergamy which is the norm for most women these days makes an accurate appraisal of the baseline female attraction filter impossible. Be that as it may, here is a graphic representation of the traditional interpretation of the female “Attraction Floor” interposed on my male 1-10 scale:
I need to be honest and admit that my choices about names and where to place the line are completely arbitrary. That applies to all of the graphics, really. But they do serve a valuable purpose of providing a visualization of the discernment that is going on inside people’s minds.
Note: For women looking to marry, they need to understand that unless they can make it above a man’s “Attraction Floor”, they won’t be considered for a relationship. No amount of personality, character or other traits will change this. The same applies to men as well.
Settling Down
One idea that I have been exploring lately is that people might have more than one “floor,” at least when it comes to marriage. There is a “hard floor”, below which someone won’t consider anyone as a potential spouse. Then there is a “soft floor”, above which someone would perhaps agree to marry the first acceptable candidate who came along. In between there is a “Maybe” range, where someone wouldn’t dismiss anyone found there as a marriage partner, but wouldn’t immediately agree to marriage. Rather, it would take either a disproportionately large number of Desirability attributes and/or a belief that a better candidate is unlikely to be found to spur him or her to agree to marriage. A visualization of how it might work for a man would look like this:
Assuming there is something to this theory of mine, I further speculate that the ranges to this phenomenon are not fixed. My suspicion is that people are more discriminating earlier in their lives, and as they age the ranges drop. So a man who would have immediately “wifed up” a “9” or “10” when he was twenty years old would be willing to immediately wife up a “7” or higher when he is thirty-five. This certainly seems to be the case with many women, who by most accounts and appearances will focus their efforts only on male “8”s or above when they are younger, but once they approach or hit the Wall will marry a male “6” or “7”. The problem of course is that the woman’s “hard floor” has dropped below her attraction threshold, which means that she ends up marrying a man whom she isn’t attracted to. I don’t think it necessary to remind everyone just how disastrous that turns out to be.
A Ceiling?
I can’t recall having seen someone suggest the idea of an “Attraction Ceiling” before, so it might well be an original thought on my part. But the general idea is this: there might a certain attraction threshold above which someone won’t focus their attention, because they believe that those above it are “out of their league.” While they might be attracted to someone with that rank, they won’t pursue them because they know they don’t have a chance. Here is how it might look:
This “Attraction ceiling” would be a “soft ceiling”, in that it might flex as a person’s perspective on who they can attract fluctuates. Also, I suspect that this is something that is more likely to be a male behavior than a female behavior. Hypergamy would tend to drive women towards the top to begin with, and the current brutal nature of the SMP/MMP tends to cure men very quickly of any thoughts of “landing” a woman above their rank.
I haven’t really had time to flesh this idea out, but I wanted to mention it to see what other people think. Perhaps I missed it when another blogger covered this subject before. If so, that would no doubt impact my thinking.
Conclusion
That concludes my thoughts on Attraction ceilings and floors for the time being.
Donal Graeme 
Hm, this relates to Sunshinemary’s post on assortative mating. I think the visualizations with the scale helped me get a better understanding. It is true though, as woman, we do prefer men who are out of our league.
But I realized this though, it is very hard for most women to figure out an honest answer of how attractive they are, especially if a lot of her peers are female or men who are afraid of being truthful. So, even though women can be picky, we think the men we desire are on our league, so to most women, it would be assortative mating.
Honestly, the best way I handle this, is just ranking myself as average (so somewhere between the 5 or 6 range) because if I can’t get a truthful answer, I’ll just go with the middle. You can’t go wrong most of the time by just sticking yourself in the middle. haha
Also, this:
“Note: For women looking to marry, they need to understand that unless they can make it above a man’s “Attraction Floor”, they won’t be considered for a relationship. No amount of personality, character or other traits will change this. So the same applies to men as well.”
made me a little bit sad because basically a women’s prospects for marriage are based on chance or a random selection of genes that are beyond her control. Sad, but very true…
Yes, it is sad. There are some people out there who have wonderful personalities but lost the genetic lottery. And because of that they may never marry.
There are some websites out there where men offer to rate a woman’s attractiveness. I can’t say that I would recommend them, but it is possible for a woman to get a rough measure. A single man’s opinion might not be ideal, because his views can be skewed. But if you ask several, and they are honest, you can probably get a good idea.
Ehhhh, I’m not sure if I really want to know…haha
[Ed: The idea of whether or not women want to know, or should know, their SMV value may make for an interesting post in the next few days…]
I didn’t know there were websites out there for that, but then again, I guess there are websites for anything.
Anyway, concerning what you said earlier…I wonder why God does that, create certain people homely?
Well, I guess in God’s eyes homely people are attractive…
I think another way to do this would be a bell curve. Take a curve that represents women, then drop the lines on it that way. One of the problems I see is that the average woman is more than five/plain. That makes the one to ten scale distorted.
Overall, good post. A simple way to get your point across without resorting to jargon.
The Shadowed Knight
That is a good question. Much of what God does is beyond us. But I recall something someone far wiser than I once said:
I tell you, to all those who have, more will be given; but from those who have nothing, even what they have will be taken away.
Life is not fair. We must trust to God that this is so for a reason.
donalgraeme, great post!
Well thought out and explained – graphs help 🙂
I’ve shared some of this before, but I’ve got it saved under Attraction/Assortive Mating in a dormant wordpress account…
From when I was only 7, I recall momentarily visualising all males I met naked. Yes possibly very strange, but that’s what I did. I grew up with no tv so hadn’t been exposed to anything immodest in regard to male nudity.
It’s something involuntary/instinctual that enters my brain and I would have to consciously re-clothe the person I was looking at! Not necessarily sexual, more just very revealing. I am introspective and I analyse things to a fault… so what I came up with in regards to these ‘naked moments’ was that I realised from a very early age the true MASCULINITY of ALL men.
Put very simply, a penis is incredibly powerful.
Translated, this means I am aware that every man has power and therefore holds some attraction.
In turn, I am super sensitive to the importance of modesty to protect any interaction with a male turning sexual. One of my brothers told me that I was the only person he’d ever met that doesn’t flirt. I think this might be why.
The reason I am sharing this is because I believe the number one thing that women find attractive in a man is POWER.
If society recognised God’s heirarchy and stopped pretending we are all equal, then men’s attractiveness in general would rise exponentially.
If we recognised men have a higher status than women, it immediately puts ALL women in a submissive/weaker position to ALL men. This would raise attraction.
Alpha/Omega, doesn’t really matter because in some innate way they’re all more powerful than me.
If we went back to a patriarchal society, men would be more dominant without being punished for being so…. this would also raise attraction.
For what it’s worth, IMO attraction comes from recognising a man as SEXUAL first and foremost as this acknowledges man’s power and my vulnerability.
Attraction comes from realising a man is dominant and superior through acceptance of my inferiority as the weaker sex.
Attraction comes from men standing firm in their masculinity as this increases my awareness of my femininity.
Examples of masculinity being shown: Not explaining/apologising for actions. Ignoring emotional outbursts by being a rock not an echo chamber. Being commanding – taking the lead and expecting obedient following. Being dominant by keeping me unsure of where I stand…. humour/sternness/assurance all tip the balance. Inviting me into HIS world under HIS conditions, not the other way around – the purpose of a woman is to love her man but the purpose of a man is to take dominion. This needs to remain constant or trouble will start brewing.
That’s pretty much it for me – looks and physique?… Well that comes down to what the woman looks like herself… she can choose the best looking/tallest/strongest whatever man from the selection that present themselves in front of her based on HER attractiveness. She needs to accept that.
(When I was around 15, a friend’s father pulled me aside and told me to make sure I didn’t marry someone less attractive than myself. I pondered on that for years. I wondered if he regretted marrying someone less attractive than himself – but they had children that went into modelling so figured it wasn’t that. I think now he was telling me that I needed to never feel ‘superior’ to my man.)
In summary, I believe the ratio of men even being noticed by women could be inverted if we got rid of the ridiculous lie of ‘equality’.
If women were to recognise that they were created FOR man, not vice-versa.
This makes every single man out there very powerful indeed.
Perhaps because of this, I’m one of the unusual women who Does visually rate random men in passing.
So there’s another scale for women like me – it’s visual only… a nano-second assessment that might look something like this:
10 Eek! I feel nervous – walk away before you get weird Hannah
8-9 Wow! Someone’s a lucky lady
6-7 The average guy is pretty good-looking
4-5 I guess after a few drinks…
3 Yikes did I have to imagine that?!
1-2 Oh that’s unfortunate
Hope this made sense, sorry it was so long!
Thanks for the comment Hannah. You’ve given me a few things to think about. Part of me wonders if women have two sets of floors running at the same time: a “hypergamy floor” and an “attraction floor.” Might want to explore this a bit tomorrow.
donalgraeme, as lovelyleblanc7 mentioned, this post crosses over with Sunshine Mary’s ‘Women’s arrogance and the downfall of assortive mating’
I’m in moderation there – so haven’t been able to have this comment posted – do you mind me submitting it here? Thanks 🙂
@Deti:
“All the girls want attention from the top men; just like all the men want the top girls. The difference is that men learn early on that they have no chance with the top girls; while women learn they have at least a shot with a top guy if they put out. If they don’t put out, then they watch the carousel or sit out the dating scene. Because they won’t settle for anything less than everything they want.
As I said, evidently some women (and the aforesaid Prophet) who frequent these parts don’t agree with me.
Why not?”
Maybe because it’s too ugly to accept as the truth?
Not sure why not because it gets shut down pretty quick.
But I agree with you.
That was a golden comment that pretty much sums up the mess we’re in.
Over the past few days I have read a lot of wisdom here from Deti and Feeriker and others that I would like to support but suspect that I would reveal too much personally in doing so.
Suffice to say, most women simply do not even notice most men exist… so have no real idea what attention they actually receive. This is not true the other way around.
It’s somewhat frustrating that even here in the manosphere or redpill women sphere, that universal truths about the nature of things are blocked when it gets too uncomfortable so we miss the opportunity to press forward into new territory of understanding. For example, why do we even need to debate whether women are paid more attention than men?!
Consider this:
If a level 3 woman approached a series of level 6 guys and expressed her willingness to have sex right there and then, good chance she’ll find success pretty quickly.
If a level 3 man approached a series of level 6* women asking for sex right there and then, good chance he’ll be facing several lawsuits pretty quickly!
*actually any level!
Men want sex more than women want sex, and their attraction floor is lower than a woman’s. Most likely because they’re more honest about their own level of attraction due to rejection, conditioning and trial and error. Women in general are clueless to the realities of any market they find themselves in.
Because – solipsism.
What an interesting post. You sure put a lot of work into it.
I can’t recall having seen someone suggest the idea of an “Attraction Ceiling” before, so it might well be an original thought on my part. But the general idea is this: there might a certain attraction threshold above which someone won’t focus their attention, because they believe that those above it are “out of their league.” While they might be attracted to someone with that rank, they won’t pursue them because they know they don’t have a chance.
Once upon a time not too long ago, I was a model and quite pretty. Than I developed a deadly illness, experienced a few major organ failures (liver failure causes the worst undereye bags ever) and now require mobility devices to walk (err…limp?). Astonishingly I get hit on by more guys since I got sick, than before. At first I chalked it up to guys who had Asian fetishes or felt bad for me, but now I think my disease makes me seem more approachable. I used to be quite the fashionista, I’d only leave the house if I was dressed to the nines. I don’t have the energy to do that anymore, so I settle on simple, comfy clothes and shoes.
When I was younger I was in love with one of my father’s employees, an average, albeit bookish, middle-aged man. He wasn’t ugly, but he wasn’t breathtaking. Anyway, I used to flirt with him every chance I got. I genuinely liked him. But he never responded so I reluctantly moved on. Years later he told me he thought I was teasing, a girl like me wouldn’t be interested in him. I was offended by his assumption; what kind-of shallow twit did he think I am?
Yes, it is sad. There are some people out there who have wonderful personalities but lost the genetic lottery. And because of that they may never marry.
Don’t write off genetic lottery losers. I played the hand I was dealt, and managed to get happily married to a wonderful attractive man.
As an adult I’ve realized that men aren’t as superficial as I first thought.
As I said, evidently some women (and the aforesaid Prophet) who frequent these parts don’t agree with me.
Why not?”
Maybe because it’s too ugly to accept as the truth?
Not sure why not because it gets shut down pretty quick.
But I agree with you.
That was a golden comment that pretty much sums up the mess we’re in.
Over the past few days I have read a lot of wisdom here from Deti and Feeriker and others that I would like to support but suspect that I would reveal too much personally in doing so.
(Sorry Donale if this is off topic)
Hannah, your comment definitely rings true to me.
I’ve noticed, as a woman on the blogosphere, I am sometimes pressured by others to not acknowledge certain red pill truths as well as overlook other women’s behavior. For example, I can never point out if another Christian woman advocates heresy to the point where their salvation is probably null and void (*Heresy is a massive pet peeve of mine, I lost faith in Christ [which I never fully recovered] because of Christians who tell me thinks like “don’t get married young” “your illness is caused by sins” etc.)
Also, I always received harsh reactions from certain women when I address how Christian women are often turned off by attractive Christian men with morals and intentionally seek out non-Christian bad boys. It’s always somehow the guy’s fault for being single. He’s a loser/no game/ugly. It never has anything to do with modern women considering morals a negative attraction trait.
It’s like some women honestly beleive if Christian men just learned Game, the SMP would be fixed.
Women in general are clueless to the realities of any market they find themselves in.
I don’t mean to brag, but I know my way around the supermarket 😛
@ButterflyFlower:
“I lost faith in Christ [which I never fully recovered] because of Christians who tell me thinks like “don’t get married young” “your illness is caused by sins” etc.)”
I would wholeheartedly encourage you ButterflyFlower to recognise that Christ is not proven nor disproven by Christian’s actions!!!!
He is.
Our Lord God, King of the Universe is the Great I AM.
Please consider going on an Old Testament through to the New Testament journey, reading the bible right through and observe for yourself that humans are fallible and Adamic in nature… prone to fail God miserably.
Anyone telling you not to get married young is speaking outside the will of God. It doesn’t line up with what we can learn of God’s plan in the Bible.
Anyone telling you that your illness is caused by your sins is speaking outside of what they know. Read how God rebuked Job’s ‘friends’ when they uttered similar lies. Who are we that we should know the mind of God?
Please please please don’t judge God based on what Christian’s do or don’t do!
Blessings in Yeshua,
Hannah
ps… I’m glad you know your way around the supermarket… seems you’re a good wife for that and many other reasons – keep it up! 🙂
Please please please don’t judge God based on what Christian’s do or don’t do!
It’s a Japanese thing; judging people by groups and the generalized behavior of said groups. Asking myself “would it be shameful to affiliate with these people?” In my defense, many Christians treat God more as a mascot, than well, a God. Christian is just a status symbol to them, not a faith they adhere to. Which is why they don’t concern themselves with the gospel.
Thank you for your kind words. You were always very nice to me. It’s kind-of strange, actually. Christian women aren’t usually friendly online. (It’s not a bad thing. Just unexpected)
Anyway, I wonder if Donal can make a quiz/flow chart thingy to sort-out this scale? You know, like those Tiger Beat “who is your perfect celebrity crush” quizzes? The ones where if you answer, say, “I like outdoor picnic dates” you might end up with say Orlando Bloom, but if you answer “I like exciting dates” you end up with Ryan Reynolds.
Hey while I’m on a roll 🙂 I’ve got another possible scale…. it’s a bit random but here we go!
Today at the park with our children, I saw a couple from our old church. They’ve recently married after 5 years together and appear to be happy.
Thing is, he’s at least a 7, and she’s a 3 on a good day! In fact, her whole unfortunate family would be a 2 at best. Yikes. So here’s the thing that instantly runs through my head in such a situation (when there’s a VAST disparity of attraction):
Handsome guy with an ugly girl – “What is SHE willing to do for him sexually that nobody else would?!”
Beautiful girl with an ugly guy – “How rich is HE?!”
And then I think, maybe there’s something wrong with them mentally or their eyes at least….!
And then I admonish myself with “Hannah! They’re CHRISTIAN’S! And HANNAH, so are YOU! Mind, pick yourself up from the gutter!”
Still, that’s the split second scenario that runs through my mind whenever there’s a huge variance in the couple’s attraction level… for whatever that’s worth 🙂
@ButterflyFlower:
“Christian women aren’t usually friendly online. ”
Maybe this is not dissimilar to judging people by groups as you mentioned above, but I’d strongly suggest adapting your approach to taking each interaction as it comes rather than letting your assumptions go before you. Thing is once you’ve made a statement like this in your mind, it’ll become a self-fulfilling prophesy… cos you already think it, you’re possibly forcing it? Just a thought 🙂
Just so you know, when I meet women I choose to be friendly. When I meet men, I choose to be respectful. It’s the way I know how to show human kindness.
My husband tends to agree with TSK, very few non fat women in the under 5 in his opinion. Especially among younger women. He is sort of like me in the belief that there is something appealing about nearly everyone if you look.
@Hannah:
Over the years I have had the experience on occasion of having women say to me very directly, that my husband is really handsome. While I am far from hideous (you’ve seen my photo), I have wondered if they would feel compelled to say that if I were equally as attractive as he is.
Perhaps because of this, I’m one of the unusual women who Does visually rate random men in passing.
I have to fight the urge to do this also, Hannah. I am very visual as well, always have been. Never watched a lot of TV growing up (I was more of a reader), but I have become something of a movie buff thanks to my husband and I almost always can recall which actor in which films fit my taste, even if I only saw him once, in one movie. Benicio Del Toro, for example.
True story. I don’t know if you guys remember The Lady Morticia, who has exited the blogosphere. She and I went to lunch earlier this year. As we had lunch, she sudenly said, “That guy behind you is really handsome”, at the exact time as I was thinking the same thought about the man I could see sitting behind her.
Neither of the men were drop dead gorgeous, and I would easily categorize both our husbands as more handsome than those men. And yet, we noticed them.
That is a good verse. Thank you
Sorry that was in response to Donalgraeme’s Luke 19:26 quote
“Well, it has long been argued that women are much more “discerning” when it comes to attraction thanks to Hypergamy.”
Yes their discerning methods leave a lot of open interpretation.
“Out of my league” is definitely what an attraction ceiling is. I’ve witnessed men first hand admit this when talking to me about various women. Most men feel this way about celebrity women. They know it’s a pipedream. Basically, the pedastal is too high to climb.
Attraction ceiling is definitely a good codification of the term though to put in context of attraction floor.
It could probably be retermed into:
~attraction ceiling
~relationship (LTR/marriage) floor
~sex (ONS, FWB, etc) floor
Attraction floor is a bit vague since there are definitely two “floors” that men have. Obviously, Christians should not be concerned with the sex floor.
“Yes, it is sad. There are some people out there who have wonderful personalities but lost the genetic lottery. And because of that they may never marry.”
Think about whether they were given those looks to impart upon them humility, instead of tempting them to pride and vanity. There are men that their looks force them to acknowledge that they will need hard work, devotion, and will to be able to be attractive to a woman. There are women that their looks force them to acknowledge that they need to be submissive and have a warmth to their soul to find a man to marry them. These are not bad things, these are crosses God gives individuals to keep them from sin.
The truly sad part is that these people are lied to by our society. They are told not that these are crosses to bear and overcome so as to avoid pride, but that they should instead TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR FAULTS. Thus it is that such women and men become the most disgusting of creatures, for they are dead inside and repulsive to our eyes, minds, and souls. The devil has done his work well with them, leading them to be the bitter, jaded women you see in our society today. Just last night I was talking to a woman I keep in touch with back in Chicago, and told her I almost never consider a woman above the age of 24 or 25 for a marriage prospect because they largely have lost that feminine grace found in humility and submissiveness as they have had too long to listen to the lies of the world that they stopped making room for God or a husband in their lives; becoming repulsive as a marriage prospect because of it, despite being of value to the Church in other ways.
As far as a ceiling goes….
I never even tried to punch above my perceived weight in attraction. Not that I didn’t, but that if I perceived my value to be under a threshold, I never developed an attraction to a woman. Emma the Emo had a good post responding to Matt Forney’s Insecure women concept, instead saying that men are attracted to vulnerability. Which I agree with. If I can’t see a woman as vulnerable, which to the blue pill man is based mostly on physical attraction and confidence, I won’t be able to develop that attraction to her besides a cursory, “Oh, she’s good looking” which is not the same as attraction (to me, at least). Probably the strongest part of the knowledge of how the sexes work in social dynamics is that a woman’s looks do not affect how self confident she is, but rather how large her ego is in the mask she presents to the world. If you can find a way to dig into the vulnerabilities she has in her personality, mind, and spirit she can then become very attractive to the man looking for vulnerability, as well as the man able to provide the safety, protection, and dominance over those vulnerabilities becomes attractive in her eyes.
So, ceilings exist, but they are in large part subject to the fallible assumptions of both the man and the woman. A man falsely believes she has no vulnerability or the woman embraces the sins of pride and vanity. Such women are the ‘cold hearted iron fortresses’ that no man wants to crack, because there’s always another woman with a warm heart full of grace and kindness.
“Than I developed a deadly illness, experienced a few major organ failures (liver failure causes the worst undereye bags ever) and now require mobility devices to walk (err…limp?). Astonishingly I get hit on by more guys since I got sick, than before. At first I chalked it up to guys who had Asian fetishes or felt bad for me, but now I think my disease makes me seem more approachable.”
I have felt more attraction and draw to a plain blind woman who had a feminine energy, dressed well, and was pleasant to be around that to many people I would rank 8+. With her I wanted to grab the nearest sword and an umbrella that I might have everything I needed to protect such a vulnerable warmth.
Before I address everyone’s comments, I would like to remind folks to try and stick to the topic at hand. I would hate to have to edit/delete comments.
@ Hannah
Don’t forget that male attractiveness is based on more than just Looks. If he has no Masculine Power, or is low Status and has no Money, then his SMV might be the same as hers. With men, you really can’t judge a book by its cover.
@ Elspeth
Yes, being thin and in-shape would leave most women in at least the plain category, if not higher. Very few women are naturally lower than that.
As for noticing men… that is something which I am hesitant to talk about. I know that according to “manosphere wisdom” most men are considered to be “invisible” to most women, but I’ve always thought that this dynamic was more complicated than they try to make it out to be.
@ Deep Strength
Yeah, I hinted that men might have two floors, but wasn’t sure exactly how to describe it. I may create another graphic which explains this dynamic a little better.
@ Leap
Interesting thoughts. Going to need to think on that.
Leap:
“The truly sad part is that these people are lied to by our society. They are told not that these are crosses to bear and overcome so as to avoid pride, but that they should instead TAKE PRIDE IN THEIR FAULTS. ”
That’s golden. It’s literally the worst of both worlds: crosses to bear in this one, bound by pride in the next. It’s horrendous.
Donal:
“Assessing male attractiveness is much more difficult than assessing female attractiveness. Because Money, Status and Power aren’t visual in nature…”
It’s not just that they’re not visual. For some guys, all of civilization has a hard time judging their attractiveness.
I agree that money, status, and power factor heavily into male attractiveness. But it’s not enough to just assess those traits; you have to predict them, decades into the future.
Further, you have to predict them better than men can. If there were an unambiguous path to MPS, all the men would take it, and it would cease to yield MPS. Therefore, many men take ambiguous paths to MPS: they go to medical school (can he get in? Will he make it out?), or start a company (Will it survive and make him a millionaire?), or race motorcycles (will he survive? Will he win?). It’s important that most men have a hard time predicting how fruitful these activities will be: if everyone knew it would be worth it, they’d all do it and it would cease to yield MPS. If everyone knew it wouldn’t be worth it, then nobody would do it.
As a thought experiment, imagine the plight of some girl in Manhattan, with marriage proposals from two suitors—who happen to work on Wall Street. The suitors are identical in every way, except that one has bet everything on Google’s stock going up, and one has bet everything on it going down. Which one is more attractive?
Since the only difference between the two is Money, that’s what she must base her choice on. And yet to do that, she must predict the direction Google stock will move tomorrow.
If she could do that, there are a great many people who would like to monitor her tingles.
Obviously she doesn’t have this magic power. And yet—here she is, early twenties, fertile years ticking. She’s got to choose. What do you do when you’re taking a question on an important test, but don’t know the answer?
Well, you cheat off your neighbor, duh. That’s what preselection is. You might not get the exact right answer, but you don’t need that—the test is graded on a curve, and it’s centered around a B: an average performance is perfectly fine.
I touched on this idea of a “ceiling” in a recent comment at Sunshine Mary’s:
That doesn’t mean I’d turn down a 10 if she threw herself at me. But I’d be wary, because I’d be wondering what was wrong with her that I couldn’t see, or how soon she’d get tired of slumming and go back to hotter guys. I’m going to be a lot more comfortable and willing to move forward if a woman is attractive and yet in my league enough that I don’t feel like keeping her impressed will be a full-time job. So I think most guys — unlike most women in the Age of Hypergamy — have a sweet spot somewhere on the scale that seems achievable and roughly equivalent to their own self-perceived SMV, and don’t make any special effort to chase 10s.
A quote I like: “She was out of his league. He wouldn’t even know where to get tickets to watch her league play.” — Joe Ohio, by James Lileks
Thank you, Elspeth. I stand on a gate for hours a day at work, and I watch the people come on. If I correct for overweight women, the majority are good looking. The really unattractive women tend to be the fatter women, and plenty of them could be good looking if they lose weight. There are, of course, a few that are plain or not attractive, even some that are unattractive. However, the lower end of the scale is nearly exclusively comprised of the overweight. If they took care of their bodies, they would be attractive, too.
The Shadowed Knight
@Elspeth:
“Over the years I have had the experience on occasion of having women say to me very directly, that my husband is really handsome. While I am far from hideous (you’ve seen my photo), I have wondered if they would feel compelled to say that if I were equally as attractive as he is.”
Elspeth I’ve also had many people tell me how handsome my husband is, and I’ve always figured that as an indirect compliment to both of us! Why would my good looking man have chosen someone that he didn’t see as attractive?! I’d never question that he thinks I’m at his level – in fact he’d be annoyed if I ever did, cos it reflects badly on him in some way 🙂
I’d say that the fact they’re married men gives other people licence to express their admiration in ‘safety’ of the knowledge they’re already taken, so it comes off as an observation rather than a come on.
This happens the other way around, and my husband always takes it well in his stride without missing a beat – kinda like saying thanks for recognising my wife’s looks, of course she is MY wife!
So no dear lady, you’re not remotely hideous (take it out of your vocabulary!) – I’ve seen a pic of the two of you, and to me you look similarly attractive 🙂 A good looking couple with good genes creating good looking girls!
My random anecdote was describing the HUGE disparity between some couples…. not ones that are within a level or two of each other on the attraction scale.
I’m of the opinion as long as a woman has longer hair, isn’t fat, heavily tatted, or has a horrible attitude…unless she has some physical deformity, that is at least a 5. And considering this is America…being in the normal weight range would make you stand out amongst your peers.
Every woman that I knew off the bat was in the unattractive category was because they were overweight.
@ earl
Same for me. I’ve never really seen any women go below a 4 unless they were overweight or obese.
Sad thing is 35% of women are obese and 70% are overweight now in the US…
I ran this thought past the girls the other day, but it relates here. I think that men want wives for slightly different reasons. Some of that correlates to the 1-10 scale. Solace, stimulation, status… and all of us have some part of all of those attributes, but in different measures.
Around these parts, my Mrs. Santa Claus self rates pretty poorly on the SMP scale, too many athletic blondes running around. I can see the revulsion in the eyes of some guys. In other guys eyes, I can see the solace button getting hit square in the nose, and they’re very happy to have me wander through, even with the gold ’round my finger.
I know what type of guys find me revolting, and in turn, I’ve learned to find them off-putting. So yes, there is an attraction ceiling, but it’s deeply *deeply* weird, and I don’t think you’re going to be able to slap a number on it. It’s not like the guys who think I’m beneath their notice are George Clooney with diamonds on the soles of their shoes. They’re often not the most dominant guys in a group. “Alpha” the way the manosphere defines it? Yeah. I guess. I’ve always thought that was weird, being one of those who finds social dominance more alpha than who gets laid … but hey, let’s not open that can of worms. 😀
Anyway. Good idea, and yes – you’re right. Women don’t want to be found unattractive, and the fastest way to categorize yourself out of my interest is to do just that.
The male MMP floor is real, as is the male SMP floor. The SMP floor can be lowered through the use of alcohol.
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A fascinating post. I like the charts.
I think it’s important to note that a woman’s status can change based on where she lives.
For instance, I grew up in an Italian community just outside of NYC. There, I was just one of hundreds of petite, dark-haired, olive-skinned women and never really stood out or garnered much male attention. The handful of blond, blue-eyed women attracted the highest status males because they stood out from the rest of us.
About 10 years ago I moved to a rural area of New England where the majority of women are fair-skinned blonds. Here, my looks make me stand out in a crowd and the fact that I wear makeup and like to dress in a feminine style while most women around here prefer a sporty, no make-up look probably adds to my appeal.
Men often flirt with me, including men who are at least a decade younger. I’m middle-aged and always wear my wedding ring so this is pretty surprising to me. My theory is that men always drawn to whichever type of woman is in short supply.
I’m sure if I moved back to my hometown I’d become invisible again and find that blonds there are still in high demand.
@ Earl and Deep Strength
I agree that being fit and thin makes a huge difference. Very, very few women naturally fall below a 4 unless they fail at that.
@ The Scold’s Bridle
I’ve been meaning to make a chart of that…
@ LLB
I think that there is something in men which admires novelty. A woman with “exotic” features might rate higher than a woman without those features. Or, the exotic nature of her features simply makes her more noticeable.
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If an otherwise fit man thinks a chick is out of his league she is. His frame is all wrong. Women are a burden, no matter how pretty and she has to prove herself to the man.
Power may trump all regarding LAMPS, but a man must being willing to exercise his power/ display it or he has none.
I reckon the men who settle for women bellow their ranking on the smp/mmp are broken men who don’t understand their value/ don’t display their power.
The good thing for men is there is a metric $hit ton of ways a man can have power and display it. Overt power of physical strength, the power to create like an artist, money, social skills etc etc. If you race motorcycles, you have power in the smp/mmp regardless of your success on the track. A friend of mine is a mildly successful sport fisherman, he kills it the smp.
Elspeth are you one of those chicks who fishes for compliments by denigrating her looks?
Ladies don’t underestimate what tight girl game does for your smp/mmp ranking. Particularly mmp.
Elspeth are you one of those chicks who fishes for compliments by denigrating her looks?
I’ve been accused of it, Ton. More than once, although it isn’t true. I’m not ugly, but I have never thought of myself as particularly comely either. Never been that woman that people called “pretty” as a matter of course. But I’m pretty enough for all normal purposes.
I don’t fish for compliments. I just prefer to be realistic rather than inflate my already inflated ego even more than it is, LOL. There are more than enough chicks running around under the delusion that they are far more attractive than they really are.
All right darling, I’ll take your word for it. Your a good looking gal best I can figure and your carrying on about it seems silly.
Personally I… discipline my girl when she plays that game. It’s disrespectful to men when she denigrates her self and I don’t cotton to disrepect.
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Really interesting! I can definitely see this floor/ceiling concept being a reality for many/most people (without them being necessarily that aware of it).
Based on my experiences, the more arrogant or self-delusional a man is, the more unlikely it is for him to have an attraction “ceiling”. They believe they “deserve” any girl they find hot. (This is pretty embarrassing to witness with guys who are 6s and similar, haha.) Having said that, there apparently have been studies suggesting all men imagine themselves to have higher chances with higher caliber women than they actually do, which expresses itself in the phenomenon that men are usually ignorant about their own looks and its rating (to an extent), and approach women of any higher number (like, a 6 guy approaching an 8 woman and believing he has a chance). I suppose this does not really matter that much in the grand scheme of things, given that men are not primarily judged by looks anyways. But it is still something to consider when thinking about the “ceiling”. As far as I know, it is mostly rather insecure guys with lower self-esteem, or very humble guys (usually 5s) who have this ceiling thing in their minds of “She is out of my league, bro!”. But the least attractive guys have tried to “hit me up” before, so…yeah. It depends. :p
This might be a woman thing, but personally I find it rather difficult to determine my exact floor and ceiling points – this could have something to do with the fact that those concepts are much more “fluid” for females, just like a male’s attractiveness is not as easily broken down into 10 categories.
However, I have noticed I will feel uncomfortable/freaked out when I see a guy who seems to have no physical flaws, aka is a clear “10” in looks. I have seen two guys of that kind only twice in my life before online. I assume both were (Instagram) models, one of them probably has had some facial plastic surgery done. So, I can safely assume that a guy who is a “10” appearance-wise (basically looking like a Ken doll, haha) is beyond my “ceiling”. (You could say this is a good natural reaction, since people are much happier in a relationship when both are about the same looks-wise, or the guy is less good-looking. :p )
Regarding my “floor” point, I used to talk to this one guy online who I could sense was much more into me than I was into him. Honestly, I was just being flirty when I felt like it, but I did not mean much by it. Once it seemed like “things were getting serious”, I freaked out again. I knew this guy was looking to get married, and I am personally also determined not to enter any relationship when I can’t see myself marrying the person down the line. So, I was thinking about whether I could marry the guy. And just thinking about it gave me *actually* nightmares, haha. It was a clear “no” in my mind. I could only see myself being in a casual short term relationship with the guy, at most. But I was not interested in that (and entering one like that without not feeling romantically/sexually attracted seemed so icky to me), so I dropped the whole thing. Based on my attractiveness scale (https://msmodernalpha.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/the-10-point-attractiveness-scale-male-examples/), I would say the guy was like a 6.5, a 7 on a pretty good day maybe, haha. So… considering this, you could say that my “floor” point is around 6 to 7.
After all that, I feel like the match that would be satisfying and the most comfortable for me would be an 8 guy. If I pushed myself and really invested in my appearance 100%, I might be able to land a 9, though this would not be that comfortable for me, because that requires much more maintenance, and I am not the kind of girl that enjoys beauty stuff *that* much to make it the most dominant part of my lifestyle.
An 8 should actually a 10 on your scale. An 8 is the level of a high school star football player (or the adult equivalent: well-off, good-looking, successful, admired by everyone), but then your 9 makes a pretty big leap from that to a low-level celebrity, rich and famous. And a 10 is an Alpha billionaire or leading movie star. There can only be a couple hundred of them in the whole world.
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