Men have maintained the Scale for tens of thousands of years, passing it on to generation after generation. Ever take home an 8 and wake up next to a 4? Brutal, man. Ever wish you could nail a 10 but can never manage to score better than a 6? Humiliating. Ever actually land a 10 and then screw it up because she’s out of your league, tragic.
Complexities of the 1-to-10 hotness scale for ranking women: a longstanding, seemingly universal shorthand for talking about whether she’s worth another glance. The Scale’s scientific exactness was likely crafted out of necessity. Mankind demanded a system for evaluating the looks of nearby women, just like plants and animals. As with all systems of classification that must withstand scientific rigor, the Scale established order from the chaos of the world.
It was a reassuring way to separate the wheat from the chaff. But if you take a closer look at our overly simplistic system for measuring beauty, its very simplicity betrays it. The Scale is inadequate. the Scale is for boys, real men use the Binary, or “would you or wouldn’t you,” a surprisingly forward-thinking metric that prioritizes personal preference and ineffable appeal.
Regardless, men have maintained the Scale for tens of thousands of years, passing it on to generation after generation.