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PaperclipPerfector  7d ago (text post)   26647 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 9, 2026

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especially 9s and 10s

I suppose everyone has their own definition, but assuming a “10” is at least 99.9th percentile for fit, healthy people your age (so probably 99.99th percentile overall; one in ten thousand men or women) I think seducing many 10s would be quite impressive.

Isn't a "10" more likely to be, uh -- 90th %tile?

Unless you are using the female scale, which as I recall is exponential to the point where a 90th %tile man is like a "5" -- men are much more linear!

Fair dinkum - my standard for what a 9 or a 10 is is something like "is a model" "could be a model" "if you told your friends she was a model they would believe it." With a 10 being more of a get drunk with your bros and sass each other and they won't disagree she is a 10 even though that is a big brag.

I don't think I've thought of it the terms you describe but it's an interesting thought. If a 10 means 99.9th percentile then it really means something, but I suspect you'd run into taste issues. Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).

Sydney Sweeney, Zendaya, and Lisa (Blackpink) are all probably 10s by any objective standard but if you go by 99.9th percentile for an individual man's interest then at least one of those three is likely to get thrown out most of the time (see: the hate for Zendaya here).

I agree that the people calling Zendaya ugly are overdoing it: by any metric she's a pretty girl. But I'd hardly call her a 10/10. In fact, I think part of the basis of her appeal is that she has a certain girl-next-door quality that makes her seem approachable and down-to-earth: a nerdy MCU fan projecting himself onto Tom Holland could imagine himself dating Zendaya in a way he couldn't with (to pick a handful of her MCU costars) Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman or Cobie Smulders. I think any of these women (in their prime) would be considered more attractive than Zendaya by just about everyone.

I mean this is where taste comes in - you'll note that she doesn't look at all like your other examples.

That said she's literally famous for being beautiful in an industry that the most beautiful people in the world go into. If getting paid millions of dollars a year to be beautiful isn't a sign of being a 10/10 then I don't know what is.

You are allowed to find her not attractive. Many people don't like um ethnic women, or women who are low on curves. That's preference, but if we are looking objectively...

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