Sexual market value
Sexual market value (abbr. SMV) is a manosphere concept that describes someone's level of desirability in the dating market. In psychology, there is a similar concept known as 'mate value', and in evolutionary biology, mate value is sometimes used to represent potential reproductive success.[1] In the field of sociology, there exist similar proposed Bourdieusian social capitals such as 'erotic capital' or 'sexual capital'.
SMV is often evaluated via the decile scale (on a scale of 1-10). Among looks theorists, such as proponents of the blackpill, one's SMV is generally argued to be primarily determined by physical attractiveness, though it is widely accepted that money, status and social skills also play some role in determining a man's SMV. Redpillers generally place more evidence on wealth, status, and social skill ('game') as determinates of men's SMV.
All conceptualizations of SMV are predicated on social exchange theory, which is the idea that social interactions are shaped mainly by humans acting as rational agents and engaging in social relations based on cost/benefit calculations.[2] Such models of the mating market see agents (individual humans) acting as rational actors in various 'dating markets' and outcomes are argued to be determined by calculations based on factors like supply, demand and relative value. As such, criticisms exist of these concepts on the grounds that humans do not always make rational or optimal choices in anything, including mating.
Although individual preferences shape people's perception of an individual's SMV and human mating behavior is highly complex, there is evidence that a level of consensus exists concerning the overall desirability of individuals on the 'mating market'. Indeed, distinct, desirable traits (such as wealth, physical attractiveness etc.) tend to weakly covary with each other cross-culturally, at least on the level of ideal preferences. This covariation between mating-relevant traits supports the existence of an overall desirability factor, which could be seen as representing SMV.[3]
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