A complete session needs a number both people mean the same way. Sexletics already writes RPE on the session cards and a 1–10 arousal note inside Foundation. This page is the shared scale those cards assume. It is a training language. It is not a score to beat, and it is not a test of desire. Pain is a stop. Pain does not get a number on this scale.
Use the same bands every week. One and two are settled: you can stop, look around, and describe the room in a full sentence. Three and four are the easy working dose, the effort you could repeat tomorrow, still talking if you chose to. Five and six are the working set on the card. Control is still a choice, and the breath is still a choice. Seven is the edge. Name it out loud or in your head, then downshift about two points. Eight and nine are late. The skill is the drop, not a longer stay. Ten means the session already changed. Log that honestly. Do not add a second bout to finish the plan you wrote before the number moved.
Call the number three times in an ordinary session: once in the open, before any work set; once at the hardest minute; once in the close. Solo, say it or write it. With a partner, one number is the whole report. Foundation week 6 already asks for a scale call about every minute during the partner protocol. There is no debate inside the set. The adjustment happens after the number, not instead of it. If you cannot name a number, you are already late. Stop the set, take the physiological sigh, and decide whether the clock still has work left.
The edge-recognition drill is this scale in the exercise library. Name the edge, downshift about two RPE within a few seconds, and reset the breath before you decide to continue. Riding past the edge by accident is the fault on that page, and so is a shame spiral after a miss. A miss is a log. The regression is to stop at five and practice the call there until the word is easy. Delay Lab is the intermediate block that programs the same skill across weeks. Free athletes practice it inside Session A. The five-minute arousal note is the baseline, not a performance.
The number does not choose next week's dose by itself. The plan line still comes from the log. Pain, an abort, or a note marked incomplete means an easier dose next. Two aborts in the last four logs means skip the hard set. A seven you named and left is a successful set. A four you wrote because you wanted a four is a bad log. Hold seconds and the flexibility score stay blank when pain showed up. The arousal number can still be written, because it describes the session, and it still does not turn pain into a rep.
Downshift tools are already in the library. Use the physiological sigh, a slower count on the tempo drill, a freeze you can breathe through, or water. Drop about two points, then look at the clock you set in the open. If the plan was a five and you are at an eight, the plan is over for that set. Edge Play Safety and Edge Play Peak stay behind their lock. Until Safety week 1 session A is logged, the line is Log Safety 1A first. The scale is how you train while you wait, and how you train after the lock opens.
Write the number you actually felt next to the session in the training log. Compare it with the RPE on the card, not with someone else's week. Two weeks of honest fives teach more than one chased eight. This is adult training education. It is not medical advice.