What does “MPS” mean
on the Rice Purity Test?
Short for Member of the Preferred Sex
MPS stands for “Member of the Preferred Sex.” It’s the wording the original paper test used so every question worked no matter who you’re into. Anywhere you see “MPS,” just read it as “a person you’re attracted to.”
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It appears in questions like “spent the night with an MPS.” Each one you check is a point off your score.
Where the phrase comes from
MPS is a fossil from the paper era. The photocopied purity tests that circulated in dorms during the '80s and '90s needed one phrase that worked for every reader, long before inclusive wording was standard practice. The wording that stuck was "Member of the Preferred Sex," and it rode along copy after copy until the abbreviation outlived the sentence it came from.
Most modern versions of the test quietly dropped it. Ours phrases questions as "someone" instead, which is what MPS always meant anyway. You'll still run into the abbreviation on older lists and in Reddit threads where people compare versions, so it's worth knowing even though it's basically retired vocabulary at this point.