Is Elizabeth Hurley's penchant for red the reason men find her attractive? - Why are men attracted to ladies in red? - Scientists at the University of Rochester, New York have conducted an experiment in which 100 undergraduates were asked to rate the attractiveness of women associated with various colours. They were asked to rate three variables – "how pretty is she?", "how much would you like to kiss her?" and "how much would you like to have sex with her?"
Is Elizabeth Hurley's penchant for red the reason men find her attractive?
These are not so much three points on a line, it should be noted, as the three vertices of a scalene triangle of hetero-male attraction; how they were correlated is not stated. But overall, the scientists report that the men found women associated with the colour red more attractive than others.
The second woman I ever really fancied – after Jemima the rag doll from Play School -- was Miss Scarlett, from Cluedo. Most men of my age will report the same thing. So these boffins are clearly onto something. The more important question is: what is the nature of the something that they are onto?
It does not begin to follow that because men tend to find women in red more attractive, they are being "driven by primal instincts that associate the colour with sex". They are being driven, rather, by centuries of Western cultural norms that have associated the colour with sex. Men often find women dressed in fishnet stockings, high heels and suspenders sexy – but that’s not, for Pete’s sake, because our mammoth-hunting forebears were biologically programmed to have a thing for garter belts.
"Scarlet woman", "red light district", "lady in red". Think of the iconography of Valentine’s day; of the dingy red bulbs that wink down apocryphal alleyways to the client of the peepshow and the brothel; or the garish nylon bumfloss that adorns the models in the windows of Ann Summers.
As that monkey-bothering old humbug Desmond Morris would be the first to point out, the cultural association of red with sex (what semioticians would call "arbitrary") is maybe not entirely arbitrary in its origins. Red is the colour things go when they are flushed with blood; and that’s associated with arousal, be it a "maidenly blush", the "body self-mimicry" of Angelina Jolie’s colossal carmined lips, the engorged bottom of an in-heat baboon, or – well, we’re all grown-ups. I don’t need to paint a picture.
However we speculate about the roots of the phenomenon, red has become accepted public shorthand for "ooh la la". So a woman associated with the colour red (particularly if it’s elective, as in a dress, rather than accidental, as in spilled paint) is regarded as more sexual; and men find women who are sexual sexy, presumably for the reason that they think they might want to have sex. ( telegraph.co.uk )
Is Elizabeth Hurley's penchant for red the reason men find her attractive?
These are not so much three points on a line, it should be noted, as the three vertices of a scalene triangle of hetero-male attraction; how they were correlated is not stated. But overall, the scientists report that the men found women associated with the colour red more attractive than others.
The second woman I ever really fancied – after Jemima the rag doll from Play School -- was Miss Scarlett, from Cluedo. Most men of my age will report the same thing. So these boffins are clearly onto something. The more important question is: what is the nature of the something that they are onto?
It does not begin to follow that because men tend to find women in red more attractive, they are being "driven by primal instincts that associate the colour with sex". They are being driven, rather, by centuries of Western cultural norms that have associated the colour with sex. Men often find women dressed in fishnet stockings, high heels and suspenders sexy – but that’s not, for Pete’s sake, because our mammoth-hunting forebears were biologically programmed to have a thing for garter belts.
"Scarlet woman", "red light district", "lady in red". Think of the iconography of Valentine’s day; of the dingy red bulbs that wink down apocryphal alleyways to the client of the peepshow and the brothel; or the garish nylon bumfloss that adorns the models in the windows of Ann Summers.
As that monkey-bothering old humbug Desmond Morris would be the first to point out, the cultural association of red with sex (what semioticians would call "arbitrary") is maybe not entirely arbitrary in its origins. Red is the colour things go when they are flushed with blood; and that’s associated with arousal, be it a "maidenly blush", the "body self-mimicry" of Angelina Jolie’s colossal carmined lips, the engorged bottom of an in-heat baboon, or – well, we’re all grown-ups. I don’t need to paint a picture.
However we speculate about the roots of the phenomenon, red has become accepted public shorthand for "ooh la la". So a woman associated with the colour red (particularly if it’s elective, as in a dress, rather than accidental, as in spilled paint) is regarded as more sexual; and men find women who are sexual sexy, presumably for the reason that they think they might want to have sex. ( telegraph.co.uk )
This is what scientists call stating the bleeding obvious.
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