Lady in Red: Perhaps Adjust Your Wardrobe and Alert Chris de Burgh To Re-release His Song
Editor's Note: The excerpts (without accompanying footnotes) below from a 2012 published article on research is similar to one that is currently being referenced in the media and so we went on a hunt. We've found this Open Source PLoS One version, Dressed for Sex: Red as a Female Sexual Signal in Humans, by authors Adam D. Pazda and Andrew J. Elliot. We also note that Oprah referenced this article at that time.
Recent research suggests that red is an aphrodisiac for men viewing women. Men viewing women on a red background or in red clothing (relative to other chromatic and achromatic backgrounds and clothing) find them more attractive and sexually desirable, intend to spend more money on them, and choose to sit closer to them. Perceived sexual receptivity has been shown to mediate the red-romance link; men construe the "lady in red" as more sexually receptive and this, in turn, increases their attraction to her. Although this research indicates that men interpret red on a woman as a sexual signal, it is mute with regard to the accuracy of this interpretation.
Studio publicity portrait of the late American actress Elizabeth Taylor, taken perhaps in 1955. Wikimedia Commons
Men are commonly portrayed as the initiators of sexually-oriented communication, but research shows that women are also very active, especially in the initial stages of courtship (i.e., making the first move). Women convey sexual interest to men through various overt and covert means, including verbal flirtation, establishing and maintaining eye contact, provocative body posturing, suggestive dancing, and wearing revealing clothing. Here we posit that women use red clothing to communicate their sexual interest to men.
Red has been used across time and culture to symbolize female sexuality in ritual, folklore, and literature; red means 'open for business' in red-light districts, and red is the most common color of lipstick and rouge (seen by some scholars as a way to mimic natural processes of sexual excitation). These societal uses of red are posited to emerge from and extend a biologically-engrained propensity, shared with our primate relatives, to link red and sex. Women may exploit this red-sex link in intersexual interaction by wearing red when seeking to signal sexual receptivity.
Our research comprises three studies designed to examine women's use of red to communicate sexual interest in picture profiles on dating websites. Web dating is both mainstream and burgeoning, with approximately 20 million users per month, and women using these websites are typically deeply invested in catching and holding the attention of potential mates. As such, this arena allows for a naturalistic examination of women's real-world behavior in the mating game, a chance to observe women's use of red ornamentation essentially "in the wild."
Experiment 1
Methods
Our initial, preliminary, investigation was a scenario study about women's behavior on a dating website. We examined whether women who imagined being interested in casual sex would be more likely to display red (but not other colors) on their anticipated web profile picture.
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