Tuesday, 28 October 2008 Will Dunham, Reuters
Men find women in red more sexually attractive, say US psychologists, confirming it really is the colour of romance.
Professor Andrew Elliot and Dr Daniela Niesta of the University of Rochester, New York report their findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
Men rated a woman shown in photographs as more sexually attractive if she was wearing red clothing or if she was shown in an image framed by a red border rather than some other colour, says Elliot.
He says although this "red alert" may be a product of human society associating red with love for eons, it also may arise from more primitive biological roots.
Noting the genetic similarity of humans to higher primates, he says scientists have shown that certain male primates are especially attracted to females of their species displaying red.
For example, female baboons and chimpanzees show red colouring when nearing ovulation, sending a sexual signal that the males apparently find irresistible.
"It could be this very deep, biologically based automatic tendency to respond to red as an attraction cue given our evolutionary heritage," says Elliot.
The study involved more than 100 men, mostly college undergraduates, who were shown pictures of women and asked to rate how pretty they were, how much the men would like to kiss them and how much the men would like to have sex with them.
Men were shown a woman, with some of the pictures bordered in red and some bordered in white, grey or green.
Even though it was the same picture of the same woman, when she was framed in red the men rated her as more attractive than when she was bordered by another colour.
Men were then shown photographs of a woman that were identical except that the researchers digitally made her shirt red in some versions or blue in others. And once again, the men strongly favoured the woman in red.
The men also were asked, "Imagine that you are going on a date with this person and have $100 in your wallet. How much money would you be willing to spend on your date?" When she was clad in red, the men said they would spend more money on her.
The researchers noted that the colour red did not alter how men rated the women in the photographs in terms of likability, intelligence or kindness - only attractiveness.
The researchers then had a group of young women rate whether the pictured woman was pretty. Red had no impact on whether women rated other women as pretty, they found.
Gay men and colour-blind men were excluded from the study.
Source http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/?site=science
WHO WAS
FANNY the FLYING
HOUSEWIFE ?
*
A sample can be found in an earlier post about Josephine Baker, & here are another couple to tempt you ... but that's all, now you'll just have to borrow a copy from a Brisbane Library or request your own for the paltry sum of $AUD20 by posting a suitably grovelling message!
'Kiss me, My Fool'
Theda Bara, silent film actress, 1885 — 1955
she spoke not one word
in a dozen years on the screen
this all-new 1914 model
for a Hollywood tired
of sweet innocence
the original vamp
woman as bloodsucker
eyes like smudgepots
let her studio bosses
promote a Cincinnati girl
as a Middle Eastern Beauty
and hint that her name was
an anagram of 'arab death'
instead of short for
Theodosia (God's gift)
this clever girl
knew just what to reveal
and what to veil
always let the text
do the talking
Persistence of vision
Olive Cotton, Photographer, 1911 — 2003
no snapshot for the life
of a woman who never stopped
framing images in her mind's eye
in twenty years away from the darkroom
a tent her first chosen home
with laughing children playing
in a dry creek bed
deep in the backlit bush
a woman with suitcases
filled with negatives
watching for the moment
when the sky was just right
who never thought to see the day
she'd step out of the shadow
set galleries aglow
indirect light still eloquent under her hands
and focus deep enough
to illuminate a soul
Ladies, want to while away the time in mellifluous bliss? Look no further!
Rub that resin! 'Amaze your friends'! If it was Good Enough for Dietrich,
The Shrew welcomes any creative contributions to the battle to save money while saving the earth. Bear in mind, gentle reader, that any suggestion likely to startle horses or cause affright to small children or animals will disappear, never to be seen in these pages.
Meanwhile, in the faraway city of Bangalore, India, women going about their business are being subjected to random but sustained violent attacks by fundamentalist Hindu males.
