A lady in red is more attractive to men than a lady dressed in any other color. Or so yet another of these surveys reported in a newspaper insists. I’m afraid I don’t buy the explanation though, this lady in red thing being genetic, or associated with monkeys and baboons.

The study said that men appear to be driven by primal instincts that associates the colour with sex.

Women sporting shades of scarlet or crimson are more likely to be asked out on a date, according to the research from the University of Rochester in the US.

That monkey explanation for the lady in red being salivated over is here:

Prof Elliot said: “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 how certain male primates were attracted to females when they displayed red, he added: “It could be this very deep biologically based automatic tendency to respond to red as an attraction cue given our evolutionary heritage.”

The basic attraction for red I’ve no problem with, but that evolutionary explanation looks very odd to me indeed. While certain primate females do indeed display red patches when they are fertile, most do not. And we’re very different indeed than monkeys and apes in our sex habits: for example, we have menstruation rather than its opposite, oestrus.

I’d say that this is purely societal. We’ve had such a long association in our culture (and it’s very much worth noting that the association of red with sex isn’t common to all cultures) with sex and red that those wearing it will almost inevitably be seen as being more sexual. And given the depth of this cultural association (from phrases like the scarlett woman, the scalrett letter, the lady in red of the song and so on) there will also be that association amongst women who decide to put on red cloting. Which if course will simply reinforce the assumptions of the men that observe the behaviour of those that wear red.

No, nothing to do with monkeys, entirely a cultural phenomenon.