There have been tons of studies over the years that associate the color red with passion, excitement, increased heart rate--even hunger!--but a new study confirms that a woman wearing red gives off a stronger signal of being "interested in sex" than one in any other color.
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Remember this scene from The Matrix? Neo gets attacked after becoming totally distracted by a woman in a scarlet dress on the street, and it turns out, he's not the only one whose mind turns to naughty thoughts when he sees red. According to a new study conducted at the University of Rochester and recently written up in ScienceNow, "Men rate women wearing red clothing as being more interested in sex, hinting that humans may be conditioned to associate the color with fertility."
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It's all about biology--increased blood flow leads to flushed complexion and hence, red signals willingness to mate, if we want to get primal about it--and so the study's authors used that knowledge to conduct an experiment. They already knew that men were more drawn to red than any other color. Adam Pazda, who worked on the experiment, says, "It doesn't have to be a red dress or a sexy outfit," he says. "It can be a red T-shirt."
ScienceNow goes on to explain: "To understand why, Pazda and his colleagues conducted a simple experiment. They showed 25 men a photo of a single woman doctored to look, in different cases, like she was wearing either a red or white T-shirt. The researchers then asked the volunteers to gauge, on a scale from 1 to 9, how keen the model seemed to be on romance. In other words, the men answered the question: 'Is she interested in sex?' Men interpreted the red outfit as a signal that the woman was indeed more open to sexual advances. In fact, the guys tended to grade the woman's disposition to sex about 1 to 1.5 points higher when she was wearing a red rather than a white tee."
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Not completely surprising, but still pretty interesting, huh? Jezebel rounded up a host of other things red has been attributed to in various studies over the years, from stress to quicker reaction time, but this study seems the most logical. Do you wear red on dates, or when you're trying to grab a guy's attention? Did you know you could be sending a signal that says you're interested in being more than just friends!? Will this effect how you get dressed for your next romantic encounter? Discuss!
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