Scientists have figured out the role of red in sexual arousal
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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The researchers concluded that the red female genitalia do not excite representatives of the stronger sex - hence, for the sexual symbolism of red has another rationale. The role of red in sexual arousal is not as unambiguous as it might seem at first glance.
Traditionally, behavioral experiments of this kind are carried out on animals. Therefore, the fact that this experiment involved not male monkeys, but men, adds a significant amount of piquancy to these results.
Sexual symbolism of red is famous for a long time. It is said that the perception of it as the color of readiness for sex goes back to ancient evolutionary times, to the ancestors common with monkeys. Some monkeys, when a female is ready for sexual intercourse and pregnancy, have it. Over the years, a man learned to hide his own genitals under clothes, and as a presentation of readiness for the continuation of the family ladies began to use a symbolic make-up. At the moment, hardly anyone will have an idea to associate the red color of lipstick with the desire of its owner to become pregnant, although it is believed that he just sexually excites men, evoking the historical memory of the red female genitals.
Researchers from the Kent Institute (England) put a simple experiment for clarifying this hypothesis. Uncomplicated enough that it is even surprising why to this day this idea has never occurred to anyone (or everyone thought that there was nothing to check here, or it was simply inconvenient to do it). Scientists took on 4 photos of several female genitals; on each image the genitals differed in color, from pale pink to reddish. Then they asked 40 guys to regard the sexual attraction of each option. It turns out that the different stages of pink for the strong half of humanity are much more attractive than red.
In other words, it turns out that the historical memory of monkeys, which should have been included in such a situation, has disappeared somewhere in modern men: the color of readiness for sexual intercourse does not excite them, unlike the usual, "quiet" color.
Here, naturally, you can invent many different interpretations. The most uncomplicated: red has lost its value, and the young ladies apply it only by inertia. If you look from a different angle, the red color also has the symbolism of the threat, and it is likely that its sexually stimulating effect may be related to the answer to the overcoming of the barrier and the final award. In the end, it should be remembered that the red often accompanies such elements of the toilet and the style that they have every chance to excite, regardless of their color. Perhaps, in modern boys, red color can be associated with other sexual objects ...
And the authors themselves do not make any unambiguous conclusions, pointing to the need for more laborious and subtle studies that would take into account all the roles of red in modern culture. Anyway, ladies have every chance to rejoice: although in some way the male sex stands out from the ancestors of primates
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