Color Red = Sexy, Dominant, Dangerous, Strong & Powerful

Gabriella Toth | Stephan Glathe | fART Magazine #19 | ‘Tease Me’ SN Wide Screen

When I was fashion director of Victoria’s Secret, men bought red lingerie for both Christmas and Valentine’s Day. Recent unscientific surveys suggest that men’s tastes in lingerie have changed, with black being their favorite color.

Equally unscientific polls about women’s preferences in lingerie colors, put red in the tacky, trashy bin. The Victoria’s Secret V-Day pages continue to promote red and fuchsia pink.

Scientifically-speaking, what have researchers said about our attraction to the color red?

Psychologist Daniel Niesta of University of RochesterFindings published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in October 2008 studied men’s evaluations of a woman’s ‘prettiness’ when her photo was framed in red or white, with subsequent comparison involving grey, green and blue. In a related experiment, the shirts of women in photos were digitally colored red or blue. Men were asked a series of questions about dating the women, including how much money they would spend on a date.

Compared to when they were shown pictures with other colors, the women were considered by the men to be much more attractive, sexually desirable, and worthy of a more expensive date when they were framed by or shown wearing red. But red didn’t affect how men rated the women in terms of likeability, intelligence or kindness, and had no effect on how females rated the attractiveness of the other females. via US News & World Report.

Part of the men’s responses may be social conditioning, but other research confirms that primates are attracted to females displaying red. For female chimpanzees and baboons, a reddening of sexual anatomy nearing ovulation is a clear sexual signal of fertility.

Women also like men in red, distinguishing attractiveness from other qualities like dependability, likeability or kindness. The results were cross-cultural and included participants in the US, England, Germany and China. Women also tied a financial qualifier to men wearing red, versus blue shirts.

The cherry color’s charm ultimately lies in its ability to make men appear more powerful, says lead author Andrew Elliot, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester. “We found that women view men in red as higher in status, more likely to make money and more likely to climb the social ladder. And it’s this high-status judgment that leads to the attraction,” Elliot says.

Wearing red in sports results in more favorable calls than being the ‘blue team’. Students who look at the color red before an exam do worse. Researchers say the color is dominant and intimidating, often resulting in a loss of confidence in the person viewing it.

After all, red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength and power. 

Model Gabriella Toth, lensed by Stephan Glathy,  practices her own version of sensual artistry, under the red influence for fART Magazine’s latest issue. Both editorials are NSFW. Anne

Gabriella Toth | Stephan Glathy | fART Magazine #19 | ‘Play With Me’ SN Wide Screen