London A new research has added colour – literally and figuratively – to the age- old question of what attracts men to women – its red.
Yes, men really do prefer a lady in red – because they think they will sleep with the woman on f
irst date, according to a team of researchers from the University of South Brittany in France.
The researchers have based their findings on an analysis of 120 male students, aged 18 to 21, and split them into four groups. Each volunteer spent 30 seconds looking at an image of the same 20- year- old woman but the colour of her top varied for each group from red, blue, green or white.
The students then completed a questionnaire, which asked them to rate, on a scale of one to nine, how attractive they thought the woman was.
They also had to rate her in terms of how likely they thought it was that she would have sex with a man on the first date, alt39 The Daily Telegraphalt39 reported.
The findings revealed that most thought choosing to wear red meant a woman had ” greater sexual intent” and was more likely to jump into bed with a man than someone who opted for more neutral colours.
They also found that the item of clothing in question does not need to be a revealing top as volunteers were asked to judge a womans sexual intent based only on the colour of an ordinary T- shirt.
” Studies have shown that red is connected to lust and romantic love as well as to female fertility. But biological evolution could also explain the importance of redness.
” During their fertility phase, the perineum of female baboons, macaques and chimpanzees becomes red, probably to attract males.
” For the first time, our experiment shows clothes have the ability to lead men to perceive a woman wearing a red T- shirt as having greater sexual intent than one wearing blue, white, or green,” the researchers said.
The findings have been published in the alt39 Journal of Social Psychologyalt39.
