Fertile Women More Likely To Wear Red, But Only In Cooler Weather, Says Research
Christopher Philip
Research Primer
Research by Jessica Tracy and Alec T. Beall Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Canada have found evidence that red is a cue women use to signal their fertility.
It had been a common assertion that human females hid their ovulation from men, because, unlike other animals, even other primates, women didn’t display obvious sexual cues. For example, primate species are known to advertise their fertility with a bright red rump.
In their study released in the journal PLOS ONE they found that women wearing red or pink had a 75% chance of being in the peak fertility of their menstrual cycle – but only if the weather was cool rather than warm. When the weather was warm, wearing red or pink had only a 40% of correlation to peak fertility.
The results of this study was combined with a previous study showing similar findings, except this time, they found that wearing pink or red was strongly affected by weather. This led the researchers to the conclusion that women’s tendency to wear red or pink is moderated not only by her level of fertility but also outside temperature.
The Colour Red
The researchers note that previous studies have shown that the colour red enhances sexual attractiveness of women, and men perceive red, when it is associated with women, as sexually attractive. Red has been associated with sexuality in both Western industrialized cultures as well as members of a non-Western highly isolated, traditional small-scale society. Thus the colour red, as sexual, may be a universal human trait.
Red as a sexual cue may have to do with the reddish skin tone surrounding sexual arousal in women, for example, blushing of the cheeks, flesh of the body, or in the genitals or perhaps, simply, that red is attention grabbing.
Nevertheless, women tend to announce their fertility with many other nonverbal cues and the colour red, it seems, is simply one of an arsenal of ways that women display their ovulation to men.
Discussion The Findings
In the first part of the study, the association between red and fertility did not correlate as expected, but when the study was replicated under cooler conditions, the relationship was found. The researchers explain that this “suggest that the previously documented red-dress effect is moderated by current climate concerns, and provide further evidence that under certain circumstances red/pink dress is reliably associated with female fertility.”
“Given women’s brief fertile window, it may be adaptive for them to dress in a way that increases their sexual attractiveness to men during this period. In light of the evidence for men’s attraction to reddish colors, then, we predicted that women would opportunistically self-adorn in red or pink during times of peak fertility, as part of a broader drive to appear more sexually attractive during this time of the cycle,” say the researchers in their paper.
“Alternatively, if the hormones associated with ovulation make women feel sexier during peak fertility, women might be inclined to wear clothing with attention-grabbing properties (e.g., red-colored) during this time, even in the absence of any desire to
attract men.”
That women wear red during peak fertility in cold climates over warm climates may have much to do with the opportunity to display sexuality overtly, say the researchers. Those in warm climates are able to wear more revealing and sparse clothing whereas more conservative women and those restricted by cooler temperatures are left with colour as a cue rather than more overt sexiness.
“That is,” say the researchers “dressing in red or pink may be a particularly effective means of increasing one’s sexual attractiveness when other options for doing so are limited by social constraints (e.g., on a university campus where it is not socially acceptable for women to wear highly revealing clothing).”
However, in contexts where other means of increasing one’s sexual appeal are more common and normal, for example at the beach or in a nightclub, women at high-conception risk may rely far less on reddish adornment as a way to increase attractiveness.
In other words, women wearing minimal clothing may be less compelled to use red adornments because the message has already been made by more effective means. Therefore, women who are socially permitted to wear revealing clothing will not be found to wear red as much as those in more sexually permissive cultures.
Importantly, as the researchers suggest, because red was not sought universally across warm and cold climates, that it is not a hormonally driven response. Therefore, unlike the visible physical signals found in other species, humans aren’t biologically driven to use red to attract attention – but rather it is sought in order to bring attention to sexuality under specific circumstances. However, when weather is not a factor, women will likely use sexier, more revealing clothing, rather than clothing that is reddish to attract attention.
Interestingly, the study shows what is referred to as a “mediational” pathway from (1) Biology: ovulation and associated hormones, to (2) Psychology: motivation to increase sexual attractiveness to (3) Behaviour: an increased tendency to wear red or pink.
The Take Away Message
Obviously, the message from the study is fairly simple – there is a 75% chance that a woman wearing red in cold weather is highly fertile. This is particularly useful information in and of itself if you are a man reading a woman for her likelihood of conception – because either you want to conceive (or you don’t). However, to have meaning besides this, one must understand that women who are in their peak fertility during their menstrual cycle are also much more likely to be sexually receptive to men, particularly masculine men.
The caveat or course, is that this is true only of women cycling normally without the use of artificial hormonal contraceptives. Those women using the pill have, thus far, have not been shown to respond similarly in terms of overt sexual signaling and also seem to have less predictable sexual desire over their cycle.
Finally, this is a scientific study, and not meant to replace medical advice!
Resources
Beall, Tracy JL. The Impact Of Weather On Women’s Tendency To Wear Red Or Pink When At High Risk For Conception. PLoS ONE. 2019; 9(2): e88852. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0088852
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