An Irishman's Diary

WHERE would we be without science, I thought yesterday, reading the story about a US study proving that the colour red makes …

WHERE would we be without science, I thought yesterday, reading the story about a US study proving that the colour red makes women more attractive to men, writes Frank McNally.

Imagine. If we didn't have the likes of New York's University of Rochester coming up with this sort of thing, we might have to arrive at blindingly obvious conclusions all by ourselves.

One could quibble with one aspect of the researchers' reported findings, however: namely the part suggesting men "are unaware that the colour red turns them on".

Let us consider the (non-scientific) evidence against this conclusion, starting, of course - and I apologise in advance for reminding you of the song, which you will now be humming for the rest of the week, until you're even more sick of it than when it was in the charts - with that classic treatment of the subject: Lady in Red.

READ MORE

The opening verse of Chris de Burgh's ditty hinted, more than 20 years before the Rochester team did, that wearing of the said colour by a female may result in a significantly higher-than-normal level of potential mating activity, viz: "I've never seen so many men ask you if you wanted to dance/ Looking for a little romance/ Given half a chance."

It is true that, in verse two, the songwriter lends some support to the theory that men are unaware of the colour's power over them, admitting: "I have never seen that dress you're wearing/ Or the highlights in your hair that catch your eyes./ I have been blind." But my interpretation of the scenario described is that the dress and the highlights are new. So De Burgh has nothing to apologise for (apart from the song). And anyway, if he hasn't seen the dress before, he's seen it now - a point underlined ad nauseum in the final chorus: "Lady in red/ Lady in red/ Lady in red/My Lady in red/ I love you".

Not that De Burgh is undeserving of sympathy in his affliction. I myself have never fully recovered from watching, at an impressionable age, a film called The Fabulous Baker Boys, in which Michele Pfeiffer rolls around the top of Jeff Bridges's grand piano while wearing a tight, blazing-red evening gown.

Had I been musically literate at the time - and I did think about taking up piano lessons afterwards - I too might have composed a sappy love song aimed at convincing Michelle that the feelings her clothes aroused in me were in some way romantic.

Thank God that outlet was not available.

I know it too is circumstantial, but another small piece of evidence that would seem to have pre-empted the US study is the fact that, for maybe a century-and-a-half now, the areas of sexual commerce in towns and cities everywhere have been known as "red-light districts".

The origins of this phrase are obscure. According to one version, it was established by accident when 19th-century American railroad men, heading out into unknown parts at night, would carry red lanterns lest they get lost. When they found their way to the nearest bawdy house, as some did, the lamp was left outside. And by and by, the residents of such houses started leaving red lamps out themselves as discreet advertising.

But however it happened - and dim as they are about these matters, men do seem to have caught on to the colour's significance, sooner or later - the symbol of the red light was soon just as identifiable to them as those red-and-white striped things outside barbers' shops.

Oh, and then there's the fact that, for the past 2,000 years or so, women deemed to be overly free with their affections have been described as "scarlet" by the all-male moral authorities. I refer the Rochester researchers to Exhibit 3: The Book of Revelation, Chapter 17, verses 4-5: "And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour. . . and upon her forehead was a name written: MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH." This is the only part of the Bible (at least in my copy) where the authors use the Caps Lock; so they must have thought it was important.

Surprise, surprise: the US researchers link the significance of the colour red among humans to our evolutionary ancestors. Red has sexual connotations throughout the natural world, they note - with, for example, "female baboons and chimpanzees" spontaneously reddening when near ovulation to send out signals to mates.

And they conclude triumphantly: "As much as men might like to think that they respond to women in a thoughtful, sophisticated manner, it appears that, at least to some degree, their preferences and predilections are, in a word, primitive." Ouch. If I were Chris de Burgh, I would suspect that was a dig at me. One of the many annoying things about that song is his gratuitously sophisticated diction on the words "dance" and "romance". He pronounces it the way Henry Higgins would have wanted Eliza Dolittle to, as if compensating for those big hairy eyebrows that hint at his more animalistic side.

Anyway, now that science has identified primitive undertones in relations between men and women, what shocks does it have in store for us next? Well, it may be unduly optimistic of me, but I predict that very soon researchers somewhere will confirm a link between bears' toiletry habits and woodland. It's just a hunch.

fmcnally@irish-times.ie