Good news today for men finding themselves unfortunately circumstanced in terms of feminine companionship: and also for heterosexual members of the Brigade of Guards. Researchers have discovered that women - indeed, all "female primates" - are more strongly attracted to men wearing the colour red.

“Red is typically thought of as a sexy color for women only,” says Andrew Elliot, PhD, of the Universities of Rochester and Munich. “Our findings suggest that the link between red and sex also applies to men.”

Elliot and his colleagues carried out studies in which ladies were shown pictures of men in different coloured shirts. Men in red were perceived by the women as significantly more attractive, and they expressed themselves much more likely to have sex with the scarlet-clad chaps. The same effect was seen even where a red border was added to black-and-white photos - it seems that the colour red simply has a devastatingly lubricious effect on the female mind.

According to Elliot and his fellow psychs, it would however be unwise to wear that babe-magnet red chemise or power tie when hanging about near any 300-lb female mountain gorillas or similar. A statement issued by the American Psychological Association (APA) yesterday regarding the new research has this to say:

The power of red holds throughout the primate world. Female primates (including women) are “extremely adept at detecting and decoding blood flow changes in the face,” the authors wrote, “and women have been shown to be more sensitive to the perception of red stimuli than are men.”

The authors don't say exactly how they know that lady monkeys instinctively want to get with men in power ties: no doubt the experiments were highly scientific.

Those requiring further detail may like to read Elliot and his crew's paper, Red, Rank, and Romance in Women Viewing Men, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology and available free courtesy of the APA in pdf here. ®