(Photo by Lukasz Dunikowski/Flickr.)

Men are aroused by everything. Our libido responds to the naked human form, explicit photographs, explicit videos, audio, randy gramophone recordings, the act of waking up in the morning, silk boxers, slight breezes and two of anything round that are near each other. This includes pineapples, croquet balls and naval mines.
 
Now you can add a chromatic color to the never-ending list of things that embiggen the male libido.
 
Researchers have published a study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that concludes that the color red leads men to view women as more attractive and sexually desirable. According to a Los Angeles Times blog:

“Researchers at the University of Rochester conducted five psychological experiments to assess how color can affect how men view a woman’s attractiveness. In one study, the men were shown photographs of women framed by a border of either red or white. The men tended to find the women more attractive when they appeared in the red frame. In another study, the men were shown pictures of women wearing red followed by pictures of the same women wearing another color. When wearing red, the women were more likely to score an invitation to the prom and to be treated to a more expensive date.”

This is one of those studies where you read it and go, “Hey, interesting stuff, but I think we already knew that.” True, but I do not think we know how well we already knew that. This is knowledge that was already there, but you did not know, you just suspected. It is like when you buy fries from Burger King. You know that sometimes an onion ring might fall in the fry box accidentally. This study is like peering into the fry box and seeing that the bonus onion ring is not hypothetical. The onion ring is real.

We all know the color red, as it pertains to what the researchers like to call “the mating game,” is useful. But did you realize how often the color red appears in the mating game? Off the top of my head – and please feel free to add more – I can think of red roses, red lipstick, red nail polish, red wine, red boxes of chocolates, red wrapped gifts, red bra, red panties, red teddy and to a lesser extent, steak, (the most sexual of all red meats), lobster, (the most sexual of all red crustaceans), and Red Roof Inn, (the most sexual of all freeway-adjacent hotels). You can add to this list red-light districts, red hearts on Valentine’s Day and lit cigarettes.

If you accept this research as true, it opens up a world of interpretations.

- Bull fighting is the perfect metaphor for sex.

- President Clinton was so attracted to Monica Lewinsky not even her blue dress could deter him.

- There is a reason our government is hell-bent on going to Mars. Our little blue-and-green planet is hot for some red-planet action.

(Above: Mars. What planet can say no to that? Photo by Gonzopowers/Flickr.)

Why are men attracted to the color red?

The researchers concluded, “Our findings confirm what many women have long suspected and claimed – that men act like animals in the sexual realm. 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.”

Considering how quickly male legs thump when we see two naval mines next to each other, it is hard to argue with that theory. I will add these two thoughts.

1. Many of the best parts of women – and you know what they are – tend to be red/pink. A red dress reminds men of the rest of the redness and pinkness underneath.

2. My second thought, which I will add to my Caveman Theory, is that red is the color of fire, blood and the heart. All three of these things are warm, pulsating and life-giving. They are good. On a subconscious level, when a man sees a woman in red he sees a good thing wrapped inside a good thing, like a fry lodged inside a bonus onion ring.

(Photo by scragz/Flickr) 

I am a proponent of lowering the drinking age and have been for a long time. I was probably 16 the first time I thought, “They should really lower the drinking age – as soon as possible. This afternoon would be ideal.”
 
Were those the foolish thoughts of a selfish teenager? Or were they the intelligent thoughts of a teen aware of the effect binge-drinking was having on his generation? I like to think they were a little bit of both, even though that would be not true.

My cause now has a proper champion. This summer more than 100 university presidents and chancellors signed their names to a public statement that says the 21 year-old drinking age is not working. They say it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on campus. The group calls itself the Amethyst Initiative, which is not what I would have named it, but I doubt The Washington Post would take the group seriously if it called itself, “The Everyone Just Cool Out and Booze-It-Up Responsibly Coalition.”

(Above: The first annual meeting of The Everyone Just Cool Out and Booze-It-Up Responsibly Coalition. philipshannon/Flickr.)

The Amethyst Initiative is led by John McCardell, whom foxnews.com writer Radley Balko describes as “the soft-spoken former president of Middlebury in Vermont.” McCardell is our Blutarsky to the federal government’s Dean Wormer, and he appears to be the right man for the job because he is, in a word, sobering. He’s the kind of man who looks good in grey.

(This guy, on the other hand, merits consideration the Spirit Award, but it’s doubtful that lawmakers would take him as seriously as Old Man McCardell.)
 
In 2004 McCardell wrote a powerful Op-Ed in The New York Times that said “the 21-year-old drinking age is bad social policy and terrible law.”

McCardell continued, “State legislators, many of whom will admit the law is bad, are held hostage by the denial of federal highway funds if they reduce the drinking age. Our latter-day prohibitionists have driven drinking behind closed doors and underground. This is the hard lesson of prohibition that each generation must relearn. No college president will say that drinking has become less of a problem in the years since the age was raised. Would we expect a student who has been denied access to oil paint to graduate with an ability to paint a portrait in oil? Colleges should be given the chance to educate students, who in all other respects are adults, in the appropriate use of alcohol, within campus boundaries and out in the open.”
 
I have been drinking alcohol legally for 11 years. On paper, it does not appear that I have a dog in this fight. But I do.

I’m tired of people who drink like assholes.

Much like Kegmeister General McCardell, I believe that drinking like an asshole – that is to say, repeatedly drinking to the detriment of oneself and others – is learned behavior. (Not all of the time - but in a large number of cases.) If you’re 16 and you’re drinking at a party with no adult supervision, odds are you or one of your friends is going to act like an asshole. Without seasoned drinkers around to veto your idiocy with a timely, “Don’t be an asshole,” this asinine behavior is repeated, copied and reinforced – for years. Anyone who goes to bars often enough sees the end results.

(Above: The end results. Bistrosavage/Flickr.)

Teenagers are socialized by their peers. None of my friends in high school sipped an aperitif while discussing the issues of the day before a delightful repast of Burger King. We drink fast and hard – the better to catch a quick buzz and avoid being busted. This is not the proper role of alcohol among civilized people.

The proper role of alcohol is to lower one’s inhibitions so that social gatherings are more enjoyable. Alcohol is a social lubricant. According to my Caveman Theory, which will be the subject of an upcoming column, human beings spent thousands of years suspicious of other human beings – for fear that outsiders might kill them or steal their valuable pelts. As a result, there is a natural tendency to eye newcomers with apprehension. Alcohol can lessen our anxiety in social situations and allow us to be open to meeting new people. It also can help us enjoy spending time with people we already know. The proper role of alcohol is to un-pucker the human sphincter – symbolically, of course.

A 16-year-old drinking in the back of a Buick LeSabre does not learn this valuable fact.

According to the Amethyst Initiative, the word amethyst comes from the ancient Greek words meaning “not” (a-) and “intoxicated” (methustos). According to mythology, Amethyst was a young girl who incurred the wrath of the god of wine, Dionysus, after he became intoxicated with red wine. (Who didn’t see that coming?) Amethyst asked the goddess Diana for help. Diana turned the girl into a white stone. (Some help.) Upon discovering what had happened Dionysus wept (he was probably drunk again), and as his tears fell into his goblet the wine spilled over the white rock, turning it purple.

The purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to be an antidote to the negative effects of intoxication. (This was before Chaser.) In Greece, drinking vessels often were made of amethyst and used during feasts to ward off drunkenness, promote moderation and keep whiney Greek chicks from being turned to stone.

The ancient Greeks were smart. They crafted their beer mugs out of a material that reminded them, “Don’t drink like an asshole.”

American teens don’t have that type of guidance when it matters most – in the moment.

(Above: The ancient Greek way of saying, “You go sober up now, pal.” tourist_on_earth/Flickr.)

We learned how to drive from our mothers, fathers and older siblings. We learned how to read from our teachers. We learned about sex from a 55-year-old health teacher/defensive coordinator. But we never learned how to drink properly from people who do. We were left to our own devices. It was like handing a loaded gun to a guy who doesn’t know what a loaded gun does, but enjoys aiming things at people. Bad things were bound to happen. They did.

I used to work with this guy my age. He was cool. Everyone liked him. Whenever we talked one-on-one, he had a normal-sounding guy voice. But when a woman entered the conversation, his voice fell about nine octaves. It was like jumping from Fred Savage to Barry White. (Something only Madonna has ever literally done.)
 
It was obvious he lowered his voice to attract women. Somewhere along the line – maybe when he was 16 – he must have been in the backseat of a car with a girl, getting nowhere, when something got caught in his throat (Keystone Ice?), his voice sounded like Kathleen Turner’s for one shining moment and the panties started flying.
 
You don’t abandon a tactic that life-changing. You make it part of your everyday existence. I attended many a happy hour at which I saw him talking to women with a voice so low I swore the bar’s walls would crash in from a deluge of lonely blue whales. There was also some fear he might hit the Brown Note.

Turns out my buddy was a genius, a visionary, a true man of science. According to an article by Greg Soltis on LiveScience.com, “People with voices deemed sexy and attractive tend to have greater body symmetry upon close inspection, suggesting that what we hear in a person can greatly affect what we see in them.”

According to the article:

“The sound of a person’s voice reveals a considerable amount of biological information,” said Susan Hughes, an evolutionary psychologist from Albright College in Reading, Pa. “It can reflect the mate value of a person.”

Hughes, whose new study is detailed in the June 2008 edition of the Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, cautions that an attractive voice does not necessarily indicate that this person has an attractive face. A symmetric body is genetically sound, scientists say, and in evolutionary terms, in the wild, it can be an important factor when selecting a mate.

According to Caveman Theory, which I will fully explore in another column, and have touched upon here, we select mates based upon factors that were important thousands of years ago, but are less relevant now. This ancient system of “mate value” often leads to dating insanity. Caveman attraction factors naturally include such things as bodily symmetry, which would allow a hunter to balance in a tree for hours while waiting for a delicious boar to walk by.

(Above: I could write 472 columns about this photo. It has a caveman. It has a robot. It has everything. Official Star Wars Blog/Flickr.)

Thanks to Hughes’s research, we now know why women like a man with a sexy voice. Because thousands of years ago he could be counted on to bring home the bacon. We also know why men like women with a sexy voice. Because thousands of years ago she could be counted on to balance those sticks with water jugs at both ends.

(Above: Looking sexy, ladies. peiqianlong/Flickr.)

All of which brings us – really? – to the telephone. The telephone is the most important sexual technology known to man. (I say this with full knowledge of what a 1991 Buick LeSabre can do to even the soundest woman’s judgment.) The telephone is the means by which two people learn about each other, build trust in each other and plan the dates that lead to sex. Alexander Graham Bell did far more good for couples than his arch rival Alexander Graham Vibrator.

I’ve heard it said – though I can’t seem to find the quote – that it takes a person at least seven hours to earn the average woman’s trust before she will begin — not necessarily have sex, but begin – a physical relationship. This is the Seven Hour Rule. Many of these seven hours happen over the telephone. Sometimes all seven hours happen over the phone. You know those calls – where everything the other person says is interesting and funny and you fall asleep together on the phone and you wake up and you still keep talking and you spend 15 minutes cutesy-poo arguing – a la this scene from “Friends” – over who should hang up first.
 
Now we know why the telephone brings people together. It’s not just the content of the conversation – although that is very important. You never want to hear, for instance, “I keep getting drunk and waking up in other people’s cars.” What is also important, according to Hughes’s research, is the sound of the other person’s voice and what it tells you about his or her body.
 
It’s the first time you get to see the other person naked.

Readers often send in suggestions for the column. I love this for three reasons:

1.) Each suggestion offers a window into my readers’ madness
2.) I don’t have to think of a column topic that week
3.) With the time I save I can look at photos of erotic falconry

My friend Allegra wrote in suggesting I explore why men “have a weird thing” for waitresses. She is a waitress. Allegra wrote, “Maybe you can finally give me a conclusive answer to this riddle that has plagued waitress society since the beginning of time.”

This idea covers many of my favorite subjects: relationships, work, sex, human behavior, money and women carrying food towards me. The question itself sparked so many answers that I couldn’t narrow the answer down to just one reason. This topic overfloweth. That is why I present, in honor of hardworking waitresses everywhere, the 15 reasons why men “have a weird thing” for waitresses.

15. Waitresses are strippers with food. I mean this on a business model level. Both vocations exchange a service the man desires (cheeseburger delivery or boob delivery) in order to earn a to-be determined gratuity based upon overall performance. Customer and employee benefit from the transaction. The woman is paid. The man receives a service he could not get at that moment from his wife/girlfriend/loneliness. Waitresses and strippers go home with a stack of singles. This is not a coincidence.

14. Uniforms are sexy. On the surface, they just look hot. But there’s more to it than that. When a man with a keen mind sees a woman in uniform the following information is processed at microsecond speed. “I know that woman’s status. There is a person, probably a man, who tells this woman what to wear every day. She probably yearns to rid herself of the uniform so she can wear what she wants, when she wants, and be free. I could liberate this woman from that margarita-logo golf shirt. I could be the America to her Iraq in the Middle East that is this cruel Applebee’s. She is my mission to be accomplished.”

OK, Iraq may not be the best example, but you get the point. Men look at women in uniform the way neocons look at poor countries that hate us. With boners.

Did I mention uniforms just look hot?

13. Waitresses are not a man’s wife or girlfriend. I don’t need to explain this one.

12. Waitresses come in many varieties. Every waitress is like a Christmas present. You never know what you’re going to unwrap. Will she be smart, beautiful, funny, sarcastic, professional or some magical combination of all of the above? Or will she be totally dead inside? That can also be good. A totally-dead-inside-woman tends not to complain when you ask for a second ketchup bottle at 3 AM because your friend Frank drank the one that was on the table. She won’t complain. Advantage: Men.

11. Waitresses are hard workers. Men get to watch waitresses work. You can tell a lot about a woman by watching her work. If she works hard, a man thinks, “She would work hard for me.” If she doesn’t work hard a man thinks, “Great rack.”

Win-win.

10. Ordering a meal is a microcosm of a relationship.

Introduction
The waitress and the man say hello. They smile. They learn each other’s names. They exchange pleasantries. Maybe she touches his arm. It’s the first date.

Booze
As with most beginning relationships, alcohol soon makes an appearance. Good times.

Sex
OK, men don’t actually have sex with the waitress in restaurants, unless they’re Bret Michaels. In lieu of sex, a woman carries food to the man and the man eats that food. This can make a man feel as good as sex, without all of the awkward apologizing.

She watches you eat
Fact: The vast majority of time spent in long-term relationships is spent watching the other person eat. The remainder of that time is spent looking out car windows and sighing.

Money
Like the saying goes, we all pay for it one way or another. At least with a waitress, there is the possibility of a doggy bag. You can’t doggy-bag a wife. Or … can you?

Wait, no, you can’t.

That was stupid.

Exit
The meal ends. The man leaves when the man wants to leave. If the man wants to come back, the man comes back. Either way, it is up to the man. Psychologically this is new territory for the average male nimrod.

9. Waitresses have excellent memories. I love it when a waitress memorizes a large order. Mental agility is sexy. It probably has something to do with Caveman Theory. In the days of yore, a woman with a sharp mind could be relied upon to remember where the man put the spear, the milk, the codpiece, the fire, the little baby, the warrior baby, etc.

8. Men often misinterpret small talk. The waitress says, “Hi, sweetie.” The man hears, “You should ask me out.” The waitress says, “I wouldn’t worry about calories if I was you.” The man hears, “You have the hottest body I have ever seen and I want to wear your pants like a hat.” The waitress says, “Come back.” The man hears, “She wants to see me again. On a date. With candles. And music. And maybe putt-putt.”

7. Waitresses know a little bit about everything. You can talk to a waitress. They are generally very interesting people who might be putting themselves through school, who are raising families or who pay attention to the world and can hold an intelligent conversation. Waitresses are nature’s barbers.

6. You can infer information from a waitress. You can take an educated guess about her financial status, personality, work ethic, intelligence, politics and where she’s from. You also can see how well she balances a series of dinner plates on one arm, a key detail in most (all) of my personal fantasies.

5. Waitresses do not make more money than a man. If you’re a man and you’re intimidated by women with money, dating a waitress is not a threatening proposition. Also if you’re a man and you’re intimidated by a woman with money, you’re a douche.

4. All waitresses have another talent. Every waitress is a struggling actress, musician, writer, painter, airline pilot, etc. She has taken this job for the love of her art. She is struggling. She is fighting. She is trying to live the dream. If you’re a man and you don’t find that a little attractive, you need to hand in your balls to the Commissioner of Balls.

3. Only good things happen when a waitress is around. When a waitress comes to your table, the following things happen: menus appear, food appears, booze appears, a woman appears, more booze appears, the table is cleaned, ice cream makes an appearance and sometimes there is sassy give-and-take. It’s all positive with a waitress.

2. Waitresses don’t come with training wheels. When a man sees a waitress, he knows she probably has had roughly 11 to 340 boyfriends in her lifetime. This makes a man – even the ugliest, homeliest man – think that he has an actual shot with her.

1. Waitresses are nearby. I can’t overstate this. For a man to notice a woman, she must be attractive and near him. The job of a waitress is to keep going near the customer and not to look like total hell. Hence, the noticing.

I considered asking my waitress/former waitress friends for their theories on why men love waitresses. Then I thought, “No. That would be like asking the fire hydrant about the dog.” Still, I wanted at least one woman’s perspective, so I asked Allegra for her take:

“My theory is that it has something to do with a subservience/submission kind of thing. Waitresses have to acquiesce to a customer’s wants, and I think this position lends itself to fantasies about acquiescing to sexual wants. ‘Let me know if you need anything at all! I’m here to serve you.’ Also, pertaining to my restaurant specifically, I work at a 1940s-style diner, and we wear short dresses. These dresses are unflattering, but guys always find them attractive.”

As a man what I’m hearing is, “Hey, I like that you’re into erotic falconry.”

(To hear Mike, Sean, Carlos and me talk about this column on The Second Column podcast on iTunes, click here.)