Redheaded Women Are More Sexually Active Than Other Women, but It Is Probably Due to Their Suitors

Sýkorová, Kateřina, Vojtěch Fiala, Jana Hlaváčová, Šárka Kaňková, and Jaroslav Flegr. 2021. “Redheaded Women Are More Sexually Active Than Other Women, but It Is Probably Due to Their Suitors.” OSF Preprints. October 13. doi:10.31219/osf.io/8frq7

Abstract: Women with red hair colour, i.e., 1–9% of female Europeans, tend to be the subject of various stereotypes about their sexually liberated behaviour. The aim of the present case-control study was to explore whether a connection between red hair colour and sexual behaviour really exists using data from 110 women (34% redheaded) and 93 men (22% redheaded). Redheadedness in women, but not in men, correlated with various traits related to sexual life, namely with higher sexual desire as measured by Revised Sociosexual Orientation Inventory, with higher sexual activity and more sexual partners of the preferred gender over the past year, earlier initiation of sexual life, and higher sexual submissiveness. Structural equation modelling, however, showed that sexual desire of redheaded women meditated neither their higher sexual activity nor most of the variability of having more sexual partners. These results indicate that the apparently more liberated sexual behaviour in redheaded women could be the consequence of frequent attempts of potential mates to have sex with redheaded women. Other hypotheses, based on different physiology, faster life history strategy, or altered self-perception of red-haired women induced by stereotypes about them, were also tested and discussed.