Ginger, carrot top, and the dreaded fire crotch. These names assaulted me throughout adolescence. Some kids even called my hair orange, while I said it was strawberry blond, as if the blond somehow redeemed the rogue reddish tint. Classmates identified me as “Emmalee, you know, the red head.” I begged my mom to let me dye my hair a “normal” color, but she always said no.
High school was the worst for my redheaded insecurity. I not only learned about Calculus and Biology, but also humility. I was fully equipped with braces, curly hair desperate for a straightening iron, and some extra weight for which some called me pudgy. Fire crotch was the worst nickname, possibly because it brought in an element of sexuality, which all high schoolers are insecure about. Some co-workers thought the nickname funny enough to say 10, 20 or 30 times a shift. The high school boys thought they were witty with the worn-out comment, “does the carpet match the drapes?” It took me a little while before I crafted the standard response, “You don’t know? I guess you haven’t been with any girls then, right?”
In college I stripped off the braces, bought a flat iron, and lost weight. I thought things would be different, but I was just identified as Emmalee, the red head hip-hop dancer. The comments, nicknames, and ego blows kept coming. The only difference was that these insults helped me realize how unique I was. This led me to “The Redhead Dating Theory.”
Roughly 2 percent of Americans are natural redheads. Take Freud’s Oedipus and Electra theory. Add the fact that children are often drawn to people who look like their parent of the opposite sex. Subtract the killing your parent of the same-sex part. Add the idea that most people tend to be attracted to people they can identify with (i.e. Latins are mostly attracted to Latins as they share cultural capital). When boys are growing up, the majority of girls they are exposed to have blond, brown, or black hair. When these boys start dating, they are often more attracted to these women, because they are more familiar with them. I have met only a handful of men who claim they prefer redheads over all other hair colors. This leads to my conclusion: when all other factors are equal, men will choose non-redheads more often than redheads.
Now, once men have gotten passed their awkward sexual awakenings, they often want to do some experimenting. After all, part of the thrill of sex, and difficulty of long term relationships, is finding ways to make the sex new and exciting. For some reason redheads have been associated with having fiery personalities that translate to kinky sex lives. In college I noticed a change in the attraction men had toward me. They stilled called me fire crotch, but this took on a whole new meaning.
Maybe the older men get, the more they want a taste of the “exotic,” or maybe they just need a little ginger spice in their life.
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