Being Red
I realize that I get away with quite a bit due to my appearance. I can say some pretty nasty, arrogant, pointed and horrible things but people still seem to regard me as a sweet person. I can be downright filthy and inappropriate, but I can get away with it. No one ever bats an eyelash, nor does anyone make any assumptions about my character. None that have gotten back to me anyway. For years now I have been aware that I am in possession of a virtual blank check of acceptable social transgressions.
It's the red hair.
I'm telling you, that whole "blondes have more fun" thing is complete bullshit. So many people (both men and women) are positively kinky for red headed women and they will go to great lengths to please a red head. For the receptive red head, chivalry is most definitely not dead. Doors open automatically, drinks magically appear, and complete strangers offer to carry heavy burdens all to curry the favor of a red head. New Yorkers have been known to comment on the higher level of civility and kindness in the city since 9/11. Frankly, I didn't notice a difference. Everybody treats me that way. Always have.
Of course, for as many people who have gone out of their way to be kind to me on account of my hair, there have been just as many who have, well, gone a bit over the deep end.
It's not that I am particularly good looking. I've always considered myself to be a bit jowly (my friends always called it 'chipmunk cheeks' but we all know that's just a nice way to say 'you aren't going to age well!') but at least I am vaguely symmetrical. I'm not difficult to look at by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not the head turning type. Except for my hair.
Men say fucking crazy things about my hair. About 10 or 11 years ago, Tom and I stayed at a B&B in South Dakota where the owner went out of his way to poke Tom in the ribs and say things like, "Keep your red head happy and she'll keep you happy, heh heh heh!" Here, have a room with a jacuzzi, that's the one I got cameras in!
There's some assumption that red hair is a sign of...sexual aptitude. I've seen men actually salivate and lick their chops, fantasizing about something so wild their imaginations couldn't even do it justice. I've asked some of my guy friends just what it is that they're expecting. Is it reckless abandon? Is it somehow tied with this mythological red headed temper? Is there a specific act red heads are associated with that no one has told me about? Is there something that I do naturally other women don't do? Or is it something so ridiculously simplistic and almost submental like a crow's affection for shiny objects? I didn't get any straight answers, just desperate jokes followed by silent leering.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are my friends.
But I should know better than to bring up a serious sexual query after a couple of drinks in a bar decorated with unfinished plywood. That's hardly the proper, academic atmosphere for such a question.
I'm not going to encourage or disspell any of those myths tonight. As laughable as they are, they still work in my favor, for the most part. So I'll never tell.
Mostly because I don't even know what the hell it is I'm talking about.
It's the red hair.
I'm telling you, that whole "blondes have more fun" thing is complete bullshit. So many people (both men and women) are positively kinky for red headed women and they will go to great lengths to please a red head. For the receptive red head, chivalry is most definitely not dead. Doors open automatically, drinks magically appear, and complete strangers offer to carry heavy burdens all to curry the favor of a red head. New Yorkers have been known to comment on the higher level of civility and kindness in the city since 9/11. Frankly, I didn't notice a difference. Everybody treats me that way. Always have.
Of course, for as many people who have gone out of their way to be kind to me on account of my hair, there have been just as many who have, well, gone a bit over the deep end.
It's not that I am particularly good looking. I've always considered myself to be a bit jowly (my friends always called it 'chipmunk cheeks' but we all know that's just a nice way to say 'you aren't going to age well!') but at least I am vaguely symmetrical. I'm not difficult to look at by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm not the head turning type. Except for my hair.
Men say fucking crazy things about my hair. About 10 or 11 years ago, Tom and I stayed at a B&B in South Dakota where the owner went out of his way to poke Tom in the ribs and say things like, "Keep your red head happy and she'll keep you happy, heh heh heh!" Here, have a room with a jacuzzi, that's the one I got cameras in!
There's some assumption that red hair is a sign of...sexual aptitude. I've seen men actually salivate and lick their chops, fantasizing about something so wild their imaginations couldn't even do it justice. I've asked some of my guy friends just what it is that they're expecting. Is it reckless abandon? Is it somehow tied with this mythological red headed temper? Is there a specific act red heads are associated with that no one has told me about? Is there something that I do naturally other women don't do? Or is it something so ridiculously simplistic and almost submental like a crow's affection for shiny objects? I didn't get any straight answers, just desperate jokes followed by silent leering.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, these are my friends.
But I should know better than to bring up a serious sexual query after a couple of drinks in a bar decorated with unfinished plywood. That's hardly the proper, academic atmosphere for such a question.
I'm not going to encourage or disspell any of those myths tonight. As laughable as they are, they still work in my favor, for the most part. So I'll never tell.
Mostly because I don't even know what the hell it is I'm talking about.
posted by Bree O'Connor at 11:22 PM
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