http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red
Seduction, Sexuality and Sin
Red by a large margin is the color most commonly associated with seduction, sexuality, eroticism and immorality, possibly because of its close connection with passion and with danger.[96]
Red was long seen as having a dark side, particularly in Christian theology. It was associated with sexual passion, anger, sin, and the devil,.[97] In the Old Testament of the Bible, the Book of Isaiah said: “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow.”[98] In the New Testament, in the Book of Revelations, the Antichrist appears as a red monster, ridden by a woman dressed in scarlet, known as the Whore of Babylon:
“So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. “And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: “And upon her forehead was a name written a mystery: Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of all the abominations of the earth: And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus.[99]
Satan is often depicted as colored red and/or wearing a red costume in both iconography and popular culture.[100] By the 20th century, the devil in red had become a folk character in legends and stories. In 1915, Irving Berlin wrote a song, At the Devil’s Ball, and the devil in red appeared more often in cartoons and movies than in religious art.
In 17th century New England, red was associated with adultery. In the 1850 novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, set in a Puritan New England community, a woman is punished for adultery with ostracism, her sin represented by a red letter ‘A’ sewn onto her clothes.[101]
Red is still commonly associated with prostitution. Prostitutes in many cities were required to wear red to announce their profession, and houses of prostitution displayed a red light. Beginning in the early 20th century, houses of prostitution were allowed only in certain specified neighborhoods, which became known as red-light districts. Large red-light districts are found today in Bangkokand Amsterdam.
In Roman Catholicism, red represents wrath, one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
In both Christian and Hebrew tradition, red is also sometimes associated with murder or guilt. with “having blood on one’s hands,” or “being caught red-handed.”[102][103]
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