The Line of BeautySex, anger, lust, danger: the semiotics of scarlet

A streak of red never goes out of fashion

Red is trouble. Sometimes too much trouble. Look at what it’s doing to these pages; this paragraph. Flooding them with the promiscuity of its associations: blood, desire, danger, anger, love, good luck, failure, frustration, fight, flight, fault. We might beg for it to stop, but we’d need red to make the sign. And what would be the point? When we speak of the power of its varieties – scarlet, crimson, claret, carmine – we’re evoking something that culture deploys but cannot quite control. Purple was stolen from sea snails and coded into imperial power. Horticulture domesticated greenness. Orange is the preposterous colour of lost causes and boiled sweets. But red is untameable. On the road, in the arena, in the bedroom, on the battlefield, at high and holy Mass, it arouses us. Engages our hot and despicable animal brains. Cuts to the chase.