Joy of Tights (aka pantyhose): Rock up in red tights

Saturday 2 February 2013

Rock up in red tights - but is it to the Devil's tune?

Yesterday thousands of people across the UK were rocking up in their red outfits and donating £2 to support British Heart Foundation's work. Did you rock in your red tights?

Red dress, red tights, red hair band. You can't rock in red much more than this

Red bag, red scarf, red tights - almost as good

Red tights were particularly good for rocking red day because they allowed so much of your body to be covered in red, really showing your support.

Exhausted after rocking in red tights all day

Perhaps if you didn't find any red tights, you wore a LRD (little red dress) ....

...or an even littler red skirt.....

... or red shoes ....

...or just you natural (or dyed) red hair

OK, you forgot it was rocking red day, but perhaps you managed some red nail varnish anyway

Lets have a closer look

Good girl red painted toes...

..and here are some more red painted toes in pantyhose (it rhymes see)

Yesterday, was also National Wear Red Day of the American Heart Association. The Association was campaigning on the slogan that heart disease kills more women than all cancers combined. (Heart disease is also the under-recognized killer of women in the UK. Perhaps us girls don't complaint enough while men go to the doctor with every man-pain. Come to think of it man and pain are synonymous) So I hope our American sisters were wearing red pantyhose.

Even guys could join in, in red

(if they really wanted)

Well all this got me thinking of the cultural associations of red. Red is frequently used as a symbol of guilt, sin and anger, often as connected with blood or sex. A biblical example is found in Isaiah: "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow." Also, The Scarlet Letter, an 1850 American novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, features a woman in a Puritan New England community who is punished for adultery with ostracism, her sin represented by a red letter 'A' sewn into her clothes. Would they do that to a man? Would they fuck.

This all comes from a general Hebrew view inherited by Christianity which associates red with the blood of murder and of course menstruation. On the subject of which I must quote this from "scripture".

9 “‘When a woman has her regular flow of blood, the impurity of her monthly period will last seven days, and anyone who touches her will be unclean till evening.
20 “‘Anything she lies on during her period will be unclean, and anything she sits on will be unclean. 21 Anyone who touches her bed will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 22 Anyone who touches anything she sits on will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening. 23 Whether it is the bed or anything she was sitting on, when anyone touches it, they will be unclean till evening.
24 “‘If a man has sexual relations with her and her monthly flow touches him, he will be unclean for seven days; any bed he lies on will be unclean.
25 “‘When a woman has a discharge of blood for many days at a time other than her monthly period or has a discharge that continues beyond her period, she will be unclean as long as she has the discharge, just as in the days of her period. 26 Any bed she lies on while her discharge continues will be unclean, as is her bed during her monthly period, and anything she sits on will be unclean, as during her period. 27 Anyone who touches them will be unclean; they must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be unclean till evening.
28 “‘When she is cleansed from her discharge, she must count off seven days, and after that she will be ceremonially clean. 29 On the eighth day she must take two doves or two young pigeons and bring them to the priest at the entrance to the tent of meeting. 30 The priest is to sacrifice one for a sin offering and the other for a burnt offering. In this way he will make atonement for her before the Lord for the uncleanness of her discharge.
31 “‘You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place,[a] which is among them.’”

Leviticus 15:19-33 if you must know

Now we all know that menstruation is a sin, but you never guessed how bad a sin it is. Not only is a woman "unclean" for a week after her period begins, but everything she touches is "unclean" as well. People, beds, seats, clothing -- everything. So you can’t touch a woman who is unclean, but worse, you can’t touch anything she has touched. If you lie on her bed, even if you were unaware it was unclean, you become unclean and must wash your clothes and bathe, and wait until evening to be clean. It sounds a bit like a kids playground game, eh? Like cooties might get you or something. I’ve always wondered how hotels are supposed to deal with this -- maybe separate rooms for the unclean? Or how about we all just assume we are unclean all the time, and make a few sacrifices to tide us over....

I feel better now I have pointed that out. Its enough to make me go and start worshiping Satan (if I didn't already).

So girls, if you are going to be a sinner, (which is much more fun), do it in red.

Naked apart from her red tights and with a cat. BURN the witch!

At one point, red was associated with prostitutes, or now, with brothels (red-light districts). I must say I have nothing against either. (A good career for a sexy out-going girl. What you'd rather work in Lydl?)

Selling your assets in red?

Finally, a subject close to by heart, in Christianity, Satan is usually depicted as coloured red and/or wearing a red costume in both iconography and popular culture. So why not wear your little red horns. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and you might get a visit from Beelzebub himself