redheaded gurlz feel less pain than other people!

Oh my, there are THREE gingers involved with my band. Help.

yeh yeh i was thinking that - also it says a gene responsible for red hair and fair skin, but not all redheads have fair skin... like my hair is red but my skin's not really that fair - in sun i go brown rather than red ('cept my nose), and i've got black eyelashes rather than the airy-fairy ones lots of my sistren have. and what about when you get half-black half-white people and sometimes they end up with red hair? (and lord, they all look gorgeous with it.)

Fortunately, my friend Caitlin, who comes from a ginger family, assures me that it's all true.

'When you're a red-haired child,' she says, 'you are constantly warned to stay away from the colour pink. Little girls don't want mint-green duvet covers.

By the time they are three years old, they're bloody furious. When they grow up, they find that men think it's quite acceptable to ask a ginger woman whether "collar and cuffs match". So that keeps the anger ticking over nicely.'

I think that's a little bit unfair.

We don't just do that to redheads - we do it to blondes too.

There was a feature about ginger women on Womans Hour today, introduced by a clip from [Catherine Tate's sketch about] Russet Lodge Ginger Refuge. They had two ginger women on but they didn't kick them to test their pain responses. One of them was in the Communards, so perhaps a little kicking might have been acceptable. I had thought that there was a great commonality of ginger experience (all the stuff in the Coren column basically) but it seems that there is at least one vast discrepancy (regional? generational?): the Communards woman said FERGIE MADE IT BETTER TO BE GINGER.

Yes, the Fergie bit made me sit up with shock. I take it as a terrible insult if someone compares me to her.

I quite like all the red-headed women cliches. I wish I could live up to more of them.

why in the world would anyone compare you to fergie? hair colour, sure, but i dunno, try to think of a famous redhead and she's not the one that springs to mind.

I also smile at fellow gingers.

Does going out with another red head feel a bit wrong and somewhat incestous (crikey I can't spell today)? There was a rather nice boy I shared a couple of sixth form snogs with, but, although he carried his gingerness well, it put me off a bit, but only because we matched.

That said, I heart ginger boys and have since my late teens. I blame David J. If any ginger boys would like to reproduce but cannot find ginger girls, I hereby volunteer my services.

(I am not ginger, but my hair is getting more and more gingery with age. I thought it was supposed to be the oppsite. But then again, I started out blonde as a child.)

I also always wanted a pink party dress, but my mum always put me in green and black and navy blue, a somewhat sophisticated palate for a little girl.

The irony being, even though my head hair has darkened over the years, my carpet (in fact most body hair) remains quite light.

Damn, if only I'd been born a ginger. I hated pink girlclothes. I wanted to wear dark green like my (bottle)redheaded mum.

1. walking through a field of nettles
2. hitting head repeatedly with cupboard door
3. cutting through skin (you may choose the area to be cut yourself, but do remember that head wounds will bleed profusely)
4. diving into swimming pool empty of water
5. sawing off foot

pain will be measured in decibels, amount of whinging and number of tears.

i need a blonde volunteer and a brunette volunteer. who will join me?

Anyway... FIRE PUSSY!!! That is the best insult ever. Emsk, consider yourself to have a new nickname.

"The Bush-Tailed Madagascan Fire Pussy is one of the most remarkable mammals on this remarkable island..."

Can this possibly be true? I couldn't disagree more (though sample size in this instance = 1).

Shakespeare was a redhead too, I think!

What did the Romans ever do for russ? They're supposedly the ones who gave ginger people a bad name, cos they were scared of redheaded Egyptian pharoahs and Boudicca and people like that. Maybe they were scared of their resistance to pain as well?

We tried to killum with pilum, O caesar, but those fire pussies just kept on coming...

or maybe jaymc

Not only are they more likely to burn when the mercury rises, but they also feel the most pain when it drops.

Researchers at Louisville University in Kentucky have discovered that people with ginger hair are more sensitive than most. A study released yesterday shows that the presence of a ginger gene means many redheads need extra doses of anaesthetic during surgery because they suffer pain more acutely.

Scientists compared the pain tolerance of 60 ginger-haired volunteers with 60 brunettes. The redheads began to feel pain at around 6C (43F), unlike the volunteers with dark hair, who did not really begin to flinch until the temperature got down to freezing.

Researchers think that the ginger gene, known as MC1R, may cause the temperature-detecting gene to become over-activated, making redheads more sensitive to the cold. It is hoped that this research can be used to develop better pain-relieving drugs and anaesthetics.

Daniel Sessler, the director of the university's outcomes research institute and department of anaesthesiology, said the study had confirmed anecdotal evidence that redheads were more sensitive to certain types of pain.

"After a previous study we received more than 100 communications from redheads who claimed that anaesthesia often failed or that unusually high doses of local anaesthetics were required to achieve adequate analgesia," he said. "It suggested that the redhead gene may have some role in the pain pathway. That redheads are subject to sunburn and skin cancer must be linked to the difference in pain sensitivity."

Vanessa Collingridge, a red-headed television presenter and author, said: "I am like a reptile because I am so cold-blooded. I have caught hypothermia twice while filming in Scotland — and that was during the summer. Redheads are known for having lower pain thresholds and my midwife even warned me when I was giving birth to my son Archie. I usually need a double dose of anaesthetic when I go to the dentist."

Simon Cheetham of Red and Proud, a website that claims to represent redheads, welcomed the research, but said it shattered the myth of the tough, ginger Scottish male.

"The stereotype of a Celt is a wild, kilted man with red hair who takes no notice of the temperature," he said. "In fact most redheads don't really like extremes of temperature."

huh. they did not test ME. my favourite temperatures i've been in have been the most extreme ones. i haf withdrawn my faith from science and will from now on be placing it only in lucky pants and cracks between the paving stones and not walking under ladders.

what was that book that had someone saying "swelpmegod" in it all the time?

From Cleopatra and her auburn tresses to the blood-stained ginger locks of Boudicca and the dance-related strops of Patsy Palmer " and including Napoleon Bonaparte, Oliver Cromwell and Leeds United hardman Billy Bremner " redheads and their reputation for a temper as fiery as their manes have fascinated humanity since they apparently first stalked the earth just 20,000 years ago.

All it takes to be born with red hair is the presence of the melanocortin 1 receptor or MC1R, the genetic mutation that dictates whether a person has the type of pigment to produce such distinctive locks.

But from this accident of nature flows an avalanche of science, history, mythology and naked prejudice to suggest that redheads are indeed to be feared and admired, if for their fury and ability to withstand pain and exude sexual attraction.

The role of a fiery temptress was laid down for redheaded women as early as the Bible; Lilith, the lascivious she-demon with a propensity for eating male children before medieval theologians made her the first wife of Adam, has always been portrayed as a redhead.

Experts on redheadedness say that if a child is born with red hair, it is better if it is a girl, for the auburn male is likely to attract little more than derision.

Marion Roach, a New Yorkbased writer whose history of red hair, Roots of Desire, was published this summer, said: 'Redheads have been the subject of curiosity and stigma since time immemorial. 'At some point in history, our perception divided along gender lines. The red-haired woman has moved from being portrayed as merely evil to being highly sexual.

'But the mythology of the male remained one of distrust. Redhaired men don't have the power or appeal of women. For example, pollsters will tell you it's very difficult to sell a red-headed male politician.'

You can read the resthere if you're willing to spend a quid on it...

The waters are muddied by another scientific article (reported in a daily paper) suggesting that redheads feel _more_ pain. I'm confused.