Scientists say redheads feel pleasure and pain differently

Redheaded women give a new meaning to red hot.

Aside from their striking appearance, women with naturally red locks have several other enviable differences than those with other hair colors.

The vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford Professor Irene Tracey discussed how redheaded women experience pleasure and better pain differently than others.

The neuroscientist known as the “Queen of Pain” shared how difficult it can be to study pain, noting how everyone experiences good and bad pain differently during a segment on Radio 4’s Today, according to MSN.

“Pain is subjective, it’s a private experience that you can’t really objectify, it’s an oddity in its own self,” she said.

“The holy grail is to eradicate what we call bad pain, chronic pain, and actually target it at the right level and remove that suffering for patients. You don’t want to remove the good pain but you do want to eradicate the bad pain.”

She then added that while feeling either type of pain is an individualized experience, redheads have been found to experience tolerance and sensitivity differently than those with other hair colors.

“There’s often a comment about women with ginger hair, versus not, having that different genetic basis for how they experience the threshold for pain,” Tracey said, according to the Daily Mail.

Redheads — which account for about 2% of the population — have the MC1R gene, which is connected to their distinct coloration and sensitivity to touch.

Redheaded women can tolerate up to 25% more pain than people with other hair colors, a McGill University study showed.

They also feel less pain when pricked by a pin, a study out of Oslo University reported.

But it gets even better for those with locks of auburn hair.

Scientists have recognized that redheads also experience pleasure differently.

A study from the University of Hamburg found that redheaded women have the highest orgasm rate of all hair colors (at 41%) and have more sex than women with other hair colors, according to the Daily Mail.

“The research shows that the fiery redhead certainly lives up to her reputation,” Professor Dr Werner Habermehl said.