Only detect click event on pseudo-element

Please see this fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/ZWw3Z/5/

My code is:

p {
    position: relative;
    background-color: blue;
}

p:before {
    content: '';
    position: absolute;
    left:100%;
    width: 10px;
    height: 100%;
    background-color: red;
}

    <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Aenean commodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla consequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo, fringilla vel, aliquet nec, vulputate...</p>

I would like to trigger a click event only on the pseudo-element (the red bit). That is, I don’t want the click event to be triggered on the blue bit.

Answer

This is not possible; pseudo-elements are not part of the DOM at all so you can’t bind any events directly to them, you can only bind to their parent elements.

If you must have a click handler on the red region only, you have to make a child element, like a span, place it right after the opening <p> tag, apply styles to p span instead of p:before, and bind to it.