What's the deal with white folks and suntanning?

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This question's been bothering me for quite a while now - although I'd guess that white ILXors probably prefer to stay pale and interesting as a type (You just strike me as the sort of people who would).

Anyhow, what's the deal with actually wanting to change your skin colour? I really don't get it at all. Could someone please explain?
Thanks

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:43 (twenty years ago)

envy

― Huk-L (Huk-L), Monday, 30 January 2006 17:45 (twenty years ago)

I don't do it because I don't want skin cancer.

― tokyo nursery school: afternoon session (rosemary), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:01 (twenty years ago)

solar power

― senseiDancer (sexyDancer), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:02 (twenty years ago)

Chris Rock is starting threads on ILX again.

― everything, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:14 (twenty years ago)

When did Chris Rock turn into Jerry Seinfeld?

― Dan (What Is The Deal?) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:15 (twenty years ago)

Maybe it has to do with showing you have the money/luxury of spending time doing nothing but laying around in the sun.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:16 (twenty years ago)

Up through the mid-20th century, paleness is the status symbol, since it means you stay inside instead of going out and doing manual labor or going out and about in the sun; then a sudden boom in the middle class means loads of people get to stay inside all day, and ride in cars when they go out, and so now being pale isn't the most extraordinary thing in the world; and then some combination of Hollywood and the Mediterranean makes it so having a tan becomes foreign and glamorous and jet-set movie-star (plus people get all interested in South Americans as supposedly virile and sexy and whatnot) (plus stuff like WWII has Americans all around the Mediterranean and such and picking up a bunch of Euroish notions that helped unbland middle-class America, e.g., using garlic in food); and then by the 70s there's this weird golden-hair country-folk fashion trend that's kind of all about hale-and-hearty and kinda-ruddy, now kinda fetishizing the lost outdoorsiness that used to smack of being working-class (as opposed to the pale, refined folks); and anyway so then having a tan becomes status-symbol instead of being pale, because, duh, you need leisure and at this point even money to accomplish it in any decent way.

Plus I think many of them are trying to color over perceived skin imperfections, or at least make it so you can't see their veins or something.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:17 (twenty years ago)

Precisely. And traveling to warm & sunny places. Which of course is a joke because in pretty much all of recorded history it was preferable to be PALE, proving you didn't work in the fields for your bread & butter. Espesh true for women.

I don't do it because I dislike the pain of sunburn.

XP: Okay, fine, you were more thorough. I'm trying to eat lunch, here!

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:19 (twenty years ago)

White folks be crazy, y'all.

― everything, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:20 (twenty years ago)

So from this:

PALE = refined, elegant, indoor creatures
TAN = common field-working rabble

we get this:

PALE = sickly, house-bound, no-fun creatures
TAN = sporty, lively, vigorous beach-volleyball folk

The mid-century super-development of southern California surely had a big hand in this, too.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:21 (twenty years ago)

PALE = sickly, house-bound, no-fun creatures

this sums me up so conscisely.

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:23 (twenty years ago)

"classical good looks" = pasty rolls of fat

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

(I almost wrote "Nabisco writes a paragraph on the socialogical evolution of tanning in t-3 posts" but went for the lame Seinfeld joke instead.)

― Dan (Missed Opportunities) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:24 (twenty years ago)

JEL = refined, elegant, indoor creature.

Sums me up.

― jel -- (jel), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:26 (twenty years ago)

Oh, you know what else was probably big, as far as the US goes, was HAWAII! We acquired a sunny island-state! And then went totally nuts over our new state allegedly full of doe-eyed nubile supertan girls dancing in grass skirts! That was probably huge.

― nabisco (nabisco), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:29 (twenty years ago)

Up through the mid-20th century, paleness is the status symbol

It still is a status symbol in many parts of the world. During my travels in Asia I was constantly amazed by the range of products being advertised which would lighten your skin colour - the exact opposite of the spray-on tan stuff we have in "the west". I remember chatting with this Indonesian surfer gal who hated her dark tan/skin colour, which was hard to avoid given her hobby. If she wasn't surfing she'd stay in the shade, and avoid getting darker at all costs. So yeah, I'd say that sentiment still exists pretty strongly...

― Rob Bolton (Rob Bolton), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:32 (twenty years ago)

grass is always greener. . .

― Miss Misery xox (MissMiseryTX), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:34 (twenty years ago)

What's the deal with those black folks getting all dressed up like pimps?

― everything, Monday, 30 January 2006 18:35 (twenty years ago)

― j blount (papa la bas), Monday, 30 January 2006 18:39 (twenty years ago)

I thought that darker skin was more slimming (like those optical illusions with the white dot on the black ground and the black dot on the white ground).

I love lying in the sun but I just get burnt and sore so I am very careful about sunscreen and time of day.

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:06 (twenty years ago)

Isadora just said what I was going to say vis a vis perceived skin imperfections, it also has been bandied about that tans will visually slim a person. Haha so once again we're at the opposite of what was trendy a century ago, I guess?

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:41 (twenty years ago)

yeah back in 1905 ppl dug blotchy skin -- it was crazy man.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:43 (twenty years ago)

don't purposefully misread, we're talking about the slimmingness of dark colors! Blotchy skin was so X nitsuh posts ago.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:45 (twenty years ago)

"socialogical" ARGH

― Dan (Stupid Fat Fingers) Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:47 (twenty years ago)

(Stupid Fat Fingers)

Does the slimming illusion not work on fingers?

― StanM (StanM), Monday, 30 January 2006 19:55 (twenty years ago)

i don't think that's true about darker skin having a "slimming effect." just from my own personal experience. my girlfriend looks much fatter with a tan, is what i'm trying to say.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:27 (twenty years ago)

You should tell her that!

Is it fair (ha!) to say that the tan=health equation is slowly being undermined by skin cancer education, not to mention the resurgence of goth?

― ratty, Monday, 30 January 2006 20:30 (twenty years ago)

Not 1905 so much as mid 1800's, the look for girls was a blotchy sunken eyed lethargy, as being near death brought one closer to the angelic other-worldy ideal. Fortunatly the bicycle put an end to this.

― Annabelle Lennox (Arachne), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:39 (twenty years ago)

Damn bicycles. I am a natural at sunken eyed lethargy. I could have been hot. Dan should try dipping his fingers in white paint and then typing.

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:50 (twenty years ago)

There's always goth-dom, Isadora. Keeping the dream alive.

― Annabelle Lennox (Arachne), Monday, 30 January 2006 20:59 (twenty years ago)

I don't think tanning has a slimming effect either, I'm just regurgitating what Cosmo has told me.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:08 (twenty years ago)

Midwestern suburbs full of bleached-blonde tanned children wearing A&F/Hollister crap are the biggest dud I've ever seen.

― mike h. (mike h.), Monday, 30 January 2006 21:46 (twenty years ago)

I don't think the eventual advent of "samsonite skin" for supertanners exactly hides flaws. Neither does melanoma. If you want that orange look, take or eat way too much vitamin A.

― Abbott (Abbott), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

I can't be having with gothdom sorry. I actually like being outside and going to the beach and so forth, I just don't have the physique that springs to mind for that lifestyle. Or the sense of balance necessary for tricky cycling.

(( of course if you are healthy you will look fine. Better pale than wrinkly or with skin grafts. Cosmo might be wrong. Woman's Weekly, however, never))

― isadora (isadora), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:12 (twenty years ago)

I've never heard that "tanning is slimming" theory. I just love that! What about just exposing your gut to a sunlamp? Is a tan still slimming when it's covered up with several layers of Polarfleece?

― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:15 (twenty years ago)

Gain all the weight you want, just wear lots of self-tanner! I think is the theory behind that theory. I don't buy into it myself but it seems to be the more commonly believed one than "tanning hides skin imperfections" (which isn't true, it can kind of camoflauge bruises but will exacerbate freckles, red spots and acne--in fact Cosmo tells everyone this all the time so I don't know where nabisco has been).

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:19 (twenty years ago)

http://www.skincarederm.com/history.htm

― Mary (Mary), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:23 (twenty years ago)

There was a blurb in Health mag a while ago about how UV radiation in a certain wavelength helps stimulate the production of something that fights bacteria on the skin, so you break out slightly less -- but this is offset by the risk of skin getting overexposed & dried out, thereby encouraging skin to grow OILIER to compensate. You can't win.

― Laurel (Laurel), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:25 (twenty years ago)

Yeah--if you stay out past X amount of time that is unknown to everyone in the world except "well, paler you are shorter X is" mumbo jumbo theory, then you get MORE zits because the zitted areas dry out a bit and your skin overcompensates. This is exacerbated if you are someone with a bit of a skin problem who is using acne medication (prescription or OTC) to counter your problems--because it will like quadruple the drying effect and thus cause a monstrous breakout.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:29 (twenty years ago)

Zonker Harris has so much to answer for.

― kingfish kuribo's shoe (kingfish 2.0), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:30 (twenty years ago)

I probably already have skin cancer to be totally blunt about things.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Monday, 30 January 2006 22:32 (twenty years ago)

I've wanted the holy grail of alabaster geisha-like skin all my damn life. My skin is mortally pale, with loads of visible blue veins - except ob my bloody FACE, where it has always been ruddy from a slight allergyish reaction, and now more so from burst capillaries (yay for boozin'). I wish I could do something to clear up my face to be as pale as the rest of me.

I never bothered tanning or wanting to tan - I couldnt anyway - I ignored the 80's taunts of being pasty and white, muttering to myself "pale will come back in one day". And whaddayaknow.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:00 (twenty years ago)

Also, skin cancer is quite prevalant in my family, and aussies have had the cancer thing rammed down our throats for many years, so I've always been v cautious.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:01 (twenty years ago)

I'm not someone who goes out of my way to go tanning, generally. I just like lying out in the sun. And I hate the way most sunblocks feel, the only thing that doesn't seem to bother my skin is oils, which only just recently started offering SPF 15 (used to be only 4 and occasionally 8 for oils). I don't know what it is. Granted formulas might've changed since I decided on this 5 or 6 years ago but gaah, it makes me itchy and dried out. I'm also v forgetful and just forget to reapply quite regularly.

― Allyzay Rofflesberger (allyzay), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:06 (twenty years ago)

Blue veins aren't freakish? Sometimes in heavy lighting I notice one of these and get the fear.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:13 (twenty years ago)

My arms look vampirish! (lordy, I really will never get rid of the goth tag this way heh). But yeah if its hot weather yr veins tend to move to the surface to cool off, and you can often see them quite clearly - I know I can.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:19 (twenty years ago)

Blue veins are TEH SEX!!

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:20 (twenty years ago)

Well, they're better than yellow ones, anyway.

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:21 (twenty years ago)

Dammit I wish I had my pic of my arm when they blew a vein taking blood - its complete requiem for a dream grossout.

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:29 (twenty years ago)

Arg, yellow veins. You're going to give me something new to dysmorphic out about.

― Mary (Mary), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:40 (twenty years ago)

and aussies have had the cancer thing rammed down our throats
-- Trayce

Now I feel sick.

― ratty, Tuesday, 31 January 2006 02:45 (twenty years ago)

why does black people never want to tan?

― Morley Timmons (Donna Brown), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 03:20 (twenty years ago)

EVERY person, regardless of skin colour, can get sunburned.

I've already had cancer as a child, and that plus the removal of a bunch of moles when I was 10 puts paid to my tanning aspirations but aesthetically that's not my style anyway.

― suzy (suzy), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 08:39 (twenty years ago)

didnt barthes write an essay on this? anyhow, i'm getting a sunbed. i look dreadful without a tan: as i'm very blonde, a pale complexion makes me look fugly. :-(

― Nathalie (stevie nixed), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:14 (twenty years ago)

why does black people never want to tan?

Well I'm half black and I love lying in the sun. I love to tan as well 'cause it's soooo easy! After 10 minutes in some decent sunlight there's a marked difference to my colouring with no fear of burning.

Obviously any longer in strong sunlight and I need skin protection like anybody else, and there's a certain point tanning wise I wouldn't like to cross. On holiday I just get darker and darker and darker until I become afraid and curb it.

I burnt once, well I dried out and flaked. The skin under the flaky skin was my normal colour so for a good few days I looked a bit MJ-esque. I'll never let that happen again.

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 09:23 (twenty years ago)

I never do, but then I'm stupidly pale and have red hair and once got sunstroke in Cornwall. I even dyed my hair darker this summer to look paler and annoy idiot girls who say things like: "You could always fake tan."

I think maybe things are swinging back to pale and interesting, at least if your skin is fair naturally. The footballers wives/ Jodie Marsh look has done a lot to devalue the tan.

― Anna (Anna), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:36 (twenty years ago)

Pale and interesting has always been hip, pale and blotchy never has

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:42 (twenty years ago)

... speaking as someone who does not tan but instead goes rather an unpleasantly and angry shade of red

― Dadaismus (Dada), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:43 (twenty years ago)

we be jealous of the brown people with their pretty brown skin :(

this may not be true for everyone, and doesn't explain all those girls who pay a fortune to turn themselves bright orange. i'm not sure anything can explain them.

um, i dunno. growing up i always got brown at the beach in summer so i associate it with the Good Times. i love checking the tan line and seeing woo! there's a huge difference. i am v lucky with this - with my colouring i should burn like a crisp but i've always tanned, except my nose which just burns and peels repeatedly all summer no matter how much spf25 i slather on it.

― emsk ( emsk), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 10:50 (twenty years ago)

pale skin and veins... mmmm

http://www.memorygongs.com/ow_myarm.jpg

(thats my arm that is)

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:02 (twenty years ago)

I quite like coming back from holiday with a tan, even if I don't really take one.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:16 (twenty years ago)

I end up with a weird kind of countershading when I spend lotsa time in the sun. Jet black (It looks like someone's sprinkled coal dust on me) on exposed shoulders, back, back of arms; my usual milk chocolate brown everywhere else.

ps. Black people dress as pimps because we're the only ones who can carry it of and still look good.

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:56 (twenty years ago)

Tee hee!

― Rumpsy Pumpsy (Rumpie), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 11:58 (twenty years ago)

Should have been "carry it off" obviously. Duh!

― Stone Monkey (Stone Monkey), Tuesday, 31 January 2006 12:10 (twenty years ago)

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