Why does being tan make a person more attractive?

In my case, if I wear shorts or go shirtless, my legs and/or torso are going to blind you with the white glare. Either that or you’ll think you’re looking at a ghost. So, I need to get a tan not to make myself more attractive but probably just to make myself look more healthy. How’s that for weird? :o)

Tan girls just seem hotter than not-tan girls to me. I would say the reason is because of our environment. All the models in the magazines and celebrities on TV and movies are tan and ethnic-looking, which makes that the idea of a good-looking person. Just like back thousands (or maybe hundreds) of years ago when larger people were the best looking. I think that was because they were rich and had money to buy lots of food, so it was a sign of wealth and attractiveness. I could be wrong abou the reasons so someone can correct me if they’d like.

i being one of those people sounds wrong. Correct me Grammer Gods, I really am curious what the correct grammer would be

@krose You could say “myself included,”

Well I don’t quite glow in the dark, but I have had people tell me I am too pale. When I am tan I do feel more confident but it’s not because I think I look better, it’s just because I know people prefer the tan ones.

@Krose. You saying “I being one of those people” appears to work just fine in your question’s details and the sentence flows naturally in my opinion. And it sounds really good with what Queenz stated in the above post also.

Yeah I felt like it was the right thing when I typed it, but when I went back and read it, it didn’t quite flow for me.

Not for me. I like my women pale. Practically translucent. Like a corpse minus the dead part.

Throw in some red hair, freckles and a root beer and we have ourselves a weekend.

Honestly, I have no idea why tan people are more attractive. they sure aren’t to me. It’s even worse then girls go to tanning salons to get darker…I mean seriously? There’s something called skin cancer people!

I find it interesting that back in Renaissance Europe, it was considered attractive to be rather plumpish and very pale. (meant you were wealthy because you were well-fed and weren’t outside working all day) Now it’s the exact opposite. :(
Sort of is a bummer for us very-pale girls with curves.

And, it appears there are times when you can OVERDO the tanning just a little too much – like this

oh my gosh, I was about to go get a midnight snack… but then I saw that picture.

@Blue

ewwww gosh how does one even GET to be that bad?
just awful.
now I can’t eat my chocolate cookie after seeing that :(

I’m definitely not into it, especially when it’s contrived.

As a pasty, white, nearly translucent red-head I’d just like to give cprevite a high five! If I wasn’t married, I’d even give him a root beer.

YOW!!!

Sorry everybody! I didn’t mean to gross you all out with that image I posted! Now I feel terrible! Yikes!

Now I’m all hot and bothered with thoughts of root beer and high fives…

@blue- this seems to be a pro pasty thread. whoops

It’s like in the middle ages, fat people were hot. Same principle, if you can afford to lay on a beach all day, you’re a better mate. :)

I’m pale as fuck.

…And I love it.

people are attracted to healthy-looking people because they want their babies to be healthy. shiny hair, glowy-tan-ish skin, etc., all indicates good health. a lot of people are instinctively attracted to people with tan skin because it indicates a healthy person.

@bluefreedom: that picture makes me want to die a little.

Nothing wrong with your grammer krosse, except that it’s “grammar” :P

I think it’s all about being exotic. People in a given area will be so used to seeing the same faces that sticking out makes you more interesting. I am sure that being tan would be no good in India, and someone as pale as asmonet would be idolised in Africa. I am quite dark (though still Caucasian) with black hair and chestnut eyes. In Greece I was considered ugly, in Germany interesting, and in Poland a sex god. I also remember moving in this flat in England (ok I was much younger and cuter at the time) and my landlady would call over all her friends for tea so that they’d just look at me.

Personally I think a healthy, natural tan is very attractive – probably because I associate it with someone who’s been outdoors, isn’t afraid to be exposed to the elements…..in short, someone who’s living!
I associate a very pale complexion with a very passive, protective lifestyle – not something I find particularly attractive.

@augustlan: And if I wasn’t married, I’d drink that rootbeer.

@Bluefreedom: Dont feel bad man. These leather-skinned snow birds exist. I know an entire family from from East Boston who looks like that. They spend almost all year in Florida then come back here in the Summer to scare the shit out of everyone. Someone’s gonna make a set of luggage out if them someday.

I’m with wildflower on this one. A slightly sun-kissed tan means vitality and activity.

In my younger days, I was always of the easily tanned variety, assisted by an olive complexion. Not the baked on the beach or grilled in the tanning bed variety. I’m talking take the kids to the pool on the weekends and work out in the garden tanned. What I’ve gotten is sun damaged skin on my lower legs—the space between where a skirt would end and the shoes would begin. What was lovely tanned legs in my teens to early 40’s is now these really unattractive grey freckles from damaged pigmentation. It’s neither pretty nor healthy looking.

@Blue, I’ve seen that picture before, & in fact, in the email that it comes in, there’s another picture of her that’s even worse! It’s a frontal view, & it’s NOT pretty! Use your imagination, people, LOL.

I have never tanned from the sun or a tanning bed. I know what it can do to your health & skin. I’m sorry what’s happened to you, Alfreda. That’s what I was always afraid of happening. I’m light skinned, & I don’t tan well, anyway. I burn. I’ve used the self-tanning lotions in the summer. They work well & they’re much safer.

It’s good to see the posts here where a dark tan isn’t the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for everyone. To me, my health is more important.

I like my Women, fair skinned,blondish hair,middle aged,out going but out spoken,good at cooking,oh and must be a librarian!
and not get hangovers from an overindulgence of Margo’s!

@oasis: Dude, stay away from my wife! ;^)
OK, so she worked in a library once

@Oasis….Seems like we’ve met, LOL. ;-)

Tell me Squirell,do you like Nuts or Acorns?

LOL….what do YOU think???

@Thats whats called a “cop out”!!!

Asmonet hit it on the head. I’d like to add a point.

In any society, the thing that’s considered beautiful is what the well-off people have. Back in the day, the rich people stayed in the house while the serfs labored out in the fields all day. The tanned serfs were seen as less attractive, while pasty white was beautiful and high-class, because you could afford laborers.

Nowadays, it’s the poor people that don’t lay out on beaches or pay for tanning booths – they have to work all day in thir cubicles or stay inside watching Jerry Springer. Even if tans are considered attractive, is it the “farmer’s tan” you like (the one that stops where the short-sleeve shirts begin), or is it the kind of all-over tan with no lines (or just bikini lines) that is so hot? I’m guelling the latter, because it’s a rich-person tan, not a workingman’s tan.

I, being one of those people who pay attention to language, think that this sentence works just fine, with its parenthetical phrase enclosed in commas.

The rich used to eat white bread, eschewing the coarser, healthier peasant loaves. The rich let their nails grow long to show the lumpen proletariat that they (the rich) did no manual labor.

Wealthy women used to pluck their hairlines in order to have higher foreheads. I am too busy to give time, regions, nationalities and dates.

I think I look better when I’m tan. When I’m not I turn this strange yellowy color that isn’t attractive. I don’t wear makeup in the summer because I’m tan, but I do in the winter.
On the other hand, my boyfriend is translucently pale. And he’s quite cute just as he is.

Give me pale-as-fuck over dark tan. A little color is nice, but not too much.

Wow!!Expletive city or what?

For those of you who like to roast toast in the sun, start a savings account for your semi-annual trips to the dermatologists to remove sun damage, pre-skin-cancer, skin cancer, and an assortment of unsightly moles, blotches, pigmentation changes and other unlovely marks. The older women who used to have the loveliest, unlined skin were those who never went out in the midday sun and used a parasol at other times.

@Sueanne: I knew you had the hots for me.

Dang, gail, every time you say that you make me feel a million times better.

Del: I do keep repeating myself, I know. But people WILL ask the same questions over and over again.

Oh, I don’t mind the repetition at all. It makes me proud of my pallidness. Few things can do that.

It’s not pallid; it’s delicate and cameo-like skin. Wear it with pride.

It’s a horrible reflection on the human species, but tan skin is a reflection of earning potential, and therefore attractive. In Victorian times pale skin was embematic of someone who didn’t need to work in the fields and was therefore considered attractive. In modern times, people that are tanned are assumed to have income which does not require them to be stuck in an office. Therefore tanned skin is deemed to be attractive. It’s complete fucked up and flawed, but there you have it.

I actually do find my paleness much more attractive than being tan, most of the time. I wouldn’t drink arsenic to get it, but I appreciate maintaining it.

This is just for fun, ok?

So, I wonder if paleness is associated with intelligence? Like, if you like the outdoors, you spend less time in school, and if you like learning, you spend less time outdoors.

So all my girlfriends, and, of course, my wife, are pale. They can’t stand the beach.

Sigh. Because I think a tanned girl is totally hot. I have dreams of extracting such a woman from the confines of her bikini. Sigh. It is not to be.

@daloon

Hmm I don’t know. Most of the smarter people I know are pale because they choose to pursue academic activities, which as you know, are mostly indoors.

The DUMBEST girl I know (at my college) is uber tan, but she rarely goes outside…it’s because she goes to a tanning bed often, so yeah I don’t know.

There could also be a correlation between intelligence and pale skin because of the dangers of tanning.

<-may appear intelligent for 10 months of the year due to geographical (mis)fortune

My kids, who are extremely intelligent, inherited their father’s Mediterranean skin and love of winter outdoor sports. I am also not too stupid and stay out of the sun because of inherited fair and freckly skin.

It doesn’t make a person more attractive. Everything is a matter of taste, my friend. Tanning is like dying your hair a different color.

It’s just socialization. Things like this are completely at the mercy of the collective thought of a society. For many years, paleness was considered more attractive due to pale skin being associated with the upper class and royalty.

Fact from fiction, truth from diction. Who says tan people are more attractive? That is one of the biggest hypocrisies I have seen. I guess it is only better to have dark skin if it is by choice. Many decades (if not centuries) people around the globe have been victimized, slaughtered, enslaved, and beat down because they were of dark skin, and they had no choice, they were born that way. If a person of dark skin tried to bleach their skin to become lighter all manner of things would be said of them, that they did not like who they were and was trying to be something different. So, those of light skin should embrace that fact and be happy with it. If you are healthy, you are, looking healthy and being healthy are 2 different things. I love my fiancée and her porcelain pale skin. I tried to imagine her with a tan, spray or sun made and she would look no better if she didn’t look clownish. What you are be happy with that.

There’s a difference between having a tan because you are Caucasian and hang out in the sun (or a tanning booth) and having a dark skin because you were born with more melanin. I’m assuming that the question is more about the former and less about the latter.

I am tan but i find Caucasian skin more attractive.

I don’t think it’s necessarily a tan that makes some one more attractive. It’s more of rather or not that person looks healthy. Having a good tan just kind of gives some one a natural glow. None of that fake jive though, it’s gotta be a real one straight from the sun. lol

Oh, how about this for crazy..theres this guy that always goes to the beach up here, apparently theres some kind of shot you can take to help you tan. He was white, but now he’s black. All sarcasm set aside. It’s pretty insane.