[ SECRET POST #2937 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2937 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 056 secrets from Secret Submission Post #420.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ha, this.

Pale skin is a "beauty" trait in a lot of cultures that have nothing to do with white people. In most of Asia it's because pale skin meant you were rich or noble and got to stay indoors while the peasants and farmers working in the sun got tanned. Characters being described as having flawless white pale skin meant delicate and ethereal and wealthy, not caucasian. It has nothing to do with white people. But white people love to think everyone wants to be them.

[(Anonymous)]

But white people love to think everyone wants to be them.

Funnily enough, I've seen more "POC's" make the claim that pale skin was because of white supremacy/eurocentric beauty standards than I've seen white people make the claim. Mostly so that they can blame everything in the world on white people, instead of acknowledging that other countries might have had their own beauty standards, and practices unrelated to white people.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, this.

When you go on tumblr and see people talking about Eurocentric beauty standards and skin-lightening creams and OMG how AWFUL white people are…I can't help but think, "Guys, you know that this has been a thing for a long, long time in these cultures, right?" Both Japan and China had women painting their faces white LONG before they ever had any European interference whatsoever.

[(Anonymous)]

I've heard this was a thing in pre-colonial India too.

[(Anonymous)]

I think the obsession with paleness came primarily from the assumption that pale skin equals wealth. Peasants who spent their days working in the fields were bound to be more tan than someone sitting in a mansion or palace all day.

[(Anonymous)]

da

I don't have a horse in this race. But I know Japan has intensely valued snowy-white pale skin long before it had real contact with the West, and continues to do so. Japanese people are definitely capable of being lighter than Caucasian people naturally, so I can't really see it as a white-mimicking this. Not only is it part of their culture but also, I rather think most of the popular Western celebrities there are actually a lot more tan...

[(Anonymous)]

Korea has a big amount of pretty pale people as well - I have to order my make-up foundation from Korea because they have such a great selection of different super pale tones. I live in a middle European country and all make up they sell here is much too dark for me.

[(Anonymous)]

As a POC who has been "educated" several times by well meaning white people that our "natural beauty" is "just as beautiful" and it's so sad that my race is "trying so hard to be white and denying their natural ethnic looks", we must have encountered different parts of the internet.

[(Anonymous)]

we must have encountered different parts of the internet.

literally this

so can we please not get into a big argument about who's at fault, white people or black people or sjws or whoever

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah. I love this thread - if I object to fetishizing paleness, I'm a white colonizer and I should be ashamed of myself. If I don't object to fetishizing paleness, I'm a white colonizer and I should be ashamed of myself.

I can't wait until I'm finally ready to stop caring what other people think.

[(Anonymous)]

asians look so young, they never tan because they know since centuries that tanning makes the skin age faster.
Likewise, black people also look younger than their age because they have more melanin and sun doesn't damage their skin like it does on white looking people.
There is one pigment in the human race that colors humans' skin and it's the melanin and you can have more or less depending on your genes (or race) but everyone has it unless you're affected by albinism.
I think fantasy characters like elves or vampires are probably always 'pale skin' to exagerate the fact that they are not human and thus have no melanin. Both elves and vampire are also immortals in most stories.

[(Anonymous)]

"asians look so young, they never tan because they know since centuries that tanning makes the skin age faster.
Likewise, black people also look younger than their age because they have more melanin and sun doesn't damage their skin like it does on white looking people."

Be careful with those generalizations, though. It's really a case-by-case basis. I know quite a few Asians that look WAY older than their age. Same with black people.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes.

Aging has a lot more to do with the environment and family genetics, not race.

[(Anonymous)]

No one said that white ppl look all older and bad so no need to get defensive just because someone mentioned that a lot of asian and black ppl look younger than their age.

[othellia]

asians look so young, they never tan because they know since centuries that tanning makes the skin age faster.

lol okay making huge generalization across an entire race of people

[(Anonymous)]

Where is the bad generalization though?
It's true that asians don't tan and many look younger than their age. No one said ALL, duh.

[(Anonymous)]

Elves have been classically light and fair because they have been traditionally associated with death and from beyond the veil, as in fey, not because they are white.

I've seen stories where they have been described as even nearing translucent.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm Asian and I tan, though not on purpose. It's just that I can't avoid sunlight 100% of the time and even short exposures (where I don't put on sunscreen) add up over time.

[(Anonymous)]

I've read somewhere that there was a test which showed that when you show people two pictures of the exact same person, one of which is altered to have their skin appear darker, and tell them that these are photos of twins, 0% of the time they will identify the darker-skinned "twin" as male and the lighter-skinned one as female. It reminds me of how disney and dreamworks films with personified animal, color the female animals much lighter than male animals of the same species.

I wonder if perhaps this phenomenon is more to blame for fair skin beauty standards. Something like women = lighter skin than male, therefore lighter skin = more feminine, and more feminine = more beautiful (to the male gaze). And then male gaze = the default, therefore light skin = ~objectively~ more beautiful than darker skin.

[(Anonymous)]

*that 0% should be 90%, lmao

[(Anonymous)]

Fair skin is equated with beauty and status because if you were fair, that meant you were rich and could afford to stay in all day and not work in the fields. That's why it occurred in places like Europe and Asia separately.

Nowadays, having a tan is a status symbol for white people because it means you can afford to lay out in the sun.

Beauty is often associated with signs of wealth and the availability of leisure.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, but this doesn't explain why it's a beauty standards for women much more for men.

[darkmanifest]

Women generally (always exceptions, blah blah blah) have lighter skin than men of the same race. The theory I've read is that women need to absorb more vitamin D from the sun to help with calcium absorption, since women generally need more calcium than men, especially after menopause and while pregnant or lactating. So biology feeding into social perception, blah blah blah again.

[(Anonymous)]

This is really a thing? I've not noticed it in daily life. Women do need more calcium than men. The difference must be really small or it would be more noticeable to the naked eye.

[(Anonymous)]

There was a convention for a long time in European/US illustrations of men and women, especially in advertising, that the woman had blonde hair and the man dark. Ditto for the girls blonde and boys brown. It's something similar I think.