Wes-tan-ization

Posted by admin on Apr 13, 2010 in Issues & Ideas | 0 comments

If there is one skill I have gained from this last semester, it has been this: how to dethrone assorted Western Absolutisms. From my HIST 411 class, in which science showed its true colors as a co-opted rival God to revelation, as well as a political conspirator, to RELS 475, in which we learned about the limitations of progress, reason and the secularization of university education. To surreptitiously paraphrase the title of one of the debate/lecture evenings in Block Hall: maybe the West is not always the best!

All of this to foreground my thesis: tanning does not necessarily make people look “better.” We could ask why in places like Taiwan and much of Asia, cosmetic stores are lined not with tanning lotion, but with whitening cream–or why tanning beds are practically unheard of around the world. Perhaps a lot of it has to do with our abundance of rain and lack of sun. It really is human nature to desire what one does not possess.

Is it grounded in some sort of beatific or aesthetic reality to claim that people look better with tanned skin? People definitely seem to think that having a tan immediately merits a compliment of improvement in appearance. My co-workers last summer (all women) gave some standard (and I think completely undeserved) compliments on how the tan I received on my road-trip looked nice: to translate, “better.” I was actually somewhat offended by these compliments, which clearly implied that I was defective before I had received my tan. Personally, I considered the freckles I got from my over-exposure to the sun to be defective!

A flagrant and powerful challenge to the opinion that tans “look better” is the fact that the standards of beauty in most parts of the world consider swarthy skin as less desirable. I would argue based on this premise, that our present cultural opinions of aesthetics and appearance regarding the “betterness” of tanning is largely, if not entirely socially constructed–probably possessing an interesting (recent) history of its own. 

And of course, it is my personal opinion that tans do not necessarily (or even usually) make people look better. Tans have their place and the summer has a unique seasonal beauty with its accompanying human beauty – but so does winter (and fall and spring).  In summary, I see no aesthetic, appearance-related or evolutionary reason to think tanned skin is beauty-enhancing. 

Therefore, the idea of the superior beauty of tanned skin is yet another Western Absolutism that should be dethroned. Our emerging openness to non-Western cultural evaluations and critiques should inform the way that we treat our bodies this summer. I think we can be a little bit less feverish to expose our limbs to the sun for those few extra minutes this summer. Save your money and your skin, and find something better to buy with your Western currency than tanning lotions and tanning beds.