Turnabout’s fair play: Now the Indian cosmetics industry is targeting mattar-sexuals with a skin lightener for men.
The advert for the male cream shows a dark-skinned college boy relegated to the back seat and ignored by the girls until he uses the product. Soon enough, his complexion lightens and girls flock to him like moths to a flame…Until now, skin-lightening creams have been aimed almost exclusively at women. This is the first launched nationally for men… Called Fair and Handsome, the advertisement for the product gives the message: be fair or remain in dark oblivion…
“A look at the matrimonial section… there’s not one guy who admits to being dark and attractive, they just say we are wheatish and fair. So there is just not one dark-skinned person in this country, they are all rolling wheat fields of masculinity.” [Link]
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p>Naomi Wolf penned an interesting polemic on this subject in The Beauty Myth. She says many cosmetics companies fund women’s mags which are largely designed to make girls feel insecure about their looks. The industry appropriates the sheen of science (white lab coats in department stores, medicalized vocabulary like ‘invisible damage to your skin’) when many of them are really peddling snake oil. The more successful they are at creating a culture of hypochondria and medicalized insecurity, the more product they move.
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p>Many industries besides cosmetics use fear in advertising. However, it’s far more damaging when it hits women’s self-confidence instead of something more neutral like their feelings about, say, consumer appliances.
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p>In India, there’s a big class divide between those tanned from being out in the sun all day vs. those who work indoors. That’s in addition to the obvious association between caste and intrinsic skin shade.
In contrast, in the U.S., tan once again became a wealth marker after agriculture was mechanized. And dark skin has historically been associated with masculinity in the U.S. because of the eroticization of African slaves.
Besides, why mess with the perfection of a fellow mutineer? 
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| ‘Ladies, allow me to introduce myself’ |
Related posts: Bollywood delusions; Fair = Lovely and Bitiya meri gori gori by Vikrum Sequeira
HA! I just actually read the rest of this post. (Sorry, Manish, I’ve been kind of crushed by Diwali, etc..)
Great picture of Vinod. 🙂 That’s one smooth operator. 🙂
I think most people have a particular shade they look best at, and that shade can vary across the entire absolute spectrum. But few people look good in two very different shades. So instead of these peels and whatever, which are more than likely going to make you look unnaturally pale and dry-skinned, you’re best off investing in some good SPF and a hat, drinking lots of water, and otherwise sticking to your natural tone. Healthy dark skin is a lot more beautiful than dry, unevenly peeled light skin.
That said, I hope all our brown brothers and sisters won’t skimp on the spf cream and hats. Someone once made fun of me in a park for coating my nose, “what, you afraid of getting dark?” implying that it was a self-esteem problem. Nooooo. Just because we don’t usually burn, that doesn’t mean the sun does no damage at all. And it only takes one serious burn to dramatically increase your chances of skin cancer and related problems.
Oh, and thanks for the replies to my comments, siddhartha m. I appreciate it.
And I’ll stereotype the ‘aunties’ plenty. Some of them made my life hell in an earlier incarnation…..(she says cryptically….)
Like this?
Google pulled up several articles on this.
Wikipedia has some stuff on it too.
Sorry if I’m repetitive (didn’t get through all the comments). But I think we need to address the inclusion of men into this beauty myth and its impact on our social behaviors. Women have continually been subjected to the rituals of beautification – eyebrow plucking, leg waxing, skin whitening and applying our daily round of makeup. The big question “why do we do all of this”? To look better for a man, to get a better husband, because it is demanded of us?
Is it so bad to include men into this beauty myth? Will their inclusion eventually reduce (in the far far future) the demands and burden on women?
I for one do not support the skin whitening industry but do support making the same demands on the men in my life as they make on me.
CBCD: This is because men are the pursuers and attracted by what they see (generally speaking), ergo women want to make themselves look better.
But it makes sense, right? but I think given in any population/race, the average female more attactive than the average male.
“A woman’s body is a work of art. A man’s body is utilitarian. It’s for gettin’ around. Kinda like a Jeep.”
— Elaine on Seinfeld, on why men shouldn’t walk around naked
Administrators,
Is it possible to re-open the Manoj Shyamalan thread? I saw some very disparaging remarks there addressed to me and would like to respond to them. I pledge to stick to my non-abuse policy, as I always do.
Thanks.
I think the launch of the skin whitening cream for men shows that women are also demanding attractiveness in their mates. Women (often) may not be the pursuers however they do choose between the men who are pursuing them. And in an ever changing world were women no longer need to depend on a man for their livelihood, many other factors, previously less important, are gaining ground.
The question I pose is how will this impact what we require of women today? Will men start beautifying themselves or require less from women because they realize the time and effort that goes into the whole process. Will this trend advance our society and break us from the beauty myth?
Which one would you personally prefer, women becoming more demanding (and men obliging them) or men becoming less demanding?
Everyone becoming less demanding
Good. So you basically want the physical attractiveness factor struck off from the list of attributes in a mate-selection process.
The problem is, people who are very attractive may not want this as it makes them more competitive. Needless to say you and I alone can not convince them.
How does physical attractiveness disappear? Do you really believe that beauty products alone make us attractive?
IÂ’m discussing buying the beauty myth and all the products and attitudes attached to it. These things enhance our beauty not create it.
I am trying to analyze the underlying reason for people wanting to try beauty products, which happens to be that in the mate-selection process attractiveness plays a key role.
My question was specifically, given a choice, would you rather the mate-selection process did not include physical attractiveness?
porcelain skinned Snow White
who had black hair. when someone has the last name “black” or “schwartz,” it usually referred to hair color. so it is more nuanced, and the brown categories don’t always map over.
also, this is not monotonic. people need to keep the distribution in mind. my parents, especially my mom, is skin focused (though she isn’t fat), but her beauty ideals are clearly people like jordanna brewster (in that she will note how beautiful she is if she sees her on TV). her opinions about blondes are less than flattering. so poor momma, you don’t have get taste, cuz you don’t have mine….
i will repeat it one more time: a small initial innate preference can be socially amplified. also, you might know that ethologist lee dugatkin has done research with female guppies, who tend to prefer bright males. if you set up an exp. and you have dummy dull males (artificial look-alike) being selected by dummy females, and have normal females watch, normal females will start to pick the dummy males, but only to an extent. that is, the heuristic: do what others do, has strong, but there is an innate parameter of “go for the bright!” that can overrule it if you push the social preference against the grain too much.
would you rather the mate-selection process did not include physical attractiveness?
me, no. i only wish it would be polite to tell my light-skinned aunt she’s a fat-ass (she is) when she disparage someone who is darker but but better on all other metrics. i believe in honesty (i figure out ways to drop clues to tell fat-asses to shup up. or, if some is bragging about their royal ancestors i drop in some basic genetic logic which implies that everyone has ha an overwhelming preponderance of slave-peasant ancestors, etc. etc. unearned attractiveness signals are a bad sign about what someone is trying to distract from)….
I think it’s bizarre to have preferences for a race or certain look (blonde, brunette, redhead, black, asian, indian), with certain exemptions (i.e. keeping within your own culture/background, though I personally don’t feel the need to follow this either). Why do I think it’s bizarre, and at certain times unhealthy? Well, I have known people who fetishize asians, african americans, blondes, etc. and it really says alot about that person’s self-worth, and sometimes they have some self-loathing issues. Ontop of that, you can’t universally say people of certain races are more attractive than others: individuals within any race, vary, obviously. Anyhow, I don’t think the attractive card is why people have such bizarre preferences, though – they are looking for something else which they don’t have, which they feel will make their gene pool more “superior”, or for an idea that they will be more dominant in the relationship, etc. It’s disturbing to me because their preferences are based on untrue stereotypes of passivity or prowess of sexuality (esp when it comes to women) etc etc. After a certain age, we should be mature enough to let go of such fetishes. It’s very limiting. I can understand why alot of people are attracted to beautiful people period (although that, too, can be limiting) but let go of the blonde only, black only etc etc dating rule. You can do what you like – I won’t stop you – just think about how you came to have a narrow preference.
As far as the ladies not commenting on Vinod (who, from the pic, is attractive, btw), well, maybe we’re just nicer 🙂 Sexually harassing or rude comments, period just plain stink. I’ve seen some not-so-nice comments directed at some very pretty female mutineers and I hate it. How hurtful. The guys who so harshly criticize must be pretty damn perfect looking to judge so.
Yes, I think companies are going for the oter 50% of the population. Repackage the ladies stuff, sell it a little cheaper, and voila, more profit. I personally don’t have a problem with wanting to look your best (mascara – yes!), but selling crap that doesn’t work (whitening and wrinkle creams) is just plain unethical, and I hope consumers will not fall into that t(c)rap.
Will requiring more of men, somehow backfire, and end up with everyone just giving up ? That would be nice, but unlikely. Not as long as we have to get laid and get jobs. But an even playing field could be on it’s way in some regards….
By what criteria? So, you are saying the physical attributes that you consider for determining the above variance make sense, while those used by others are bizarre fetishes?
Siddhartha M – Ice cream’s long been one of my favorites too 🙂
These conversations go around in boring cirlces, so I don’t have much to add.
But to bring the focus back to men…I don’t care about color. Just bone structure like this man.
Thanks for the question. I guess I need to clarify. I said I don’t feel that the people who have race fetishes don’t do so because they feel that race is the most attractive. They have their fetish for other reasons. Especially, since you can’t say one race is more attractive than the other.
However, you can say that Maneet has more symmetrical and balance features for his face than Punnet, making Maneet more attractive to alot of people. Attractiveness varies from individual individual based on their symmetry and balance of features, and is not based on a race hierarchy. That is what I meant.
Of course, I’m talking about pure physical attractiveness, and not about the peronality stuff that makes a person truly attractive.
Sigh….I hear you there. And I don’t usually tire this easily!
Cicatrix – you like bones? 😉
sorry, this thread is hilarious, everyone is different. Sometimes i like sushi sometimes i like curry, sometimes italian.
Jassi Jaise koi nahin is a show some mutineers have watched as it was mentioned before. I just remebered the theme song went as as
See Rang Seeped in their too.
All conversations do, when they don’t seem to converge to your belief.
Ms Ang,
I do understand you. You see, a person who selects his/her mate on the basis of physical attributes may be considered shallow. But you can not demonify a person who puts more emphasis on attribute A and sing glories of one who attaches more weight to attribute B.
The only reason we are sensitive about colorism is that it is associated with racism. Otherwise I don’t see why the aunties need to be abused for blatantly specifying their skin tone preferences, especially when the underlying reasons for this preference are basically the same as those of yours for preferring a more muscular or taller man (for instance).
As you have seen on this thread, people still keep dropping hints about their fairness. They are just doing the right thing, claiming their piece in the competitive world of mate-selection, or shall we say, “to get laid”.
What’s yer point? Huh?
Yeah, but you wouldn’t have any one of the above every single day or that would be very limiting to your palette. Plus food analogies don’t work, because people aren’t usually foodstuffs.
Well, I think I can attribute more weight to B than A. You didn’t define A and B, but I think I guess?. One (A) is racism/exoticism (race fetish) and the other (B) is choosing an attractive mate based on that individual, one, person’s attractiveness. Therefore they are very different. I am not condoning B (pure physical attractiveness alone doesn’t do it for me), but at least it’s not exoticism/colorism, and looks at the individual rather than his/her race as a basis for mate or other selection. That’s why I see A and B as different.
With that being said, it’s a free country and you can have whatever preferences you like; you’re all adults here. That’s all I’m saying and all I have to add to this discussion.
Ang – I think this topic is futile, and people can argue it for ever and never go anywhere. And while there is a way to quantitatively assess everything, there is a limit to the degree. Evaluating attraction in my opinion is one of them.
Now that my point has been totally missed/misunderstood (or badly articulated due to exhaustion), I agree even more.
he’s cute!
You know, the colorism thing really does not count against all white women like someone initially implied. One of the white women I know who married into an Indian family who also 1) converted to Hinduism, 2) inexplicably changed her FIRST name in addition to her last name upon marriage and 3) dresses in desi clothes at all desi functions, even the b-day party at Chuck E Cheese, is considered to be gorgeous by the aunties. I just mention this as a friendly tip for all you fellows in the predicament of Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner?.
Angel says
Thank you. You’re too kind.
Since this post was about men i took some liberties with the prior post…its all fun.
You know, the colorism thing really does not count against all white men One of the white men I know who married into an Indian family who also 1) converted to Hinduism, 2) inexplicably changed his FIRST and Last names Now he goes by the name of Babu Ram Das. 3) dresses in desi clothes at all desi functions, even the b-day party at Chuck E Cheese he wears a jodhpuri with a dhoti. is considered to be gorgeous by the uncles. I just mention this as a friendly tip for all you fellows in the predicament of Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner?.
Otherwise I don’t see why the aunties need to be abused for blatantly specifying their skin tone preferences, especially when the underlying reasons for this preference are basically the same as those of yours for preferring a more muscular or taller man (for instance).
i’m relativelly shallow, i admit it. there is some company where i speak in a certain way about attributes i like, and others where i speak in other ways. the problem i have with the colorism thing is that it is ostentatious and aggressive it is insistence that everyone should value this attribute. also, it is pretty stupid in the USofA for the reasons i listed above. i had to argue with a kashmiri pandit on my weblog once where he insisted strongly that 1) pandits were caucasoids 2) they didn’t look like dark skinned bengalis and tamils (whose women he claimed were ugly of course). now, at the end of the day, he’s still a sand nigger, who will get his ass beaten by his fellow caucasoids. that’s a fact of american life that makes the intrabrown distinctions kind of annoying to me. and you know what? there was recently a book i read about a jewish man writing to a jewish woman who had married into nehru’s kashmiri pandit family and lost touch with her hungarian jewish roots (she had lived in india for 50 years). her family was worried about the consequences of her marrying a “black man” (i.e., a “caucasoid” kashmiri pandit). i know enough genetics to understand that browns are not blacks. and there are plenty of historical observations by europeans who make the distinction between indians and blacks. nevertheless, in light of the fact that those who do make distinctions don’t really care much about race, and those who don’t make distinctions are the types to slam your ass on the ground for macking on their sisters, it is a matter of perspective and seems to bespeak someone who doesn’t understand that they are in a different cultural context and their values need to change a bit.
hm. small announcement, i just decided i’m going to start up a weblog termed “brownology.” ikram saed once told me that i’m a combination of an alien anthropologist and a member of the family, so i’ll work with that perspective. my first post, up tonight will be a response to this thread, and a restatement of some of the talking points i’ve trying to push forward. will post an update here later when the subdomain resolves, etc.
Ms Ang,
This argument does not hold water. Are you suggesting that the darkest brown is lighter than the lightest black? Maybe anthropoligist Mr Razib can throw some light on this.
Mr Razib,
True, if colorism is practiced as a form of racism, i.e. insistence that skin-tone dictates qualitative aspects. What is wrong in desiring a lighter skinned person for your own personal private use?
As a side note, I wanted to ask you two questions.
a) You mentioned that when a large number of female fish select dull male fish in an artificial test, newly brought female fish start behaving like them counter to their normal preference. My question is, can the recent increase in interest for asian women among brown men be attributed to the fact that white men are showing an increasing preference for asian women? Os is it an independent preference?
b) Does the large skewed percentage of asian females marrying white male (ref. the yellowcake link) suggest a latent form of reverse-racism?
What?! No, that is not what I was saying or suggesting and I have NO idea why you would think that at all. I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing anymore because I truly don’t understand where your question is coming from; I can only asume you did not understand what I was trying to say. I already attempted to clarify my point, and if that wasn’t good enough, then c’est la vie. Au revoir Mister Argus!
Here’s a tip young brother – comparing your date to fish will not get you any loving, color be damned.
“Ms. Anna” is nowhere to be found on this thread?
Why does a person need to pose a question when they believe they already have all the answers?
True, if colorism is practiced as a form of racism, i.e. insistence that skin-tone dictates qualitative aspects. What is wrong in desiring a lighter skinned person for your own personal private use?
argus, i don’t care if someone has personal preferences. i’m not even the type to want racism to be eliminated from society insofar as getting that last 1% of utopian perfection is impossible. but, i don’t like brown people bringing their attitudes with them from brownland in a new country where said attitudes aren’t appropriate. i.e., in the USA if a brown person has dark skin, that doesn’t mean they are “low class” and “work in the field.” in the USA, a typical “fair” brown person is a smack-damn-nigger to those who really care if you are a particular shade or not. yes, most white people can understand that a punjabi is fairer than a typical bengali if they have many brown friends, but these people in the end really don’t care too much. now, move the question to american browns, do they care? should they care? i don’t care about #2, if you like them dark or dusky, not my business. but, like i said, this isn’t brownland, and to me caring about shades of brown seems kind of bizarro in a country where the lightest brown people are basically dark. there were socially understandable reasons for color prejudice to develop in south asia. as i’ve noted, it predates european hegemony across most of the world. that being said, it is kind of an embarrassing cultural adaptation transposed into the american environment.
a) You mentioned that when a large number of female fish select dull male fish in an artificial test, newly brought female fish start behaving like them counter to their normal preference. My question is, can the recent increase in interest for asian women among brown men be attributed to the fact that white men are showing an increasing preference for asian women? Os is it an independent preference?
i haven’t seen said preference. i don’t see many brown people.
b) Does the large skewed percentage of asian females marrying white male (ref. the yellowcake link) suggest a latent form of reverse-racism?
i don’t like the term reverse-racism. a lot of groups are racist. the reasons for asian females marrying white males are complex, i don’t think there is one answer. again, i suspect there are modest structual biases, but cultura & social factors amplify them. of course, i would like to see a study which corrects for height differences between asian and non-asian males in the USA and see how that plays into it. a lot of the difference might be explained by a simple and unknown causative variable like that.
I don’t think TOO much about color, maybe cuz I’m a 2nd gen desi. But 1st gen folks that I met (few hundred or so over the yrs in various states) usually do, including aunt (DC area) who laments that her educated, outgoing, 21 yr old daughter w/ great job, is “dark.”
I’ve noticed recently that I like guys w/ dark hair (brown or black) and brown eyes the best. I also REALLY like blue eyes… The most important qualities I want are brains, humor, and a great smile!
—EMMA
my response to this thread is up at my weblog.
I think there are some slightly different dynamics at work here, depending on whether we’re talking about the older generation or Western-born 2nd-Generationers.
The older people, especially the “aunties”, do have a lot of embedded, conditioned attitudes regarding skin colour, certainly with regards to other South Asian women (as has already been exhaustively discussed on this thread). Some of them also make a lot of negative assumptions about the “morality” of darker Indian girls who may not view their skin tone as being a problem or an impediment to their attractiveness, ie. a light-skinned Indian girl being sexy (and knowing it) will generate a different response to a darker Indian girl being sexy. Compare some of the contrasting reactions to Aishwarya and our friend Bipasha, for example.
Something else I’ve noticed, at least in my own experience during my life here in the UK, is that many (not all) darker Indian girls here end up deliberately dating white & black guys more than Indian guys — for multiple reasons, but I guess some of them are to do with the fact that their darker skin tone may not necessarily be viewed as an unattractive feature by many guys from these groups, at least in comparison with how attractive the girls may be regarded by many Indian guys and within stereotypical Indian society as a whole. You can’t blame the girls for this — if they’re going to be regarded as more attractive by people from other communities and will basically be treated better overall than they otherwise would by their fellow desis, of course they’ll be drawn more towards them. This is common sense.
Anyway, as Ang & Cocopuffs both said in posts 175 & 176, a lot of over-analysis is inappropriate and the whole question of who to date/find attractive is entirely up to the individual. The only things I can add are as follows:
Just my thoughts 😉
*Points 2 & 3 are just related to some “inherited” or “conditioned” cultural traits we are often exposed to from the 1st-Generation and have to make a conscious decision to be aware of (in relation to their ideas – not necessarily ours – of what makes a person attractive).
I’m not being an Agony Uncle offering unsolicited advice to the SM clan 😉
This is true here as well, and has everything to do with the ABCD male’s preference for lighter skinned “brown” women.
Those who might genuinely prefer darker skin are marginalized as fetishists: genuine sexual attraction is reduced to pathos 🙁
White males are not as attuned to color gradations and will not distinguish based upon color.
Black males may actually prefer darker skinned Indian women. I’ve noticed that the Brown girls they label FINE may be markedly different from those your typical ABCD labels FINE.
White women may prefer the darker Indian men, especially those with sharp noses and prominent jaws- the Anglo package “browned” for a little extra sexual kick.
Enough broad, sweeping generalizations 🙂
I love how even admonishments like these ‘As you can see, several posters craftily let it slip that they happen to be quite fair’. could not deter people from letting us know that they are fair. Grow up!
AM!
Okay, I said I would stay away, but I can’t! I’m hurt and I’m furious. Grow up? Who are you to admonish anyone? Why is it okay for some in this thread to mention they are ‘dark’, but if someone else mentions their particular color is different in a thread about color and how it affects those of us growing up in the West, it is perceived as an advertisement for that person’s superiority? Sorry, that’s straight old-skool, old-timey thinking. No one thinks like that in the US, no one thinks one shade of brown is more advantageous than another, so mentioning it means nothing. Or do you think the people mentioning it are advertising here at Sepia Mutiny, where the most eligible desi males in desi-dom reside?
Well, first: I’ve ‘let it slip’ plenty of times that I have MS. So tell, me, doesn’t being a diseased on-her-way-to-being a criple trump the fair part, my dear brainwashed thinking you are so progressive types? Am I now advertising my superiority or inferiority?
My point was this, for the thousandth time: what some people in India or in the western desi community think confers an advantage in the US is not the actual experience of some desis. I’m sorry you were raised to think that way, that you are so fragile about color that honestly mentioning it becomes an automatic sign that the person mentioning it is trying to show how much better they are. One of the things I dislike most about the political discussions on Sepia Mutiny is that instead of paying attention to what the person is saying, motivations, thoughts, and ideas are made up and words put into another person’s mouth.
Great. Growing up I got sh*t from the white kids and the brown kids, in equal measure, because I wanted to do things my own way, and didn’t quite fit in with either group. Nice to see the adults here are just as thoughtful.
This particular part of your post stood out to me, MD (though the rest of it was equally significant and I appreciate it).
While it’s considered bad manners to hate on darkies and fatties, it seems perfectly ok to hate on the skinny and pasty. How it’s different, I have no idea, except that because the thinner & fairer people are supposed to sit there and take it. Likewise, complimenting someone on their fairness is pretty ridiculous; what’s the retort to that, “thanks, I guess I lucked out in the genetic melanin lottery…”??
Seriously, if we’re going to hate on people, let’s do it for more individualized reasons like our personalities or attitudes. Hating on factors that are often outside our control and have zero impact on the people we are is just petty and stupid.
It’s human nature, I’m not going to sit here and be all Pollyanna and deny that we all hate on somebody for something sometime… but at least let’s take the time to personalize that hating, instead of taking the easy out of fat/dark/scrawny/pasty/short/big-nosed, etc…
me being me, i want a survey. we are making expectations based analyses, but we don’t know how variation works as a function of other parameters.
AM , what seems childish to me is that you think MD is actually is being sneaky and letting it “slip” that she is fair.
admonishments?? thats some body else like you who thinks they have everything figured out.
200!!