What shade do you fancy?

i-67d1fb5971c2bec58db7cd760ff184ed-alba.jpgVia The American Scene, Skin Color and Wages Among New Immigrants (Update: Steve Sailer an interesting critique of this study). The basic finding is that controlling for all variables that they could nail down darker skinned immigrants tend to make less bank. As someone of luscious brownitude (see picture to your far left) this does concern me, but mom always told me that true Ãbermenschen always have their burdens. In other, somewhat related news, Dienekes reports on an interesting finding that in regards to skin tone a lighter shade of brown is oh so sexy baby, more so than black berry or pink peach. You didn't need to convince me, we're talking mid-20s on the von Luschan scale baby.

Important note: If you are a kuffir and do not respect Ramadan soft-core fast, you may click the image to view the full cornucopia of fleisch.

Tags

More like this

The most common emails I receive are about hair and eye color, and of these the most frequent source seems to be from individuals in interracial relationships. Quite often they are curious as to the possible outcome of their offspring's phenotype. Sometimes they wonder why their offspring looks…
Recently I had some blood work done for a routine check up and it turned out that I had vitamin D deficiency. The doctor explained to me that this is common amongst darker skinned people who live at high latitudes, especially in areas where cloudiness is the norm. That would fit the bill for my…
A reader emailed me asking about the genetics of hair color. Since I've discussed the topic before I simply pointed them to the query of the topic on my other blog. But, I thought it might be good to directly answer two specific questions: Why do many people have much lighter hair during childhood…
Hsien-Hsien Lei points me to another story about black and white twins. First, the "black" twin is clearly mixed race, her skin color is between the modal complexion of Europeans and sub-Saharan Africans on the von Luschan scale. The "white" twin on the other hand does seem to exhibit the color…

When it comes to that Von Luschan scale, i find myself interested in the ranges [1..12] and [28..36]. the middle tones are just boring. I must be weird, I guess , because i certainly agree that for most people the honey tones are what's hot. I fall at around #27 myself and i don't find my own skin unnatractive, but it's definitely not what ravishes me in women. Viva extreme paleneness and darkness combined with harmonious features .
Just how robust are those results though ? Are they simply a snapshot of contemporary north-american tastes ? I'd be surprised if Indians, for example, didn't express a strong preferenc for very light skin.

By ogunsiron (not verified) on 20 Oct 2006 #permalink

Just how robust are those results though ? Are they simply a snapshot of contemporary north-american tastes ? I'd be surprised if Indians, for example, didn't express a strong preferenc for very light skin.

i don't think they are robust at all, and i think they are german. i think the preference for light brown is relating to the tanning fad. btw, in india "very light" would of course be "swarthy" in northern europe.

Bogus study: all they proved was that people who work outdoors make less money than those who work indoors. They measured skin color off the back of the hand, rather than off the never-tanning inside of the upper arm where you are supposed to.

I prefer anything but extreme darkness or pallor, with honey and light / medium brown being best. I wonder how much of skin color preference is due to chance. It just so happened that my first gf -- who asked me out, which is unusual -- was Central American (probably Salvadorean), and she was light/medium brown. This was in 6th grade, after I'd just become interested in girls. And you know how I've turned out.

I'm sure there's some heritable personality component having to do with novelty-seeking, but chance events like this must play a role too. They tell you early on which group's members are more likely to want you (not confined to ethnic groups -- i.e., short vs tall girls, fat vs skinny, etc.). And guys, always looking for the path of least resistance, mold their preferences so that members of the above group are perceived as more attractive.