Reconstruction 8.4 (2008)

Return to Contentsť

The Color of Permission: Ritual, Race, and the Tanning Transformation / Mary Elizabeth Adams

Abstract: Tanning bed salons are quite popular in the United States, despite warnings that they increase cancer risks and speed the aging process. Warnings have not deterred bed tanners, who seem to value beauty ideals over health concerns. Certainly, tanning occupies a unique space in beauty culture. It offers the ability to transform quickly. And it offers, for those who are truly dissatisfied with their bodies, the ability to adopt a new identity. But why have young women continued this dangerous process when safer tanning processes are now available? This article traces bed tanning's adoption into the grooming ritual. Theories from ritual theory and evolution are incorporated into the discussion as I argue that tanning is not, as some recent studies have suggested, an addiction to the endorphins produced by the process. This article then seeks to understand why young women have adopted darker skin as the beauty ideal. Using the works of cultural critics, together with an analysis of 2007's Pimps and Hos parties, the article links tanning with key social issues. Ultimately, bed tanning seems to provide the sexual freedom and the sense of well-being that these young women are craving.

<1> Tanning bed salons occupy a paradoxical place in American popular culture. These salons, and the perfect tans they create, conjure strange association: flawless, youthful skin and premature wrinkles; healthy radiance and cancerous tumors; natural beauty and artificial means. How did we get here, to this place of acceptance among so many dangerous contradictions? A short history of tanning explains why Americans initially found this activity so attractive. Unfortunately, history cannot explain why - despite what we now know - Americans continue to use tanning beds.

<2> Turn-of-the-century medicine touted the sun as a treatment for various diseases, including lupus and tuberculosis. In the 1930s and 1940s, mothers were urged to expose infants to sunlight for its healthful effects on bones, teeth, and circulation. These medical beliefs, coupled with societal changes, made sunlight a twentieth-century wonder serum. As industrial labor meant working indoors, tanning was now a way of showcasing leisure time. Women were enjoying more outdoor sports, activities that keep the body fit and lean, activities that require leisure time. And a tan defined the most decadent of all leisure time activities: the resort vacation. As Coco Chanel famously proclaimed, "A golden tan is the index of chic" (Randle).

<3> Interestingly, the first tanning salon did not appear until the late 1970s, though tanning lamp technology had been available since the 1920s. But over the next decade more than eighteen thousand salons opened across the United States (Randle). Tanning had offered an irresistible combination of twentieth-century ideals: health, beauty, and conspicuous consumption. But bed tanning added additional twentieth-century ideals: immediacy and accessibility. These salons offered an almost instant tan, a new look, to people seeking alteration. Unlike diet and exercise, which require time and hard work, here was a relatively painless activity that provided a transformation of almost equal magnitude. Suddenly this transformation was accessible to anyone for a small monthly fee. One need only incorporate short salon visits into the grooming ritual.

<4> Ironically, these ideals result in a deadly combination. Despite physician outcries, magazine articles, and American Cancer Society pamphlets, a significant percentage of the population, particularly young white women, ignores these warnings. In a 2002 study, forty percent of young women surveyed, ages seventeen through eighteen, "had used a tanning sunlamp over the previous year" ("Studies Document"). My 1998 study sought to understand why one specific group - female students at the University of Oklahoma - used tanning beds. Questionnaires and interviews determined that these young women were well aware of the dangers of this behavior. Their responses indicated, on the whole, that achieving a tan made them feel healthier and more comfortable with their bodies. They understood the long-term risks but were more preoccupied with the immediate rewards.

<5> Today, young women who desire a tan have a number of safe - and equally immediate - options. Mystic tan, which is literally a machine misting system, is now available. Other salons offer airbrushing, where a trained employee sprays the body. Those with more training are adept at contouring the body, creating the illusion of more musculature and less fat. And for the do-it-yourselfer, self-application lotions are available at every make-up counter and discount store. The key difference is that safe tans do not use UV rays; they simply dye the skin's upper layer, resulting in a less permanent tan. Bed tans are actual tans, meaning the skin becomes a darker color through damaging rays, rays that, just like the sun, speed aging and increase cancer risks. Despite all of these safe options, bed tanning remains a thriving market. In Monroe, Louisiana, for example, there are fourteen tanning salons, yet only two advertise these alternatives. On the surface, customers are not demanding these safe practices, even though the tans are visually similar.

<6> At issue is why twenty-first-century young women subject themselves to damaging processes when safe processes exist. In order to answer this question, one might, as in my 1998 study, question tanners about their desires and decision-making. But results of that study revealed something quite disappointing: most respondents had no idea why they tanned. They, of course, offered answers for why they tanned:

29% said tans make them feel more attractive, 29% said they actually feel better when tanned, and another 29% believe they look healthier. 26% said they feel thinner while 18% feel more confident. . . Two girls said they felt their cellulite was less noticeable . . . (42-43)

For all these reasons, the respondents gave no real explanations. Why did they feel more attractive? Why were they more confident? How could darker cellulite be less noticeable?

<7> In other words, these responses prompted more questions than they answered. The respondents were echoing early twentieth-century sentiments when more contemporary factors were actually at work, factors they were unable to articulate or to admit. Today's lack of interest in safer alternatives suggests my 1998 study asked the wrong questions. Tanners were asked, "Why do you tan?" when a more provocative question might have been, "Why do you feel the need to alter yourself?" I now believe that contemporary bed tanning is best explained by analyzing the way it functions in the lives of young women. To that end, this article analyzes the social and sexual behaviors associated with this physical transformation. It examines tanning as a social grooming ritual and as a tool of sexuality and sexual confidence. Overall, contiguous theories are offered, shedding light on this overwhelming urge not simply to tan, but to transform at whatever cost.

II. Grooming and Ritual

<8> Recent studies and experiments have sought to explain the dangerous tanning phenomenon. In two such studies, the findings have linked habitual tanning with addiction. Studies from University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston and from Wake Forest University have argued that tanning may be habit forming because tanners can become addicted to the endorphins produced during the process. When UT researchers gave beachgoers a questionnaire designed to diagnose addictions, they found that 26% of one test group and 53% of another met the criteria for addiction. When UV light was blocked during the Wake Forest study, tanners experienced "nausea and jitteriness" ("Tanning Trippers"). But declaring tanning as "addictive" seems to simplify the behavior, as well as the role it plays within the lives of habitual tanners. Tanning itself is a dangerous behavior, but to most young tanners, it is simply another part of their grooming ritual. To fully understand bed tanning and its attraction, we might first analyze how grooming, in general, operates in the lives of young women.

<9> Bed tanning is, for young women, one of the newest elements of the grooming ritual. Some grooming rituals are deemed necessary; no one questions the importance of brushing teeth, showering, washing hair. But other, less important - or even dangerous - rituals can easily become a part of the perceived necessary; this is due, in part, to the "circularity" of ritual. As Catherine Bell explains, humans project "organizing schemes on space-time environments . . . while reabsorbing these schemes as the nature of reality" (99). Ultimately, the body ritual may become quite extensive, as explained by fictional character Bridget Jones:

Being a woman is worse than being a farmer - there is so much harvesting and crop spraying to be done: legs to be waxed, underarms shaved, eyebrows plucked . . . The whole performance is so highly tuned you only need to neglect it for a few days for the whole thing to go to seed. (Fielding 27)

Bridget's uses of farming and nature symbolize the never-ending cycle of beauty culture. Each part of the body requires attention, and that attention involves unending maintenance. Are women addicted to these behaviors? Certainly, most groomers would consider themselves safely within the boundaries of normal female behavior. And no one argues that hair removal, which is practiced by virtually all young women in the United States, is an addictive activity. Bed tanning, quite simply, has become an element within the grooming collective; this collective is an unending cycle, sometimes altered, but always accepted as a given.

<10> Why are women often consumed by grooming rituals? Perhaps the answer has less to do with addiction than with evolution. Grooming is a large part of the way we socially experience the world, much like for primates. In Robin Dunbar's fascinating book Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, he argues that human language evolved from our need to continue the social interactions that are innate to our closest relatives. And grooming is a very important part of that interaction. Dunbar explains:

In most species, as much as a fifth of the entire day may be spent grooming, or being groomed by, other group members. A mother will spend hours devotedly grooming her offspring, carefully leafing through its fur in search of dead skin, matted hair . . . She will also groom her friends and relations, in what seems to be selfless devotion to their hygienic interests. (21)

Interestingly, most of Dunbar's examples include interactions among females. Males do groom each other in specific situations; for example, a male who has overtaken a harem will groom its deposed leader in an act of community building (27). But females seem to participate in frequent and ongoing grooming, resulting, as we will see, in "deeply rooted alliances" (20).

<11> While Dunbar's research on primates establishes a pattern of interest in, and obsession with, grooming, the reasons for the grooming are most interesting. Some grooming helps other group members keep clean the areas they cannot reach, as with lemurs (36). Some grooming strengthens bonds between mother and child. Coincidentally, Dunbar points out, grooming actually relaxes primates because the practice "stimulates the production of the body's natural opiates, the endorphins" (36). One might conclude that primates are addicted to grooming. But that explanation would merely simplify what Dunbar reveals as a thoroughly complex social activity.

<12> Using specific examples from the gelada, a baboon species found in Ethiopia, Dunbar explains that grooming serves to form alliances between harem members. When a female is dominated by the harem's male, her grooming partners defend her: "The luckless victim's grooming partners invariably come to her aid. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they outface the male with outraged threats and furious barks of their own" (20-21). Sometimes, when grooming partners fear coming to her aid, they will groom her afterwards, as if in apology (20-26). Dunbar goes on to say,

Opiate highs are surely the mechanism that encourages animals to spend so much time grooming, but something more useful is needed as the evolutionary selection pressure to drive it along. That selection pressure seems to have been something to do with cementing bonds of friendship. (38)

<13> Dunbar's examples suggest that primates associate grooming with well-being: a feeling of emotional well-being produced by endorphins coupled with a sense of security within the group. Human grooming serves much the same purpose. The maintenance activities described by Bridget Jones leave many women with a sense of well-being, or at least a sense of accomplishment, while simultaneously securing their position in a group dynamic. For young women, grooming indicates that they are concerned with beauty and that they value society's expectations. As such, young women will befriend those with similar devotions to beauty culture and to societal expectation. Grooming also indicates that young women are interested in using beauty to attract sexual partners. For those who are romantically involved, beauty maintenance may become synonymous with relationship maintenance. In friendship and in romance, grooming communicates awareness of, and involvement with, society.

<14> Dunbar's overarching point is that primate social interactions are precursors to our own gossip practices. Humans use talk to form coalitions, just as the primates have used grooming. But his ideas resonate in various ways, suggesting that grooming rituals are not simply an addictive behavior. Rather, they offer a sense of personal and social well-being.

<15> Certainly, this sense of well-being is paradoxical to the tanning bed's destructive results. Nonetheless, bed tanners have found a comfortable and painless addition to their ritual. This is no small feat for women who have accepted that grooming is a painful and agricultural enterprise. Plucking, waxing, shaving, exfoliating, buffing, moisturizing - all of these take time and energy. And women feel obliged to devote that time and energy. Bed tanning, on the other hand, merely involves a few naps per week. It is a relaxing process that will not be easily replaced by fake tans, which all require preparation, application, and maintenance. The self-application process must be done carefully and evenly; otherwise, the tan will be splotchy and uneven. The spray tan introduces another person, who works by appointment, and possible embarrassment into this equation. And the misting systems require users to cover hair, to put tape on their nails, to stuff cotton in their ears and between their toes. On the surface, this is not an improvement to an already acceptable process.

<16> Bed tanning, ironically, offers comfort that the safer alternatives cannot. Perhaps bed tanning also offers an endorphins boost. But above all, the bed tan offers authenticity. The alternatives, eventually, wash off. A combination of time, sweat, and friction will remove the tan. Each of these alternatives presents room for error; each process may leave behind a large area - or even just a spot - revealing the pale girl beneath the tan; revealing what she hopes to hide from friends, lovers, and even herself. But the bed tan creates an actual, physical change over the entire body. The entire body becomes darker. Maintenance allows a light-skinned person to exist as a dark-skinned person. Maintenance provides the security of knowing that you have not simply covered your perceived flaws; you have replaced them. This provides more security within both social and romantic environments. And, of course, maintenance serves to integrate this behavior into the grooming ritual. Ritualistic bed tanning, then, offers a more complete transformation and a more secure status. And as Section III explains, that more authentic transformation may help these women transition into confident sexual beings.

III. Sexuality and the Ethnic Divide

<17> During my first tanning presentation at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Joint Conference, an audience member suggested sexual motivations for tanning. Popular culture scholar Dennis Hall referred to tanning as a way of "wearing something when one is wearing nothing." He asserted that tanned skin offered young women - who were not comfortable with their bodies - a way of shielding themselves during sex. His theory prompted me to re-evaluate the responses. My questionnaire had asked respondents to write a paragraph describing how they regarded their bodies when pale. Only 14% of the respondents were comfortable in a pale body. In that study, the remaining 86%

insinuate[d] not only discomfort with, but also, and too often, repulsion by a pale appearance. 22% described themselves as either unhealthy looking or sickly. 8% used the words "ugly" or "disgusting," 8% described themselves as generally less attractive . . . Two girls actually described themselves as "gross." Other descriptions include: don't like myself, self-conscious, have more skin problems, hesitant to wear shorts and other summer clothes, dull and uncomfortable. (43)

On a second look, these responses did reveal fears of external judgments. These females feared being regarded as "ugly" and "gross," and tanning placed a barrier between the real, insecure girl and the image she was creating for herself.

<18> Young women would understandably be uncomfortable with nudity. As a young girl's body changes, she is faced with far more social discomfort than her male cohort. His changes will not, in most cases, render him a spectacle. She, on the other hand, illustrates various stages of imperfection. Media representations of perfectly polished, and often tanned, bodies have provided young women with a beauty ideal. But why have young women come so wholeheartedly to think of their original selves as gross, to think of the more sexual self as a darker version of the same?

<19> Alice E. Adams' article "Molding Women's Bodies" asks similar questions concerning women's desire for plastic surgery. Adams says that consultations are based upon the "agreement of surgeon and female patient that her body suffers from an inherent pathology preventing it from achieving 'natural' beauty" (73). We believe that beauty can only be attained through hard work, as revealed in Bridget Jones's farming reference. This can be blamed on advertisers and product manufacturers. But history and sociology are equally complicit, suggesting that white girls should be most uncomfortable with their bodies. The pale have been urged to cover their bodies, all the while being told that "other" cultures have permission to reveal theirs.

<20> Alice Adams' idea of innate ugliness is directly tied to what I term "The Color of Permission." Today, we are a global community. But long before instant information, young women gained access - through documentaries, movies, and magazines - to "other" worlds. My first view of another's naked body came during a documentary screening at our parish library. I cannot recall the South American tribe that served as our focus, but I remember well how the camera lingered on the swaying breasts of these dark-skinned women. The adult audience members were unmoved, accustomed to the female nudity that comes with cultural enlightenment. I, not yet ten, would break the silence: "Mom, Mom, those people are naked!" My mother attempted to put the scene in perspective. Some thirty years later, her words remain as vivid as the swaying breasts: "It's okay, that's how they live in their world." It's okay for them. It's okay for these people to be comfortable with their bodies. It's okay for them to regard the natural body as a given. In her words, of course, lay the underlying truth that I should not feel so comfortable with my body. I did not live in their world. In her words, also, lay history's obsession with and sexualizing of the other's body. The story of the "Hottentot Venus," who was exhibited from 1810 to 1815, illustrates that exploitation of the other has long been considered acceptable. Certainly, the female form has been the more exploited form, used to emphasize the animalistic and lascivious nature of the other (Wiegman 57-60).

<21> Certainly, my questionnaire respondents of 1998 had come to similar realizations. Their responses support the idea that young Caucasian women have absorbed a discomfort with whiteness. Remember the respondents described themselves, while in a naturally pale state, as "sickly," "ugly," "gross," and "uncomfortable." But one young Caucasian woman said it most succinctly. She wrote that, without a tan, "she felt 'white'" (43).

<22> For the young white female, getting a tan may now be a rite of passage from innocence to sexual being. Very recent cultural practices indicate that college-aged white women associate darker skin with increased sexual freedom. Throughout 2007, white college students organized what are called Pimps and Hos parties, or Gangsta parties. At these parties, students perform images of what they perceive as stereotypical ghetto life. Such parties have been reported at Clemson University, University of Connecticut, University of Arizona, Johns Hopkins University, and Tarleton State University in Texas. Information on the parties has been widely available because, in several instances, partygoers posted photographs on their Facebook accounts.

<23> These photographs - still accessible through various media, including the antiracism blog Racialicious.com - show some partygoers in black body paint, pink skin peeping between their sweaty fingers. One white female has elaborately padded her rear. Another female is wearing faux tiger paw tattoos, one sitting atop each breast, like those of rapper Eve. Many of the subjects are attempting to throw gang signs. Some are dirty dancing, their bodies frozen in the bump and grind. Interestingly, some partygoers were actually black. At the University of Arizona, four of fifteen attendees were African Americans who were, reportedly, "not offended by the party" (Smith).

<24> CNN hosted various discussions about the parties, as talking heads debated the motivations of these white students. Commentators dismissed the students as racially insensitive or as blatant racists. Blogs have allowed the public to question how far race relations have actually progressed. But these photos - however unsettling - do not necessarily prove the partygoers are racists. Yes, their actions were wrong and insensitive and racist, but what if these students were emulating black culture because they would like to be part of it? What if the female partygoers saw an opportunity not simply to parody blackness, but to adopt - for one evening - a comfort with their own sexuality?

<25> While these students are creating a very offensive parody of black urban life, they appear to have been, for the most part, reenacting images from music videos. Venise Berry, a University of Iowa journalism professor, told the Associated Press, "The segment of rap music that is glamorized and popularized by the media is gangsta rap. It has become an image that is normalized in our society. That to me explains clearly why they (the white partygoers) don't see it as wrong" ("Black Stereotype Parties"). The media's complicity is supported by bell hook's essay "Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance," which begins with the following assertion: "[M]ass culture is the contemporary location that both publicly declares and perpetuates the idea that there is pleasure to be found in the acknowledgment and enjoyment of racial difference" (21).

<26> Mass culture often serves as a simultaneous celebration and exploitation of African American identity. Gangsta rap, which is particularly popular with both white and black youth, is a poignant example. While African American males are projected as powerful and successful in these videos, the females are purely sexual beings. The video background is awash in dancing females, suggesting that the male will have his pick of these beauties - over and over again. The women are voiceless and choiceless, usually dancing in gyrating movements and always scantily clad. Their bodies are vehicles of pleasure, and they seem willing to accept this role. To the white female gaze, the black female body becomes a symbol of uninhibited sexuality. A critical eye recognizes the social injustice of this representation; but to the young white student, who is struggling to gain comfort with her own body, this representation may evoke a confusing "desire to make contact" (hooks 25). hooks explains that this desire "assuages the guilt of the past, even takes the form of a defiant gesture where one denies accountability and historical connection." She goes on to say,

[The desire] establishes a contemporary narrative where the suffering imposed by structures of domination on those designated Other is deflected by an emphasis on seduction and longing where the desire is not to make the Other over in one's image but to become the Other. (25)

The desire to make contact, then, serves as an impetus for role-playing. This is supported by white youth's fascination with rap culture, which, in turn, has resulted in white youth's seeming appropriation of that culture. In probing young white America's tendency to "seek contact with dark Others," hooks offers multiple possibilities for this desire:

On the reactionary right, white youth may be simply seeking to affirm "white power" when they flirt with having contact with the Other. Yet there are many white youths who desire to move beyond whiteness. Critical of white imperialism and "into" difference, they desire cultural spaces where boundaries can be transgressed, where new and alternative relations can be formed. (36)

Race parody parties appear, on first look, to be an act of cultural domination. But they may serve as a way of transgressing boundaries and forming "new and alternative relations," relations that older generations will not understand. To discern the difference, we must realize a "distinction between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation" (39), even if these partygoers failed in that regard. Understanding such a distinction is complicated because, in either case, the act is founded on a hidden desire for difference. This desire "assuages guilt," convincing the white students that they are acting within the realm of acceptable behavior.

<27> The young white female's intentions are further complicated by her own discomfort with and distaste for the pale body. Parodying blackness becomes, for her, the purest form of "eating the Other" as she attempts to "embody" the black female's "spirit or special characteristics" (31). For young women who abhor their pale skin, such a parody may reveal far more about self-loathing than about racial prejudice.

<28> It may seem inappropriate to rationalize these parties. Certainly, regardless of intentions, they are acts of "consumer cannibalism" where African Americans and their history are denied (31). Nonetheless, identity, at this interpretive moment, is complicated by far more than race and history. Consider that, statistically speaking, almost half of these female partygoers have participated in bed tanning. At various points in their short lives, they have attempted to merge with their more perfect dark-skinned selves. Perhaps, in their minds, they have merely taken their attempts one step further.

<29> The popularity of bed tanning, together with the advent of race parody parties, suggests that young people are eager to escape whiteness. hooks describes this urge, saying, "One desires 'a bit of the Other' to enhance the blank landscape of whiteness" (29). This quote works nicely for young people who have become bored with their own identities. But for the females I've studied, their situation is of even more concern. They did not regard themselves as blank landscapes. They saw themselves as intolerable terrain: "sickly," "ugly," "gross," and "uncomfortable." These young women were seeking far more than enhancement. They were seeking a complete reversal of whiteness and the shortcomings they associate with it. For both tanners and race parodiers, such a reversal seems both possible and positive.

V. Conclusion

<30> Why do today's young women continue to bed tan when safe tans are available? Unfortunately, bed tanning is far more than a fading fad. Bed tanning is popular because it occupies an unusual space in the grooming ritual. Like any grooming ritual, it offers a sense - real or imagined - of personal and social well-being. Perhaps the increased endorphins make it even more pleasurable. But tanning goes beyond the boundaries of other grooming practices. It offers young women an opportunity not simply to "improve" the original self. It allows, in one act, the seamless transformation of the entire body. This transformation offers young women permission to become another or, in this case, "the Other." Ignoring the dangers of bed tanning suggests that these young women are most concerned with becoming someone else, someone who is more comfortable and more sexual. Tanning gives them permission to be both. It also, unfortunately, gives them permission to ignore the serious risks associated with this practice.

Works Cited

Adams, Alice E. "Molding Women's Bodies: The Surgeon as Sculptor." Bodily Discursion: Genders, Representations, Technologies. Eds. Deborah S. Wilson and Christine Moneera Laennec. Albany: State U of New York P, 1997.

Adams, Mary. "The Invisible Burn: A Cultural Analysis of Female Collegiate Tanning." Studies in Popular Culture 21.3 (1999): 37-50.

Associated Press. "Black Stereotype Parties Spark Outrage." MSNBC.com. January 31, 2007. June 4, 2007. http://msnbc.com.

Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford UP, 1992.

Dunbar, Robin. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1996.

Fielding, Helen. Bridget Jones's Diary. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Gupta, Sanjay. "Tanning Addicts." Time. 21 August 2005. March 28, 2007. http://www.time.com/time/printouts.

Hall, Dennis. Personal interview. April 1999.

hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End Press, 1992.

Moore, Philip Arthur. "Tarleton State and U Conn Law Celebrate MLK with "Ghetto" and "Gangster" Parties." Racialicious. January 26, 2007. June 4, 2007. http://www.racioulicious.com.

Randle, Henry. "Suntanning: Differences in Perceptions Throughout History." Mayo Clinic Proceedings Online. 1997. October 12, 2007. http://www.mayoclinicproceedings.com.

Smith, Courtney. "'Black' Theme Party Elicits Concerned Response." The Wildcat Online. February 6, 2007. June 4, 2007. http://www.wildcat.arizona.edu.

"Studies Document Need to Improve Teens' Sun Protection Attitudes and Behavior." CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians 52 (2002): 249-51.

"Tanning Trippers Get UV High." Environmental Health Perspectives 114.7 (2006): A 403.

Wiegman, Robyn. American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender. Durham: Duke UP, 1995.

Return to Topť