This thread got me thinking.
It seems there are a lot of dark skinned cultures who favor fair skinned people for some reason. Are there cases of peoples who favor fairer skinned people even though they had no contact with fair (white) skinned people?
I have wondered that to. I don’t know the answer for sure. However, my sister in law just spent 4 months in a very remote part of Kenya studying Mandrels. She is a pretty, petite, and blonde. When she visited two isolated villages, she said that the people, particulary the children swarmed her and touched her hair etc. It could be just that they thought she was very unusual to them but it sounded like they considered her attractive in some way.
That is true in many societies. Fair skin=doesn’t work outdoors=high class.
I read the autobiography of a black (IIR, very black) American dancer who toured with her group in Poland in, maybe, the 1950s. She got the attention and touches, and the interpreter was kept busy.
Different aspect of the subject, in physical anthropology Kroeber(?) made the point that domesticated animals show type variations and humans show similar type variations. Examples: poodles, sheep, a breed of chicken, and sub-Saharan humans all show tight curliness, while it doesn’t appear in non-domesticated animals. And curly hair, the non-kinky variety, also appears in humans, dogs, and cats, as does variations on baldness and on ever-growing hair; this is typically not seen in wild animals.
Humans have color variability (hair blond, brown, red and black) and so do domestic animals (all the colors you see in dogs, cats, horses, cattle, chickens, etc), while any species of wild animal typically is made up of basically one color.
And undomesticated animals rarely go to color extremes, ie white only for protective coloration like with polar bears and winter coats, and black rare in a panther variation.
We understand if a dog is born with an unusual color, people are likely to keep it and try to breed from it. The same with horses, cats, chickens…
Sexual selection is a known factor in other genetic shifts. It is conceivable that in isolated populations, that “fashions” or sexual selection have favored a given skin tone as a standard of beauty, leading to greater reproductive success for the darkest in one population, and the lightest in another(and the fattest in another, and the tallest in another…).
Back to the OP, once you have a population of a settled type, a person of novel appearance is likely to be found attractive, or at least intriguing.
An animal behavorist I know told me about a hypothesis: It’s easier to see parasites on lighter skin than darker skin. If you’re looking at potential mates, you’re going to want someone who is healthy (i.e., they do not have parasites). Thus, a fair-skinned individual tends to be selected because the health status of their skin will be more apparent. The preference for light skinned may be programmed in us.
But I dunno about this. Light skin as “beauty” is a standard held over women’s heads primarily, while “darkness” is generally associated with male handsomeness.
There is a physiological reason that lightness could be selected for more in females than in males. Synthesis of Vitamin D, needed for calcium is partially blocked by dark skin - and females may have a greater need for calcium during lactation and pregnancy.
From here
I remember reading that testosterone stimulates melanocytes.
In the 1980’s I was in Lhasa Tibet with an American that also studied Chinese in Taiwan at the time. He was black. He was also a big hit at the tibetan villages we visited. While these people had seen caucasians, they had never seen a black guy. They exhibited very natural curiousity, and in a very friendly and engaging manner wanted to touch his skin, hair and ask him questions. It also helped that Tibetans are really friendly people, and really exotic looking as well, so it was a two way trade checking each other out.
In Cambodia they even sell some horrbile skin-bleaching agent for women. You can even find a few brands for sale in Cambodian grocery shops here in the US. We even saw some ‘beer girls’ (prostitutes) wearing ridiculous pancake make-up at a club in Battambang (2nd largest city in Cambodia).