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I think it's mad how people still want to tan when we all know the dangers. I see girls at my college campus all lying out in bikinis, looking like easy women aswell, as getting all burnt. I don't get it!
I am very pale, of Danish background and think that I am beautiful as I am. People who are naturally brown are beautiful too. What looks bad are these little pale girls, trying to look like bronzed goddesses and just ending up being prematurely aged and having possible melanomas in their 20's and 30's.

If tanned is considered beautiful in society, then being tanned is beautiful, because your outward beauty is defined by those who look upon you. Said in a another way, if everybody thinks that you have to be tanned to be beautiful, then you do. People then stand with a choice, do they want to be beautiful or not. And if the cost is a theoretical chance of skin-cancer, in a distant future where skin cancer might be fully curable, then who can blame them.
Also, many enyoy being in the sun for various reasons such as sport or outdoor drinking. The fact that they value doing this while they are young over the undefinable possiblity of skincancer is not nessacarily a sign of stupidity, just a different evaluation of benefits than your own.

[edited by Community Moderator for inappropriate language]

Yes, #2, you're only beautiful if everyone else thinks you are, and then only if you're tan. The writer isn't saying to avoid the sun altogether, just pointing out how to be safe and avoid CANCER, which I'm not sure if you're aware, SUCKS BEYOND THE TELLING OF IT.

I am not tanned and have never been thought unattractive....I have always shunned the sun and have never thought that "forcing" a tan when you are meant to be naturally pale was a good idea either aesthetically or for health reasons.
Lying out in the sun is not very wise unless you have slathered sunscreen on and keep reapplying it and have a fair amount of melanin in your skin already.
There are many actresses and models who shun the sun and are still very attractive.
Also, Anon#2, there is a lot more to beauty than a colour! If you have unattractive features, tanning them will not make you more attractive especially adding wrinkles to the mix. I agree though, that people should make up their own minds as long as they are informed of the dangers of sun exposure.

Don't try to be beautiful, just be yourself. For people who worry about such things -- what others think of them and what society wants of them -- life goes by in a flash before they realize they've spent none of their own time for themselves. They live as if they've all the time in the world, letting everyone take as much of it from them as they want, and only really begin to live for themselves in their retirement, when they are too old to enjoy life as they could have in youth. They find themselves wishing they could have had more time to live, wishing life were longer than what nature has given to us. What they fail to realize is that the time allotted to us by nature is more than enough. Don't waste your time living for everyone else : live for yourself.
Life is long if you know how to use it.