Terribly untanned

Dear Mexican:

If dark-skinned people are so “undesirable,” unwelcome and put down by you gringos, how come you bake in the sun like zopilotes to get dark? Summer is fantasy time for all of you, when you can actually get some color in that white skin of yours. Maybe the whole deal about racists is that they hate being white. I would, too! Maybe white angry males are actually latent homosexuals attracted to dark-skinned men! I know for a fact that white women at one point or another fantasize about a dark man, and that many more actually convert that fantasy into reality with guys like me. Who wants to go to bed with a pale guy? I don’t think being brown or black is bad after all. Comments?

—Tall, Handsome and Dark

Dear Wab:

You won’t hear any arguments from me about this, but since I’m not versed in the gabacho ways, I threw the question to the Mexican’s Mexican, William Anthony Nericcio of San Diego State University and the scabrous Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the “Mexican” in America. In addition to dissecting the semiotics of Mexican imagery, profe Nericcio also has insight into the American obsession with image (check out his upcoming Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race). Take it, Nericcio!

“This is the age-old sexual conundrum that is actually easy to explain—we all covet something ’strange’ from time to time; or, to use other words, the ’exotic’ is erotic, the other beckons with an erotic electricity that can be blinding and impossible to overcome. Let’s pause here a second and throw racism and sexuality into the proverbial conceptual blender: racism is an extension of sex when you think about it—the racist’s hate of the visually different other stems from an anxiety (at the level of DNA) for ’the same.’ The tribal backstory of Homo sapiens evolution (whether or not you buy into the frisky intersexual intrigues that just had to be going down with Neanderthals) is a tale of a species that ’feels safe’ when making the beast with two backs within the tribe, but that benefits in terms of evolution when philandering outside the tribe. Evolutionary anthropologists call this exogamy—basically the species (or the tribe) thrives when you stop sleeping with your familia, second-cousin lovers be damned!

“So enjoy all the love you’re getting and sharing with pale chicas lusting after your swarthy goodness. While you might feel muy guapo with all the attention, know also that these melatonin-challenged mujeres are merely following basic laws of attraction that owe more to Darwin than your own inner-Papi-chulo!”

I read your column some time ago about why Mexicans go swimming in their undershirts. But I think you missed something. All us Mexican guys are terribly untanned. Lift up my sleeve, and it looks like someone dipped my arm in the deep fryer, at least after the shirt ends. How do I fix this?

—Prieto but Not That Prieto

Dear Dark but Not That Dark Wab:

You want to be darker? Um, OK, but the Mexican always loves to shock gabacho audiences by rolling up his sleeves to show a natural skin color even lighter than their lace-curtain Irish auntie. Besides, there’s no better way to get into a gabacha’s chonis is by asking them if they want to see your naturally tanned verga—or not.

¡Ask a Mexican! videos are back!

Gentle cabrones:

After a years-long hiatus, I’ve relaunched the video version of this columna. Follow my weekly rants on Twitter by clicking the hashtag #askamexican and ask away. Enjoy!