pale and interesting

A cheeky reference to heroines of Victorian operas and novels, who frequently became ill -- but not so ill they can't remain both romantically tragic and, above all, beautiful. Usually they have tuberculosis (TB), which allows for dramatic coughing up of blood, tender goodbyes with devastated lovers, and a ROBUST aria right before she perishes. Somehow the fact that she's dying of an airborne disease never deters anyone from seeking out her intimate company. She's got this charming pink glow to her fevered cheeks that no gentleman can resist... Authors of these stories love to wax rhapsodic about the heroine's "milky" or "alabaster" skin, and the sicker she gets the more exquisitely white she becomes! While modern readers may wonder why anyone would want to make love to a woman the same color as chalk, bleach, or the cliffs of Dover, the Victorians were very turned on by these connotations of racial purity. Nowadays such descriptions are considered purple prose, and if not outright racist then certainly in very poor taste. The phrase "pale and interesting" is an oxymoron that mocks both the silliness and melodrama of this trope. You may feel sick as a dog, but hey, some uptight people with weird hang-ups around sex find that attractive! Lucky you! See TVTropes.com's "Victorian Novel Disease" for a detailed description of the source material.