diff --git a/tornado/options.py b/tornado/options.py
index f9f472ff..5fb91e1f 100644
--- a/tornado/options.py
+++ b/tornado/options.py
@@ -354,12 +354,17 @@ class _LogFormatter(logging.Formatter):
         logging.Formatter.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
         self._color = color
         if color:
-            # The curses module has some str/bytes confusion in python3.
-            # Most methods return bytes, but only accept strings.
-            # The explict calls to unicode() below are harmless in python2,
-            # but will do the right conversion in python3.
-            fg_color = unicode(curses.tigetstr("setaf") or 
-                               curses.tigetstr("setf") or "", "ascii")
+            # The curses module has some str/bytes confusion in
+            # python3.  Until version 3.2.3, most methods return
+            # bytes, but only accept strings.  In addition, we want to
+            # output these strings with the logging module, which
+            # works with unicode strings.  The explicit calls to
+            # unicode() below are harmless in python2 but will do the
+            # right conversion in python 3.
+            fg_color = (curses.tigetstr("setaf") or
+                        curses.tigetstr("setf") or "")
+            if (3, 0) < sys.version_info < (3, 2, 3):
+                fg_color = unicode(fg_color, "ascii")
             self._colors = {
                 logging.DEBUG: unicode(curses.tparm(fg_color, 4), # Blue
                                        "ascii"),