Do people smoke because it's cool? Or do cool people smoke?

apparently there is pressure on Hollywood to start playing down smoking on screen. it was even mooted that when a character is seen smoking on screen, looking totatlly cool and sophisticated as they invariably do, an anti-message would be shown at the same time. i'm sure this will never happen, but it makes you wonder what is going thru the minds of the anti-smoking lobby, the censors and other assorted plebs.

It seems an obvious point, but smoking tends to get less cool the more the consequences of it come wheezing into view. And when the life expectancy of people close to you is strongly related to their smoking habits the glamorous allure of the cigarette starts to vanish.

(I realise pious ex-smokers are irritating as fuck , so I'll shut up now.)

why are non-smokers obsessed with smokers? it almost makes me feel cool. get over it people.

I know having me not find you attracive may not be the biggest loss, I'll wager that a good proportion of non-smokers see a foxy chick/dude, see them lighting up, and turn away disappointed.

Ha! My girlfriend always demanded that I stop. "If you love me you will stop." I did not stop. I loved her.

Now she has started smoking. She says she will do it until I stop. "If you love me you will stop to make me stop." We do not stop.

I think eventually I will surprise her, and stop, and she will go on. Will this serve her right, or do I not love enough?

I have had boyfriends who smoked. I try to kill them anyway so I didn't mind.

Definitely. You don't realise how offensive the smell of someone that's just had a cigarette is, until you are a non-smoker. I mean, you can smell it, but believe me, you never really know how bad it is. It is stale smoke that is the worst. I also hate it when you go to the pub & your hair & clothes stink of other peoples smoke. But as I said, I am not a preacher ex-smoker, i don't mind smoking on hte whole.

Seriously, smokers don't bother me one bit but I do wonder why they start when all I hear now from my smoking friends is "I really need to quit".

The world and its workers are very odd.

Most of the kids at school who started smoking at age 11/12 didn't make it through highschool (they weren't very cool). A lot of my high school friends started smoking when they went to college - I thought at that point you knew enough smokers that you would know it would be a bad idea to start.

The most unattractive I have found my husband was when I saw him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth - a year after he had quit. But I seen a lot of pictures of him smoking and I think a lot of people would have said he looked pretty cool.

Ally, you're absolutely right. Why would I want to be with someone stupid and inconsiderate enough to smoke?

Ally, you're absolutely right. Why would I want to be with someone stupid and inconsiderate enough to smoke?

Word. Looks gross + odor = not sexeh.

That all being said, smoking and vegetarianism are the two most amazing topics on this board to me. Any thread talking about ways to cook or enjoy meat, or anything about smoking, gets bombarded with hatred--is it that hard to just ignore things? No one on ILX is actually smoking on you, cos it's the internet! Everyone wins.

As for looking cool, I guess it does, of only because someone smoking has only one hand to worry about. Like the drummer from Def Leppard always looked well cool. Except when they tried to disguise the fact he only had one arm by making it look like he had his other arm around somebody, that looked like shit.

Mandee - see above. it's socially acceptable, by and large, so complaining makes no difference. I've never had a problem with you smoking, and I'm sure if it was blowing in my face or something, you'd be happy to move your hand or whatever.

(occasionally it does have a physcial effect on me, and I've had two or three nasty asthma moments triggered by smoke, but that's different)

Kenan, it has nothing to do with people making different decisions from me. It's the fact that it directly affects me in an entriely negative way.

i used to be cool, untill i developed a little problem with my lungs collapsing. and it might sound weird but i kinda miss smoking.

The difference to keep in mind here is that toilet cleansers will actually do clean your toilet to some degree, whereas cigarettes only add a theatrical prop to your gestures, a wretched smell to your clothes and hair, a taste of tar to your mouth and a morning hack that could shake the dust from a mummy. As that roomful of 'cool' smokers age ungracefully into middle age, the exact benefits of smoking become more definable. The 'cool' aspect recedes along with the smoker's youth, while the other aspects of smoking bulk ever larger.

When you get the age where parents/aunts and uncles etc may not see their grandchildren grow up as a result of this particular habit, it's bound to reduce your tolerance of it.

It doesn't mean you go throwing water over anyone who sparks up or having a go at them in public, but it might make you question how fucking cool they really are.

Like I said before, though, I've literally been brainwashed on this subject. I know ex-smoker self-righteousness is a pain in the arse.

(Please note this might be a joke before you all get a hard on for this post)

Someone should tell Fran Drescher, now that I think about this.

Smoking: very uncool, big turnoff, especially with women. I know a couple women in their 20's who smoke who look like they are in their 30's. I like an occasional cigar myself - you know, after a good dinner, sitting around a campfire, stuff like that - and while I'm not a militant anti-smoker, there is just something kind of sad and irritating about people who sit in bars and chain smoke. Like, ok, you're among friends right? you've had a couple pints right? Surely you're a bit relaxed, so why are you constantly smoking?!

Oh, and people complaining about how they "really need a cigarette" is annoying.

It makes perfect sense. The difference is aesthetic. Smoking at any age isn't justifiable by any other criteria.

(strange xpost)

(I'm not trying to say any of these people are hot, I'm just posting pix that seem to fit with the actual question being posed on the thread)

I could care less whether a woman smokes or not. I've dated way more non-smokers than smokers. As long as they don't bitch about my smoking. Especially if we're in a bar.

!!!

Coolest motherfucker alive. Throat cancer.

Ally , i saw the az~dz conan episode when it first aired so the smoking stormtrooper beats it.

I've stopped smoking sober and at work, and I'm pretty proud of that. The smell is very off-putting, especially when I would come back to work after lunch and my fingers would stink like a past-due dromedary found at the bottom of a viking laundry hamper.

not that this makes smoking any better.

you are a fool

Marley had cancer on his foot

When I look at the people I know, there is no doubt in my mind that the cool people smoke. At the coolest parties I've ever been to - nearly everyone smokes. At the uncoolest parties I've ever been to - no-one smokes.

This is, actually, entirely untrue, from my experience. But then maybe I have a weird definition of "cool".

I've stopped smoking sober and at work
millar, what happens if you're drunk at work¿

Well, replace pop with whiskey, and "talk about how great everything is" with "make sophomoric sex jokes", and you are talking about my kind of party!

I bum one off a friend, what else is new

If there's no immediate chance of the above happening between me and a person, then whether that someone smokes or not makes no difference to me at all. I live in Washington state, probably the last state under North Carolina and Louisiana and possibly some European countries, to enforce any smoking bans in cool places... so I kinda have to be used to the smell of second hand smoke, like it or not.

(That said, I briefly dated someone who was a total stoner, and maybe she was very dextrous with the perfumes or deoderants or something, but I didn't, ahem, encounter any issue of toxic senses at all)

Of course, he made antismoking PSAs just before he died of cancer.

And Donut Bitch is totally OTM about some of the more unpleasant up-close aspects. I've never seriously dated a smoker, but have known some coworkers whose breath should have been banned by the EPA.

I am kind and considerate. Until I stop smoking, drinking alcohol, drinking coffee, and eating junk food, until I drink nothing but water and eat nothing but sweet, ripe fruits and vegetables, I do not expect swallowing.

i'd like to consider myself a considerate smoker. i don't smoke in other people's houses (or my own) unless they do. i go to great lengths to not blow smoke in other people's faces and try to keep the smouldering fag out of their face too. i realise full well that most people find it unappealing and i'd like them to not have reason to take me to task on my habit.

i have to say i love smoky breath on a girl. even before i was a smoker i liked it. eh, i dunno.

HAHAHAHA, that's not exactly what I meant when I said "Other tastes", but I'm glad you brought up the point. :)

(Woohoo! I'm glad we're getting the U + K issues covered here.)

I agree totally -- if you reverse 'non-smokers' and 'smokers'. Smoke masks pheromones and musk, as well as the taste of food, the smell of cloth, and whatever other nice things sensualists like to smell before devouring them.

A large part of the reson for this is that tobacco advertising is aimed at the sensualist demographic

Speaking of a sensualist, I have only been repelled by the Marlboro Man (so lonely and far away from potential lovers, unless they are cattle) and those Sears catalog types flashing implausibly white teeth (smoking makes your teeth yellow) and sitting by a cascading fresh stream (smoking makes your environment stale, not fresh).

Someone eating a piece of fruit, on the other hand, is a sexy person who will appeal to sensualists.

I recently split up with someone. The most horrific image I have of her is when she offered to cook for me, then started stirring the food in the saucepan with the cigarette still in her hand and the ash falling in. At that moment our future as sensualists was doomed.

I thought that woman Momus described who was cooking and smoking at the same time sounded cute. For me, the sight of people eating fruit is quite annoying. They often look fussy and sanctimonious as they peel their oranges and pull the segments apart, or chow down their bananas. They don't look like sensualists to me; they look as if they're fulfilling the daily obligations outlined by the Food Pyramid.

It's all in the technique and attitude. Although I don't ever expect anyone ever to make eating a carrot stick look sexy.

1/"the sight of people eating fruit is quite annoying. They often look fussy and sanctimonious as they peel their oranges and pull the segments apart, or chow down their bananas."

??

2/"I also read somewhere that smokers are more truthful than non smokers. Now THAT I believe. Non smokers are goddam liars."

????

weird.....

BLUUUUUUUUUURRRRGGHHH

Me in Thinking Momus Is Totally OTM This Time shocker.

Seriously, why do most health advocates take such a puritanical attitude toward what they want you to give up? In the United States at least, part of the reason smoking is associated with coolness, youth, and rebellion is because the people who tell us why smoking is so bad always present themselves as dorky sourpusses.

Momus' image of hotties eating various fruits in decadent, sexy manners sounds a lot more appealing than any fruit marketing board campaign I've ever seen.

*It's my annoying, fussy, fruit-obsessed, anal-retentive boss who is providing these images. Don't pay any attention to me, I'm just raving about nothing:)

Pashmina, I was joking with that ridiculuous crack about non-smokers being liars. But I did love Estela's comment about sanctimonious fruit eaters. It reminded me of the kind of one-episode character we used to see in Seinfeld.

As for the fruit-vs-smoking alliances that are forming, I suggest we all settle our differences over a nice bowl of juicy tomaccos.

It shouldn't be too hard to make a list of people who died tragically and pathetically young from lung or throat cancer. Andrei Tarkovsky is one.

Don't men do it too? A friend of mine who's a non-smoker, hates the smell of smoke, and is an avid and ostentatious fruit eater, told me that she became attracted to one of her boyfriends because of the cool way he held a cigarette, while having another behind his ear for later.

(Please note this is directed at no one on this thread specifically before you all LOSE YOUR MINDS)

Colin, thank-you for your coconut man suggestion. It could be a sexy sight I suppose, though I feel a bit doubtful. What if it means the man has some kind of dumb maternal fixation?

That said, as long as it's legal, it makes little sense to ban it in bars.

the big problem is like any drug the habit accelerates quickly and sometimes imperceptibly (however if i lived in nyc where a pack is seven fucking dollars i'd probably do a better job of perceiving this)....

one of my problems is that many people in my life purposely do not know that i smoke, which paradoxically makes quitting a bit harder because quitting can be a fairly conspicuous activity that requires some indulgence on the part of friends/relatives.

still boy do i need to quit. as i told felicity recently, they're starting to make me sick i think.

What is, then? Driving your car into a tree?

Oh? Why did no one tell me this previously?! Like, perhaps, in the form of printed warnings, directly on every pack I buy? Does the government know?!

I miss you sometimes, tobacco.

Not that those things don't have truth in them: smoking's a dangerous (and expensive) habit, and it seems like most smokers would like to phase it out of their lives themselves. But it remains sort of strange to see third parties criticize it so vociferously. Most smokers only smoke in the few places where they're allowed to, and presumably don't mind if a few people think they smell bad -- so why, one might rightly ask, are people after them, over a bad habit that's not forceably harming anyone*, and one they'd fully agree is a bad habit in the first place? This is the source of all the Puritan caricatures that get thrown at anti-smoking types: "I smoke," says the smoker, "only where I'm allowed to, so where the hell does this person get off coming after me like I murdered someone?"

* What I mean by this = with the important exception of children, the only time any non-smoker will ever be around smoke is when he or she has knowingly entered one of the very, very few environments in which smoking is allowed.

Sorry. My best friend, a very high maintenance diva, is allergic to smoke. Her boyfriend of several years now is a smoker. If THEY could work this out, I don't see what anyone on this thread is bitching about. Honestly, I really think the vociferous non-smokers are ruder than the smoking they claim is so dastardly obnoxious--I don't WALK UP TO YOU and blow smoke in your face; however, you seem to feel it is perrrrrfectly ok to walk up to me (from across the street) and YELL AT ME when I put it out.

actually, i have done this ... to people who feel obligated to give me "the speech."

militant anti-smoking is esp. annoying among city-dwellers (be it NYC, Philly, DC, LA, London, wherever). i mean, the average urbanite must breathe in god only knows how much filth, pollution, smog, car exhaust, etc. -- all of which causes as much, if not more, lung damage than cigarette smoke -- and yet it's the smokers that they go off on. why not chase down the truck-driver whose filthy delivery truck just farted out a puff of exhaust, or the factory owner whose factory belching out god knows how much toxic shit into the air?

Haha the best lecture I ever got was from a crazed homeless person who yelled at me for "killing ducks with my second hand smoke"--so that's why there are no ducks in Manhattan.

Haha good xpost.

"I think the whole issue of secondhand smoke as a health hazard is a fantasy, but if someone complains in a restaurant that my smoke is bothering them, I won't smoke near them.

"I think the anti-smoking business is a yuppie invention -- an extension of the concept that "we'll always be young, rich, and healthy." people who would ordinarily be chain-smoking, and loving every minute of it, are now eating salads and jogging till they puke.

"If they want to live that kind of life, fine -- I have other priorities.

"... The only times I've stopped smoking were when I had a cold. Once, when I got a chest cold in the middle of a tour, I stopped smoking -- but then a funny thing happened: I noticed I could smell things that I couldn't smell before. Some people would say that was terrific. I didn't like it. I didn't like the way things smelled.

"I walked into a hotel room and I would smell the rug, the disinfectant -- as for smelling 'the great outdoors,' I don't like outdoors. Outdoors for me is walking from the car to the ticket desk at the airport."

and anyway, the crazed homeless people i run across always try to bum smokes off of me ... and then threaten to kill me 'cause i won't give them a cigarette. i dunno about this duck business!

x-post

I love Kylie. But someone should tell her her bra strap is showing.

agreed about militant anti-smokers, i guess, although perhaps i too am lucky for never ever having encountered such types. i'd begin to wonder if they weren't straw men (haha what whould happen if you placed your lit cigarette too close to a straw man?!) if there weren't a few testimonials on this and other threads.

i applaud smoking bans, i think, because they constrict the range of places one can smoke, eventually to the point where the habit begins impinging on your ability to live your life and the pressure mounts to quit. although this is probably too little, too late for long-time smokers, it's just the right formula, i think, to get youngish people off cigarettes. i know a few people who quit smoking after the bans in l.a. and nyc.

what nabisco says is right but wouldn't have been *as* right just a decade or two ago when people could smoke most anywhere (as is still true in other parts of the world) and it would impinge of the freedoms or health of *non-smokers* as they would have to make an unfortunate choice.... i think some of the vociferous anti-smoking energy is a relic from this period, before all the recent private and public bans.

cedric the entertainer does a funny bit on office workers forced to smoke outdoors in "the original kings of comedy."

same here (both undergrad and l-school)

You're right on the last point, nabisco, it's up to a smoker to decide if they want to give up otherwise the giving up won't work.

But you can't say it's not the business of non-smokers. If a loved one has, say emphysema, only has a year or so still to live and can't even leave the house because they're so ill, how is that nobody else's business? Smoking-related disease and death doesn't exist in some sort of moral vacuum - it causes pain and grief to the people around you.

The second-hand smoke business doesn't bother me, and I know from when I smoked how fucking irritating people who tell you to stub it out can be. (I've only ever done it when someone's sat down next to me and lit up without asking when I'm eating, but most smokers are considerate enough no to do that.) But I just hate to see people that I love smoking. I want them to be happy and healthy and here for a long time.

I am in France. I am lighting up in every single place I can think of that would be disallowed in New York. Restaurants. The bank. I'm totally bored with it now actually. It's like, if I can smoke everywhere, why bother? Maybe I need bigger challenges. I should try smoking in the shower. (BTW smoking isn't particularly "cool" here, I mean, if everybody can do it, and DOES, how cool can it be? Like beach nudity and the word "sexy"?)

I've only read about halfway down, but I'm struck by a conflict: people seem to agree that smoking dulls some senses, particularly the two most directly sensual and epicurean ones: taste and smell. Yet it was also remarked that a room full of non-smokers will reveal more puritanical types, while a room full of smokers will hold more "sensualists". Who is right?

haha okay now I see Tad's FZ post which perfectly sums up the conundrum: FZ = the most puritanical hedonist evR

Guess what? So does just about any behavior possible. If you are the immediate family member of a person behaving in a fashion that is dangerous to their health, then feel free to say something TO THAT PERSON. Just like you should if they are quite overweight or drinking too much or, I dunno, refusing to wear a seat belt.

This is my only point--I'm well aware that this is not healthy behavior, but on the other hand I work out regularly and despite my claims otherwise, I do generally follow a very healthy diet, and I don't drink heavily. So why am I more of a fitness paragon than a 300 lb man or an alcoholic? You don't see this kind of reaction on threads about stuff like that, but they could potentially cause just as much heartache to their theoretical family as I could.

Because of the addictive and harmful nature of cigarettes, though, it's hard to do moderation. (Most 'social' or occasional smokers end up smoking more and more as the years go by and the addiction creeps up on them.) The examples you came up of 300lb man or alcoholic are extremes. I would argue that the 'average' drinker or person with not 100% balanced diet aren't comparable to the 'average' smoker in terms of the likelihood that their lifestyles will kill them. (And besides, there's no thread where dozens of people are arguing about how cool it is to be obese.)

The fact remains that diet-related illnesses are the #1 cause of early death in America, NOT cigarettes, so I don't think the obese man is necessarily an extreme...

Smokers can be almost as tedious. Just when you're assuming they're totally in control of their actions, they do this weird stuff.

You're in a car with them, trying to make a sound check in a distant city, and they keep requesting stops. The penny eventually drops: it's so they can light up. Not because they want to, but because they need to. It's like their bladders are constantly full. You're in a plane with them and they're all fidgety and irritable and you suddenly realise what air rage is all about: it's because people aren't allowed to smoke in planes. You want to go to a film, but they seem down on the idea and you realise it's nothing to do with artistic criteria. It's just that being without a cigarette for 90 minutes makes any film an ordeal. You go to an art opening, and they look at the art for two minutes then stand outside for twenty. It's not that they don't like art, it's that they need to smoke and in the battle between interest in the paintings and craving for nicotine, Rothmans beats Rothko.

They want you to teach them HTML coding, then expect you not to mind them smoking the whole time you're poring over the screen together. They offer to cook for you then smoke not only while eating the food but while preparing it. You kiss them and they taste like metal. They don't have the money or the appetite to go for a nice meal in a nice restaurant with you. They would have both if they didn't smoke. So you offer to pay. They race to the end of the meal and light up while you're still eating, making your food taste grey.

You're a couple with them, but they keep talking to strangers to get smoking materials, then stepping outside with them. Did you marry a mason? Their house, their bed smells of smoke. Same smell as the air in every room you're in with them. Same smell as their clothes. And, soon, your own house. A smell which not only makes you feel slightly sick and makes your lungs feel heavy, but, you know, slightly hastens the death of all those it comes into contact with.

Fine, all that is just inconvenience. But there's something deeper. You start to realise that their whole outlook is a kind of 'fuck the world' mindset that looks suspiciously like a retrospective intellectual justification for the addiction they have, an addiction they got by some adolescent reflex of conformity and stay with because of sheer weakness of will. Living isn't that important, who cares when we die? they seem to say. Clean air -- whether it's the Kyoto protocol or emissions in a private house -- won't ever be much of an issue. How could such fatalism go together with positive efforts to make the world a better place? Or to look and feel better in body? Being fit isn't terribly important. 'Sexy' is redefined; instead of young, healthy, fit bodies being seen as sexy, dirty, wasted, wrecked bodies are. And if dirty tongues and lungs are a turn-on, why not STDs? Why take care to avoid them? We're going to die anyway!

Then there are the wider implications of our relationship with capitalist products: what if cigarettes are not just another product, but something totemic, a metonym and model of our relationship with all capitalist products? I suggest this because it's always cigarettes -- with pretentious, portentous names like 'West' and 'Freedom' -- which seem to spearhead the arrival of capitalism in developing countries. So, fine, there's this product which creates an appetite we aren't born with, slowly but surely addicts us, then gives us little temporary respites from the craving for it. It's a product which, rather than helping us, undermines our health and kills us. It's a product which, rather than improving the environment, degrades it. It's a product sold with the imagery of selfish pleasure. And this is the totemic capitalist product. What does that tell us about capitalism? That it's inherently toxic, that not only is it going to kill us, but we're going to be grateful for that death, in fact we're going to be gasping for it.

And our whole way of thinking about life is going to relate to the helplessness, the toxicity and the negativity of our relationship with this product. We will capitulate, we will pay, we will pollute, we will die. And we will call this pleasure and freedom.

I'd suggest it's something like this. (The horror, the horror!) That adult life / capitalist subjecthood = me showing my willingness to capitulate to my own death.

Not, note, to control my own death. But to wish my own death, at my own hands (the cigarette is literally in my own hands) but to allow the implantation (or 'plantation') by others of my own death deep inside me, in the habitus of my desires and appetites.

I once asked my friend Gilles whether he would get the same pleasure from smoking if there were some technology which could cancel the smoke for all but him. (Fingerprinted smoke? Smoke cancelling headphones?) He said no, he wouldn't. Just like a kid with a ghetto blaster, or a kid up in his room who knows his parents can hear and disapprove of the music he's playing, he thought sharing the smoke (no matter how toxic) was an integral part of the pleasure of smoking.

Showing one's willingness to die for Philip Morris (whoever he is -- has anyone seen a photo of him?) as the global capitalist version of willingness to die 'pro patria' leads to seeing other inversions between the nationalist period and the internationalist one:

Selfishness (in the new world) = honour (in the old)

Being an asshole (in the new world) = being a hero (in the old)

and they smell.

I just had a vision of flocks of Palestinian kids puffing away in Israeli shopping malls

(I'm having a hard time Googling any biographical details or photos of him.)

A humble tobacconist on Bond Street, 1854.

The company crest. Motto: I came, I saw, I conquered.

Conquered what, lungs?

Philip Morris, semi-masonic smoke-cult builder, making an empire: 'Veni, vidi, vici.'

It was the merging of Christianity with its antithesis, the empire, which led to the fall of Rome.

Philip Morris, a tobacco company, is now merging with Kraft, a food company. Will food become the new repository of tobacco's dark, totemic secret (death), or will tobacco come to seem (or even be) as nourishing and harmless as food? Will the ownership of food companies by tobacco companies undermine life or undermine death?

Tobacco was *the* major crop in the American South before the 19th century, after all.

As for conquering, I'm sure everyone puffing away in Asia would understand that motto perfectly well.

a hoary urban myth was that Philip Morris were white supremicists, and that by smoking Marlboros one was supporting racism. the "proof" was because there were 3 Ks on the typical pack of Marlboros (get it, "KKK"?)

some suburban kids apparently had a lot of time on their hands, and overactive imaginations ...

1. A new cigarette is produced which does exactly what the old ones did, but produces no smoke and doesn't affect other people. Is it as satisying?

2. A new cigarette is produced which actually nourishes you, improves your health and lengthens your life. Do you feel relieved or slightly disappointed?

3. A new cigarette is produced which straps across the lips, lying flat against the face and seeping smoke upwards which you suck into your mouth by pouting out your lower lip. It doesn't make you resemble Steve McQueen in any way. And it is green. Do you still feel as cool?

4. Every time you smoke a cigarette, a kitten dies. Do you stop?

5. Every time you smoke a cigarette, people burst out in cruel, derisory laughter and point at you. Do you feel different about your habit?

Momus you can't make such statements free of context (when this oftens often the context appears to be "Momus's head" thus all the potshots)--when? where? who?

Smoking has a different social/historical significance in different places!

Momus you can't make such statements free of context (when this happens often the context appears to be "Momus's head" thus all the potshots)--when? where? who?

Smoking has a different social/historical significance in different places!

Besides the fact that you can't make cool smoke shapes anymore, yes.

2. A new cigarette is produced which actually nourishes you, improves your health and lengthens your life. Do you feel relieved or slightly disappointed?

If it still tastes like a Parliament, then I don't give a shit. I could always shoot myself if I decide I want out you know.

3. A new cigarette is produced which straps across the lips, lying flat against the face and seeping smoke upwards which you suck into your mouth by pouting out your lower lip. It doesn't make you resemble Steve McQueen in any way. And it is green. Do you still feel as cool?

Ok, Momus, this is possibly the stupidest thing I've ever read. Take XYZ where XYZ is ANY act that you do ever, make it look INCREDIBLY dorky, would it still be cool?

4. Every time you smoke a cigarette, a kitten dies. Do you stop?

Yeah, probably.

5. Every time you smoke a cigarette, people burst out in cruel, derisory laughter and point at you. Do you feel different about your habit?

As opposed to every time you smoke a cigarette, you have to hear bullshit like this, I suppose?

Haha Mike Bloomberg is a little man you know.

Well, it's hard to kill somebody when the most lethal device we're allowed to have is a day-old cruller.

I kill you with guns! I win!

And what smoker can't sit through a movie? I don't know any. Momus, your suspicion is pathological.

http://otterpop.sbay.org/album/dolby.jpg

I blinded you with science!!!!

(Kenan, just nod at him)

What other subject so deftly pits Capitalists For Dangerous Addictive Drugs vs. Hippies For Protecting Our Precious Bodily Fluids?

How can a substance incorporated into so many Native American religious observances be reviled as the quintessence of evil by all good, right-thinking liberals?

How can an addiction, pursued with an almost robotic single-mindedness by those in its grip, be so often cited as an expression of individual freedom of choice?

What other subject turns as many passionate human rights advocates into fascist vigilantes?

How can we even begin to think straight about a subject, about which we've been propagandized to since birth?

Lastly, how can something that makes a person smell like stale hot tar and ashes be employed successfully as a tool of flirtation?

Amazing stuff, tobacco!

I read that sentence so many times, I memorized it.

'It was America's first export, but now the tobacco fields are disappearing, buried by lawsuits, a drop-off in smoking and competition from imports. Farmers are planting the smallest crop since Ulysses S. Grant was president. The Agriculture Department expects it to be just 413,710 acres this year, 3 percent lower than last year and the smallest since 1874.'

'Gene Variant May Hamper Efforts to Kick the Habit

Giving up cigarettes is notoriously hard to do. Now researchers report that some people carry a gene variant that leaves them especially hard-pressed to kick the habit.'

'Lose Up to 25 lbs in Two Weeks!! Click Here!!

The South Beach Diet: Your Ultimate Weapon for Slashing Extra Pounds! This all-science, heart-healthy diet quickly sheds pounds and inches from your waistline with dozens of stay-slim forever secrets you won't find anywhere else.'

If my lifestyle of eating like a pig and not exercising manages not to kill me by the time I'm 60 I may well smoke a pipe. Old men with pipes are the coolest kind of smokers.

Lets rage about jet fuel?

Smoking is less dangerous than sex.

Amateurist's comment, which I just thought was worth repeating.

(haha this thread is so great:
Nonsmokers: SMOKERS ARE ASSHOLES!!! YOU WILL DIE!!!
Smokers: Haha anyway did you see the Family Guy last night?)

Anyway, my post really doesn't do anything but kind of prove your point, doesn't it? "Let's make points" "No, let's talk about Gary Coleman". Duh, people.

Though I will point out, Momus, that the behavior you described was nothing short of assholish and that seemed to be your implication--like I said, none of my friends act that way. You seem to have no refutation other than your typical "This is what I see in my personal life, ergo it is a universal" bullshit. I see really no reason to actually refute your posts on this thread or really do anything but treat it as what it is: you taking the piss. So in light of that...

http://drivesafelydarlin.freeservers.com/images/cocker17.jpg
I kill you with french fries!

What, you want me to supply some kind of algebraic proof that 'refutes' smoking?

Okay, here it is:

Wait a minute... that means the only way not to die by smoking is to behave like an asshole all the time. Because then m =1 => b/0 => impossible => you don't die. Or did I misinterpret p*?

But don't answer that! I don't want to have another "Asian girls are wonderful" thread or whatever that thread was. I already know the answer! It is your worldview! It's cool!

http://www.madonnacatalog.com/erotica/badgirl-counterstand.jpg

Everyone understands that some people find smoking pleasant, some people find it deeply unpleasant, and some people don't care much either way. This strikes me as the sort of situation that can easily be managed via normal social standards of appropriate behavior and politeness and decision-making. If a smoker really wants to spend time with someone with a smoking allergy, he's going to have to do it in a smokeless setting. If a person who abhors smoking wants to spend time with smokers, he might have to get used to their either smoking nearby or constantly nipping outside. In either case, people can decide it's just not worth it. And that's fine. I mean, this is how we deal with a million things -- how noisy we like our bars, what kinds of films we like, how late we want to eat dinner. If my friend always wants to see action movies and I always want to see art films, well, I guess we won't be able to go to films together very often. If he likes smoky bars and I like fresh-air cafes, well, we either have to compromise on that or try something else. This is normal life.

In addition to this, I'm curious about in what situations people feel they're being unfairly subjected to smoke. One thing you may not realize about a lot of smokers is how often one refrains from smoking -- even when allowed -- simply because the setting isn't appropriate. Out at a bar with non-smoking colleagues from work: you go across the room to light up. From what I can tell, most everyone smokes in the following situations: (a) alone and outside, (b) alone and in a space that's clearly labelled as being smoking, and (c) in the company of others, when the others are either mostly smoking themselves or tolerant enough of it that it doesn't feel impolite. In none of those situations can I locate anyone who's being subjected to anything unfairly. The most I can find is people who have lost the battle to control the social environment -- just like people whose friends always want to go to the most horrible bars -- and are now in the position of deciding whether it's worth compromising on the issue or bailing out. And even those people, if they ask politely, can often get the smokers to accommodate them -- by cutting down, by going across the room, by going outside, or by stopping altogether.

In sum: smokers know plenty of people don't like smoke. The average young smoker, it seems to me, makes good-faith efforts about not bothering anyone with it. This is because people want to be liked, and as such can curb their more irritating behaviors if they feel they're unduly bothering someone. But there comes a point where sometimes you're going to indulge in your irritating behavior, and if people aren't up for it, then they should stay away, because for the time being you're busy doing that thing you do that they turn out to hate.

This is harder with smoking, sure -- because it means people you find otherwise lovely may be surrounded by a haze that makes it impossible for you to enjoy being with them. And that's why you have to just ask nicely: because if they find you equally lovely, chances are you can both make enough compromises for one another ("I won't smoke in front of you if you don't mind my hopping outside every one in a while") to make it work.

http://www.intercontinental.co.jp/cigar/images/demi.jpg

Everyone understands that some people find farting pleasant, some people find it deeply unpleasant, and some people don't care much either way. This strikes me as the sort of situation that can easily be managed via normal social standards of appropriate behavior and politeness and decision-making. If a farter really wants to spend time with someone with a farting allergy, he's going to have to do it in a fartless setting. If a person who abhors farting wants to spend time with farters, he might have to get used to their either farting nearby or constantly nipping outside. In either case, people can decide it's just not worth it. And that's fine...

In addition to this, I'm curious about in what situations people feel they're being unfairly subjected to farts. One thing you may not realize about a lot of farters is how often one refrains from farting -- even when allowed -- simply because the setting isn't appropriate. Out at a bar with non-farting colleagues from work: you go across the room to let off. From what I can tell, most everyone farts in the following situations: (a) alone and outside, (b) alone and in a space that's clearly labelled as being fartable, and (c) in the company of others, when the others are either mostly farting themselves or tolerant enough of it that it doesn't feel impolite. In none of those situations can I locate anyone who's being subjected to anything unfairly. The most I can find is people who have lost the battle to control the social environment -- just like people whose friends always want to go to the most horrible bars -- and are now in the position of deciding whether it's worth compromising on the issue or bailing out. And even those people, if they ask politely, can often get the farters to accommodate them -- by cutting down, by going across the room, by going outside, or by stopping altogether.

In sum: farters know plenty of people don't like farts. The average young farter, it seems to me, makes good-faith efforts about not bothering anyone with it. This is because people want to be liked, and as such can curb their more irritating behaviors if they feel they're unduly bothering someone. But there comes a point where sometimes you're going to indulge in your irritating behavior, and if people aren't up for it, then they should stay away, because for the time being you're busy doing that thing you do that they turn out to hate.

(I mean our Dave Q, not Dave B, who, one hears, has given up at the sensible insistence of his Good Lady Wife.)

But he couldn't.

'Jake Esterline claims to have had in his possession in pre-Bay of Pigs days a box of cigars that had been treated with some sort of chemical. in our first interview with him, his recollection was that the chemical was intended to produce temporary personality disorientation. The thought was to somehow contrive to have Castro smoke one before making a speech and then to make a public spectacle of himself. Esterline distinctly recalls having had the cigars in his personal safe until he left WH/4 and that they definitely were intended for Castro. He does not remember how they came into his possession, but he thinks they must have been prepared by [deletion] In a second interview with Esterline, we mentioned that we had learned since first speaking with him of a scheme to cause Castro's beard to fall out. He then said that his cigars might have been associated with that plan. Esterline finally said that, although it was evident that he no longer remembered the intended effect of the cigars, he was positive they were not lethal. The cigars were never used, according to Esterline, because WH/4 could not figure out how to deliver them without danger of blowback on the Agency.'

Ah, blowback, of course.

For all the same reasons that smoking normal cigarettes is cool, smoking these ones would just be the bomb.

Botulinus Toxin, cool as a mountain stream.

Like Steve McQueen! And the thread goes full circle.

CIA agent in blunt-rolling-skillz shockah!!!

Well, here's my question... what do those who don't want to support "THE MAN" smoke? Are there independent, socially left, organic tobacco farms that manufacture cigarettes? (lots of irony to peel through there, I admit)

Kentucky's Best. Grown by a farmer's co-op in rural Kentucky with no additives. These guys wear HATS! Forget all that American-Spirit-hippie-Indian-overpriced-cigarette bidness. A carton of these are 14 bucks.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to get all miserable and boring again after all the jollity. Not smoking isn't about defying death. It's about making the most of the time you've got here. I know someone in his fifties with emphysema that's so bad now he can't even leave the house. He's probably got a year or two left at best.

Now, he would have died anyway, right? No shit. But he might've had a chance to live a more active life in his fifties and sixties and seen his youngest child grow up if he hadn't smoked. It's that simple.

All this shit about everyone dies anyway so what's the problem. It's glib self-deluding crap (and I know - I used to spout it myself when I smoked). I don't know if it's purely younger people who use that line, but it seems that way to me. The older you get, the less abstract death becomes, the more you want to treasure the life you've got and the lives around you.

"this tastes boggin'"

hehehehehe

know what was great about giving up ?
ahhhh that bit where friends stop offering them when they're being handed out...drink that in.

I started smoking yesterday.

Bought my first pack, sat down on the hood of my car and smoked a few cigarettes. I'm not sure what to make of this decision, exactly.

I guess if I continue with this habit I can say "I was 19 when I started, and blah blah blah..."

In a weird way, smoking a self bought cigarette gave me a weird thrill even though I've bummed cigarettes at parties for years.

One thing is true though, these days smoking is an existential decision.
Everyone knows smoking is bad. So what does it mean to begin smoking in 2010?

That you're thick?

Thick, same thing as cool really

"Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid"

Hedy Lamarr

xp if you're cool smoking can make you look cool. if you're gross smoking will definitely make you look gross.

That you're thick?

well, yeah, but surely a lot of the people who start smoking are smart / have common sense

I smoked for 14 years, gave up about 7 years ago, and STILL get the craving when I have had a few drinks. If cigarettes were not horribly injurious to yr health and did not stink you up then I would be a smoker again FOREVER. But they are, and they do. It's easy to think one has no regrets in life, but one of my few actual real regrets is that I ever started smoking.

Also, as a new smoker I think the standard feeling is "these are great, I feel great, I'll give up whenever I want". In my experience, giving up was not that hard (which I know differs from lots of people), but srsly the monkey-on-my-back of knowing I could start again in a heartbeat is a weird thing to have in one's life.

It's the cash thing I can't get over; how much it costs to smoke. All my teenage smoking friends are now dead of lung cancer and I own big speakers.

All my teenage smoking friends are now dead of lung cancer

seriously?

No, not one of them.

... yet (amirite?)

Exactly.

and you do have cool speakers

That bit is true, yes.

Friends who smoked at school:

Andrew - divorced twice by the age of 30
James - lawyer with dodgy sexual mores
Mark - heard a rumour that he actually honest to god was working as a male escort in Brighton
Geoff - took a lot of drugs, got very fat, hung out with 'damaged' girls, wears black smocks

Friends who didn't smoke at school:

Matt - never finished his degree but still earns way more than I do by working in IT management; sleeps 3hrs a night and plays football 5 days a week
Me - owns big speakers

No offence, but I know which group i'd prefer to be hanging out with

Matt - never finished his degree but still earns way more than I do by working in IT management; sleeps 3hrs a night and plays football 5 days a week

he's not called matt but yeah i have one of these mates. sickening fucker.

so what you are saying is that all the people you knew who smoked led interesting lives

... xpost

I was a social smoker for about 10 years. Didn't like the habit-forming aspect of it, so I quit. Still, I often see cute women on the street smoking, and I have to say, part of me finds them more attractive because of it. I guess maybe it's the devil-may-care attitude it suggests.

haha - me upthread 6 years ago having quit for a year and rejoicing at the fact I was now a social smoker. that sure didn't last long...

Still, I often see cute women on the street smoking, and I have to say, part of me finds them more attractive because of it.

opposite for me tbh

Geoff - took a lot of drugs, got very fat, hung out with 'damaged' girls, wears black smocks
irl lol

i stop/start quite a lot. i bought a some tobacco last week for the first time in nearly a year and i'm enjoying the honeymoon period, every cigarette i roll at the moment feels like a gift.

I envy you. I quit a month ago and although it wasnt that hard this time, I miss the cool people.

yeah it feels good to be cool again

Still, I often see cute women on the street smoking, and I have to say, part of me finds them more attractive because of it.

opposite for me tbh

Yeah, I never really got that either. I guess confidence = sexiness and a 'lookit me I'm smoking on the street' type may exude some extra self-consciousness about their appearance to the rest of the world. I don't find that attitude attractive tbh.

The attitude doesn't put me off; the fucking foul stench does.

i'm not going to be all dramaqueeny and say this has been the worst month of my life or anything. but god i want a cigarette.

I smoked for ages. And it started off INNOCENTLY ENOUGH, WHEN I WAS 20. THINKING "OH HECK..." and you know - smoking one. Boo. Bad choice. I social smoked for like a year thereafter, but slowly upped the amount I was smoking when Jr year of college I decided I wanted to smoke more TO MEET PEOPLE.

Sadly, it worked. I made friends in a heartbeat. And then I started smoking a pack a day for like... five years thereafter. Grodey. I quit when I was 27, stayed off the cursed things for well over a year, then started smoking socially again for another year. Finally decided this past autumn that I needed to stop and I haven't had one since.

Now that I have gone a fair amount of time without having a cigarette, they really gross me out. I hate walking through a group of smokers, because I can smell it on me for the rest of the day. Also, I CAN SING AND TALK MUCH LOUDER AND I DO NOT GET WINDED! That is the best part!

NOW, If I found out tomorrow the world was going to end in five years, I WOULD NOT HESITATE TO BEGIN SMOKING IMMEDIATELY.

One thing is true though, these days smoking is an existential decision.
Everyone knows smoking is bad. So what does it mean to begin smoking in 2010?

How is it an existential decision when you have a century of marketing and product placement building up the social construct that smoking is the coolest thing ever? Knowing cigarettes are bad doesn't mean you're making this decision on your own terms, it means you've given up on fighting massive societal peer pressure.

They can prove cigs painfully reduce genital size and people will still buy them cos they're cool.

That's kinda got to be contrasted with the increased coverage of the likely health impact though?

it could also mean you were a retarded preteen who lived near a "lounge" with a cigarette vending machine on its doorstep and had little to spend his allowance on other than comic books and slurpees.

i smoked for seven years - had some shitty lung problems i may or may not have talked about here when it was happening - and then quit shorty after. glad i did, but it took maybe another 5 years for the urges to stop totally.

i was in Tunisia recently and it was SO CHEAP and EVERYONE smoked! so i bought a few packs and smoked my whole time over there. had no problems stopping once i got back tho, thank god.

and ya - i still don't know what it is - but girl sucking on a cigarette = boner city.

xposts

in under a month i will be 5 yrs smoke free

kind of amazing to think about it

strongz if i could do it, literally anyone can

you've tried a few times now, haven't you?

... to quit.

no i did it on my first time

not you, strongo!

i used to be able to stop and start at will, really. pick it up for six months, drop it for six months. usually based on work/life pressures. (or finances.) was this way for, god, 18 years? but have smoked non-stop for the last two years -- anywhere from a pack to a little more than two per day -- and can really FEEL the effects (not just on my wallet) for maybe the first time ever. quitting has been...decidedly less easy this time around.

i started reading comic books again when i quit smoking, for something to do (and also as a "reward" for all the money i saved). now i don't smoke and have a house full of comic books that i never read and im slightly embarrassed about when i have a girl over.

wow - two packs is alot. you doing the patch or gum or anything?

xpost ha aha hhaa - the right girl will understand

I am 40 and am the only person in my immediate family (mother, father, sister, myself), and nearly in my entire extended family, to have never tried it. I have been absolutely disgusted by it for as far back as I can possibly remember. I've always wondered what it was that distinguished me from my family members that resulted in this. Something genetic? Mental? Other?

My pet peeve: People who stand outside in the cold smoking, then with whom I have to share an elevator up. The stench is just nauseating.

my experience with both the patch and the gum is that they make me nauseated and do little for the cravings. (a lot of it is, i think, the pavlovian routine.) (it was a lot worse when i worked from home.) ("worked.")

also i hear the anti-smoking drugs can cause rage spikes, and not sure if that's something i really need right now.

the gum just smoothed over the roughest spots for me. i stopped using it after a few weeks.

do what i did and treat quitting like a painful break up that u just have to get over

it really worked

i should write a book about this way of quitting cuz i really think it is u&k

also whenever i chewed the gum i had these weird visions of looking like that scene where pee-wee gives francis the trick gum

everyone does, that'll pass

yeah man i can see that theory working (in theory) but you dont really know what a recidivist i am when it comes to break ups

hum. I've been smoking for like 20 years (I don't really remember when I started actually). I don't smoke a lot (around 7/day average and lately more like 1 or 2/day) and never in the day time. I roughly have my first smoke when I meet people for some drinks after work. so I've never felt it was a problem and never thought about giving up.
I don't remember why I started smoking though. I guess it was because I was hanging around the older guys my big sister was hanging out with... so I guess it's got something to do with wanting to be cool at the time...
oh and also, almost every men in my family smoke !

"okay, just one pack, tonight. i promise i won't call you 5 times a day for the next week, rj."

I'm a smoker so obv not impartial, but I don't understand the absolute HATRED AND DISGUST some non-smokers display toward the slightest whiff of cigarette in the air, on a person, etc. I'm not saying it's an inherently enjoyable smell, but neither are...well, pretty much anything else you're going to smell outdoors, in your bathroom, in the garage, in your office kitchen, or anywhere in the world, pretty much. New York is chock-full of disagreeable smells, esp when the temperature goes above 75 degrees.

I do get the issue of second-hand smoke danger, but the smell ALONE is not giving you cancer. I share a subway with smellier people all the time (whoah there was a real doozy last night, people actually left the car at the next stop) and you just deal with it.

I mean it's not worse than someone's perfume that might make me cough or even gag. All that's missing is the sense of moral superiority?

Pancakes, I apologize, I'm not tarring you w that brush. I understand there's probably a lot of levels of emotional response that you're having if smoking was a family thing. My dad feels the same way, coming from a family of fairly gross lifetime chain-smokers in that mid-century "the pause that refreshes" way.

itt smokers deny that they stink of shit

Haha, I react the same way to the perfume wearers as I do to the smokers! No harm, no foul. It's more just a personal pet peeve than a "Begone, foul knave!" kinda thing. Certainly don't think I'm morally superior, just prefer not to be around it!

A smoker for twelve years, and unless I drink heavily I don't smoke more than two a day. But, boy, do I look forward to those smokes.

slocki, you should write a book! The email you wrote to me about how you quit was v helpful & inspiring to me when I quit smoking. I think quitting smoking requires having a good philosophy & yours worked for me.

It's not really acceptable to tell someone that their subtly applied, £40/bottle scent makes you gag though, is it. Maybe it should be.

xxpost

If it were either "subtly applied" or "half-decent to begin with", it wouldn't bother me. There are just a couple of scents, particularly that standard-mall-issue "Vanilla Fields" crap, that make me feel sick.

http://beyondasiaphilia.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/better_tomorow_1.jpg

there are different levels of smoker smell though- from a not unpleasant faint air, to a dense, heavy absolutely vomit-wrenching tar stench.

Laurel - sometimes you don't realize how the smell sticks with a smoker until after you've stopped. i admittedly have a strong sense of smell, tho.

when i quit i worked with this guy who smoked and didn't wash his cloths nearly often enough - and it got to the point where i'd avoid working on projects with him because the stink was so completely revolting to me. i am also grossed out almost as much by the perfume/b.o. overdose types too. but the smoke smell was def way more offensive when i had recently quit.

vanilla i don't mind so much - incense can really bother me tho. ESPECIALLY pachuly (sp?).
i'd rather inhale the smoke off a burning litter box.

I freely admit all the shortcomings of being a smoker, and my sense of smell has never been that good to begin with.

I did manage to smoke in several different apts for many years with an exhaust fan, the window open, high ceilings, regular house-cleaning, etc and none of my office-mates believed that I was a smoker because I didn't smell of it at all. But when you've just come in from having one, yeah, it lingers on you for a bit.

slocki, you should write a book! The email you wrote to me about how you quit was v helpful & inspiring to me when I quit smoking. I think quitting smoking requires having a good philosophy & yours worked for me.

― Dark Notion (Abbott), Thursday, February 18, 2010 11:16 AM (15 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

:D thanks for saying so abbott

I like(d) smoking because it was always something to look forward too. not many things do that to me tbh

take up masturbating.

my mother says to get a job, but she don't like the one she's got...

take up masturbating.

What is this "masturbating" you speak of?

not gonna see Tom D. for a while once he figures this out

"It's like sex but for free!"

ts rubbing one out vs stubbing one out

aaaaagaggghah don't combine the two

ts: pulling on a cig vs. pulling on a... oh you get the idea

i smoked for about 20 years, and haven't had one in nearly 7 weeks. using the patch right now. smokers do indeed stink.