Of course smoking is a fetish…we’ve had thirty years of schools indoctrinating kids that smoking is a naughty, dangerous, evil thing that only wicked people do. The most basic student of history or psychology could have told you how kids would respond!

@DensityDuck, spot on. It seems the more Puritanical and restrictive a society becomes, the more fetishism emerges.

Spot on, both of you.
But it should be stated that this is a sexual fetish, not just some teenage rebellion for the sake of partaking in a taboo act. I myself am a “sufferer” of this fetish, I get incredibly aroused from watching a woman smoke. I’m sure this developed at some point in my upbringing and I’m sure it has to do with the current perception in society being that smoking is evil and naughty. My subconscious pubescent mind probably latched onto this and associated it with sexuality somehow.
These videos are to me what the contents of redtube are to your average red blooded male. So you understand, there is a market for this in the same way there is a market for porn. Sites will charge you to download videos of fully clothed women smoking. This is porn for me, and many others. That’s why it exists.

This is exactly what happens when the anti-smoking self-righteous zealots go too far — make something “forbidden” and taboo, and you’ve just made it all the more alluring. So if these puritanical prohibitionists are truly concerned, they’ll back off. “Live and let live,” I say, and let’s let thinking adults make decisions for themselves. I don’t even smoke, but I’m absolutely fed up with the freedom of personal choice being taken away from everyone by those who are literally OBSESSED with criminalizing tobacco and demonizing anyone who dares to even utter the word “smoking.”

These neo-prohibitionists need to realize that their absolute DEMANDS that everyone “conform” to their ideal view of society is only working against them – and quite frankly, they’re only making themselves look bad. Please feel free to hold the views of your own individual conscience – and if that includes not smoking yourself, that’s fine – but it ISN’T okay to impose that same rigidity on everyone, simply because you want it “your way, all the way, all the time.” That’s boorish, domineering, selfish, and wrong. And if anything, I’ve seen MORE kids enticed to try things that are “forbidden” or “secret” than not – which is exactly why your whole movement is failing.

Making all smokers seem like the scum of the earth – ask though it were some kind of horrible moral issue (which it’s not) – only adds to that. Look, it’s time we just started accepting people the way they are – smokers, nonsmokers, fetischist, or not – and recognize that EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS VALUE, and that there is far too much judgement, finger-pointing, and name-calling in society as it is. So let’s “get off each other’s backs,” learn to love and tolerate one another as we are – valuing the diversity in everyone – and look for our similarities and the ties that bring us closer together, rather than those tiny little things that drive a wedge between us.

If nothing else folks, let’s get our priorities straight. NO ONE ever beats his wife, smacks his children around, or kills innocent people on the road because he’s driving under the influence of nicotine. It just DOESN’T HAPPEN. Yet as the son of a recovering alcoholic, I’m quite certain a few drinks can do that and more. Yet despite what alcohol has done to loved ones close to me, I’m not out there preaching that it’s time to ban it altogether – unlike what you’re trying to do to tobacco. Granted, if you’re going to persist in picking on smokers – “just because you can,” or simply because you’re cruel and enjoy hating small groups of people you’d love to eliminate – maybe at the very least you should consider placing alcohol on an equal footing with tobacco. 20 cigarettes will run you $9-11 in New York City now – and about $7-8 of that is a tax levied only on tobacco. Yet in states like Oregon, the tax on a pint of beer is less 1/4 of a penny. And while tobacco advertising on television was banned years ago – along with sporting sponsorships or fancy race cars covered by Marlboro logos – alcohol ads are ubiquitous. From The Cobert Report to Jon Stewart, Saturday Night Live, to the Super Bowl, beer ads are everywhere. And now even hard liqour is showing up – like Smirnoff and Bailey’s, to name a few – all with cute, funny, or sex-appeal saturated fun, all designed to target our youth and pretend no one is noticing. Yep, Big Corporate Alcohol is getting a free pass – and it’s no wonder drunk driving is up, binge drinking on college campuses is on the rise, and no one thinks a thing about seeing alcohol use proliferate in movies, sitcoms, and other venues. But because the zealots have focused ONLY on smoking, you’d practically be SHOT for lighting up anywhere….. even on a public sidewalk. (Which, by the way, the smokers were forced to stand on – in the rain, snow, ice, and cold – because having separate areas for “smoking and non-smoking” indoors was OUTLAWED during your crusade. And now, by the way…… you have the GALL to criticize these poor HUMAN BEINGS who are polite enough to go outside because “you don’t want to walk through their acrid smoke near the entrance to a building????” So you go ahead and outlaw smoking within 25 feet of any door. DUH people —- they’re out there because you wouldn’t have the decency or humanity to give them THEIR OWN INDOOR BREAK ROOM, separate from all others, with adequate ventilation, so you didn’t have to smell it at all…… indoors or out. They wouldn’t BE on the sidewalk if you let them have ONE ROOM, even hidden away in the dark basement caverns, just for their own.)

Yet even though all of what I’m saying is true, I’m not out there screaming for prohibition, like the anti-tobacco puritans. What they’re doing makes ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE, and is tantamount to pure discrimination – making yet another second class minority, just so the “anti’s” can pick on them some more, like the bully on the playground beating up the smaller kid. How cruel can you get? But again I say, “Live and let live.” I abhor alcohol and what it’s done to my family and friends. But it’s still an individual choice, like smoking, and outright prohibition isn’t the answer. Over-taxing one small minority – while leaving all other “sin-taxes” negligible – is not fair and is night right. Neither is saying “please feel free to drink almost anywhere,” but don’t even bring chewing tobacco (which creates NO second hand smoke) on my college campus, near my public school, or in my park. And for goodness sake, don’t even think about lighting up – even if it’s just that old wooden pipe with a sweet smelling tobacco that reminds you of your favorite uncle or grandfather. My god —— if you do that, one-one-billionth of a particle of smoke might kill an innocent bystander 100 yards away, because this stuff is SO toxic, millions of smokers inhale it directly each day and continue to live…… many even into old age. (Case in Point: ever wonder why the Japanese outlive Americans and have more centenarians than most developed nations — yet there rates of smoking are among the highest in the world per capita? If this stuff is so deadly, how can that be happening???)

Look, no one is going to argue that smoking a cigarette is akin to eating vegetables in terms of your health. But by the same token, I like to hear things from all sides, and really THINK about the issues for myself – rather than simply believing the dominant viewpoint without further research. To that end, I googled “nicotine benefits,” and discovered that nicotine can help treat schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, Alzheimers (because it enhances cognition and memory), ADHD, and more. There is even a book by a DOCTOR, found at http://www.douglassfamilypublishing.com (click on bookstore), called “The Health Benefits of Tobacco,” by Dr. William Douglass, MD. In it, he makes the case that we’ve gone completely overboard in trying to literally ban and criminalize tobacco use while forgetting that, in moderation, there are actually many benefits to what it can do. After all, does it REALLY make sense to put people in jail for smoking cigarettes – which believe me, some of the zealotrous puritans would love to do – for using a natural plant substance that, unlike marijuana or alcohol, has NO intoxicating effects on the user? As a taxpayer, do you REALLY want to be paying $50-70,000 a year to incarcerate thousands upon thousands of people for THAT?

Separate but equal is fair, folks. Not outright criminalization. Just give them their own indoor smoking areas IN A SEPARATE ROOM, with adequate ventilation – even routing it through the rooftop chimney, if you like – and let employers, workplaces, restaurants, bars, motels, and all the rest of them MAKE THEIR OWN MARKET-BASED DECISIONS as to whether or not they want to have an indoor smoking area. Plain and simple people. Keep it plain and simple. BANNING something everywhere simply because YOU don’t like it yourself is not the answer. You’re right, anti-tobacco puritans, you shouldn’t have to be around tobacco smoke if you don’t wan to be. But that’s why the SEPARATE but equal rooms would work. And as for smoking outside in the open air — well, if you want to ban that, you’re simply an extremist. Ban all the exhaust from cars and factories too, if you really want clean air. That little one-billionth of a particle of cigarette smoke from 100 yards away is not going to hurt you. But living next to a freeway in a smog-choked major city (like Los Angeles) probably WILL.

So let’s get our priorities straight. Stop the judgement, stop the name-calling, stop the outright discrimination and hate. Let’s all just “agree to disagree,” live and let-live, and get along peacefully in the civilized modern society we’re supposed to have. I may not smoke myself – and you may not either. But that doesn’t give either of us the right to tell someone else how to live THEIR life, especially as it pertains to a non-intoxicating natural plant that doesn’t make anyone beat his wife or kill people on the road.

jkanony@gmail.com

JKanony – Yeah, great RANT, but you did not respond to the real issue the article talks about – the sexualization of smoking…. Listen much?