BijouBlog

I date from the times when people could smoke in bars, or, in at least one place I worked, in the building. 

Yes, no one was exiled outside for furtive puffs. (But being a nonsmoker, I didn't think it was quite fair that the smokers could take smoke breaks. No one at that oppressive institution was allowed any official 15-minute breaks.) 
 

Two of my friends used to smoke, until quite recently, but their respective doctors ordered them to quit. (One of those persons gained weight after he quit.) 

I live in a building that used to forbid smoking (I used to sneak a cigar now and then). And where I currently work full-time, one cannot even smoke outside anywhere on the official boundaries of the institution. 

Yet persons still do it, and I'm not here to get into the health issues. I understand the cigar fetish, given that I move in BDSM circles, and I've also encountered in those circles the Marlboro cigarette fetish, with its obvious iconic macho male image connections.

You know, that mustached hunk, the Marlboro Man himself … 
 

No, I'm thinking of casual, social smoking, which was assumed well into the 1970s and 1980s. It seemed like everyone lit up, and not just Bette Davis (a notorious chain smoker) and Joan Crawford. 
 

I remember proto-hipster parties I attended in the 1980s where all kinds of smoking occurred, legal and illegal. And usually in kitchens! 
 

And smoking in bed after sex was de rigeur as well, and not just in the movies. 
 

 

And I've often thought that some intimate interactions, which don't always end in sex, seem to need a cigarette or two. In those smoke-filled kitchens, I've made mind and soul connections with all sexes (alcohol helped too, of course) on topics ranging from Jesus Christ Superstar lyrics to Nietzsche to retro roosters to Finno-Ugric languages. 

I don't know, there's something je ne sai quoi about a guy holding a cigarette, when he is not trying to be seductive. And it's not the phallic connection (I get that more from a cigar). It's sexy because it isn't necessarily trying to be sexy. 
 

He stimulates desire by claiming to be more interested in that cigarette. And the next one. He knows I'll hold out for that last one.