Carly Palady, Quit Coach, Service Delivery:
MSN recently released an eyebrow-raising article about the sexualization of society and the long-held ideal of the "sexy cigarette."
One reader says: "I like to watch my wife smoke, not during sex, just once in awhile. She’s not a regular smoker and I don’t want her to develop the habit because we are a very healthy couple. But it really does something for me. Is this common? Is there a safe way for her to do it (like twice a year) without developing the habit?"
This is a quandary. What do you do when one of your principal attractions in your marriage is also a habit-forming, very addictive substance? What has come to make the cigarette sexy, and does the “occasional spark of smoke” pose a possible health threat in the future? According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), there are 4,000 chemicals in a cigarette. Nicotine rewires the brain, and even a puff can lead to an addiction. One person asked ACS, "if I smoke, but don't inhale, then is it really dangerous?" ACS answers this question with, "Yes. Wherever smoke touches living cells, it does harm. Even if smokers don't inhale, they are breathing secondhand smoke and are still at risk for lung cancer and heart disease, to name just a couple [...]." If the husband and wife in question are both healthy, then smoking - and even toying with cigarettes – can lead to many health consequences.
It's easy to see where that sexy cigarette came from. If we look back at the 1920's to 1940's, who were the female smokers? Who were the “It” girls? Who were the ones toying the cigarettes in their slender fingers in the gentleman's clubs, on calendars, and hanging above barrack walls at war? I called-up my 86-year-old grandmother to help in answering these questions, as my grandfather had served in World War II for a year and a half. This is what she said.
"Oh, Deary, that is simple. The bad girls were always the ones who wanted to be caught doing something naughty, and for us 'ladies,' we would smoke, but only with our husband or a friend around. We would NEVER be seen smoking alone. You were a pick-up girl (prostitute), if you did such a thing! 'Those' girls were the voluptuous ones in fishnets, high heels, curvy tops, and a tilted head, with a cigarette gently resting in her oh-so-inviting hand. They enticed the forbidden glance, with cigarettes. They were coy, saying in their seductive glances, ‘See, I'm all alone with just a smoke. Don't you want to mingle with me? Don't you want me? Am I not desirable? You're a stud-muffin.’
No young lady, no well-thought-of lady, would ever be caught dead alone with a cigarette!"
Cigarettes were the bad girls at the Moulin Rouge; the sexy and unavailable. For years in history, there have been few pin-up girls in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's, and 80's who did not smoke. 70's icon Twiggy smoked, 80's icon Cindy Crawford is thought to have smoked, and Kate Moss smokes more than a pack a day. They were the sexy, daring ones. They were confident and provocative. They challenged women to be seductive, and yet played hard to get - almost as if their cigarette was a secret weapon; the commonly-smoked menthol wrapping around the nostrils of men nearby.
What does this mean to women today? Is the cigarette sexy to you? If so, is it still due to the idea of the forbidden, the “bad-girl” image?
A woman in her 50's called in to the Quit Line not too long ago who thought so. At the beginning of the call, she made some interesting statements. She said, "On a scale from 1-10 how much do I want to Quit? 10!! Call me crazy, but if someone had told me at 17 to not start smoking, I would have laughed at them. Why not start something that would make all the boys want you? I liked being the naughty girl- cigarettes made me feel like a super model! What do I not like about them? The smell, the taste, the tiny wrinkles around my mouth. The fact that my doctor thinks I'm 10 years older than I am- that I can't breathe, that my skin is yellowed, that my hair is brittle, and that my husband won't kiss me as much. They're not sexy anymore. Plus, they've added so much to them, they're difficult to quit!"
Cigarettes, for many advertising companies such as Phillip Morris and Camel with their retro-glam ads of the 90's, were presented as an alluring object. Today, with over 4,000 chemicals helping to make the nicotine delivery system more rapid, why toy with them?
Bottom line: What is it about the act of smoking that is sexy? Would they be so sexy if they caused the one you loved to die a few years early? Or worse, become a habitual smoker? What could be that new 'sexy' in your relationship?
Smoking is an addiction that makes you look years older, lose stamina, double your chance of heart disease – is this how you define your idea of sexiness? What persona is that cigarette attempting to portray for us, and is that what we want?