[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by vesperae The ideas that I'm talking about are not so literal, isolated, and segmented - it's about patterns, the meaning of patterns, the big picture, how this affects that, how this contextualizes that, and how we react to the the whole. I sometimes feel like you are "listening" to music with an oscilloscope when you read me. And (based on our extensive previous communication) it would also seem that you have a very strong approach / avoidance reaction to your wife's smoking that is equal parts fear for her health and lust. Which is bound to strongly influence your thoughts about her smoking and your ability to empathize with and understand it. I don't pay attention to the amplitude of the waveforms...I just like to listen, compose, and dance... Gestaltically Yours, * * * * *v
on July 31, 2007, 12:59 am, in reply to "Re: Badness, health and taboo"
Welcome Back Richard! 
"Freelance [...] I very much like the contrast you draw between serious long-term risks on the one hand and immediate deleterious effects on the other. My personal version of the fetish is entirely concerned with the latter. I don't get excited at all by the thought of the risk that a woman's cigarette habit might result in death or serious illness in the future [...]"
It's all part of the same continuum Richard, and you wouldn't be able to focus on your favorite part without the whole to give it context!
"[...] and, as I've said before, I remain sceptical as to whether this risk constitutes an attraction for most smokers. It certainly doesn't for those I know most closely, including my wife."
We also need to clarify for Freelance that you don't smoke, and have never had the perspective of being a regular, addicted smoker, so it is difficult for you to empathize with some of the ideas that we discuss here. 
"I sense some of this in M G F's posts, though not in Vesperae's. I may be wrong, but I don't recall you writing about this, Vesperae. You emphasise the excitement of the risk for you, but what about effects which have already materialised? Is that part of the attraction for you, as regards yourself or as regards other women?"
While I am aware of it and don't deny this aspect of the whole of the smoking experience, I never consciously focus on it, or take pleasure in it, because I take no pleasure at all in actual disease or suffering.
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