[ Post a Response | The Sublime Desire of Cigarette Smoking ]
Posted by vesperae
on May 4, 2008, 7:07 pm, in reply to "Re: Other drugs?"
Yep, that's it. 
I've heard others in the Smoking Fetish Community echo this same sentiment numerous times - smoking suggests a level of "Badness" that is just enough to be appealing and approachable, but not so "Bad" as to be off-putting, at least in most social circles, and in the range of most personal experiences.
This discussion does remind me of my reaction to something I saw in the 1991 David Cronenberg film Naked Lunch based on the novel by William S. Burroughs. The character of Joan Frost/Joan Lee, played by Judy Davis, at one point shoots heroin directly into one of her breasts. I recall this scene rather vividly (although much of the remainder of the film is pretty forgettable), because I was simultaneously horrified and aroused by it.
The thought of becoming or being with a heroin addict has essentially zero appeal to me, as it did when I saw the film, but I think that there were numerous parallels between finding smoking to be attractive and the symbolic depiction of the scene - a woman introducing a damaging and pleasure-inducing drug into her chest, the juxtaposition of life and death (the breast and the drug), the shocking decadence of the act...
I actually have had friends who became heroin addicts in the 90s (all musicians in the Seattle scene, BTW). I lost touch with all of them except for one, who evenually cleaned up and got sober. What I observed with them, and with their social circle, is that they had become so jaded and disenchanted with mainstream society that they came to romanticise heroin addiction as pushing the envelope of that which was "alternative" and "underground." "Normal Badness" - smoking, drinking heavily, kinky sex and promiscuity - just wasn't enough for them anymore, so I think that what you are willing to embrace and respond to obviously all depends on your frame of reference.
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