Comments

The OU Daily’s journalistic integrity has sunk to an even greater low. Cassie Little’s defense of smoking as “sexy” in Thursday’s paper is the most asinine, irresponsible and poorly thought out piece I have ever read in this newspaper. Her ignorance of the nature of nicotine addiction is, in words she uses in her piece, “horrid” and “staggering”, and that the editors of the Daily ever allowed the piece to run must be an indication of how little talent there is on the staff. Her urge to smoke on the basis of its appearance on fashion runways is deeply shallow and narcissistic and is the kind of thought that belongs on a teenager’s blog, not a university newspaper. Essentially, her admiration of sexy smokers – an admiration without a basis she can truly explain – is nothing more than a childish display of sheep behavior; all the cool people do it (“in moderation”) so you should too. The picture accompanying the article means that someone must have given this the green light. I have to ask – is this the kind of talent our fine school of journalism turns out?

This tells me the product placement campaign (i.e. propaganda) of the tobacco industry continues to be effective.
If for the last 90 years we only saw cigarettes hanging off the lips of old, sickly, wrinkled smokers we would have a different opinion of smokers and smoking. However, for the same 90 years the tobacco industry has made a point to position these killers in the hands of the sexiest, strongest, most glamorous stars in Hollywood.
As a result of this propaganda we prematurely lost many of the stars who became addicted to the cigarettes the tobacco industry provided as "props" on screen.
The tobacco industry continues to get rich, while smokers and their families continue to pay the price with health care issues and lives cut short.

Smoking is sexy??

I am surprised the editors of the Oklahoma Daily allowed this one past them. Cassie Rhea Little’s “arguments” that smoking is sexy is no more than an opinion, and a brain-washed one at that. Just because we see images of sexy people smoking doesn’t mean smoking is sexy. That is what big tobacco companies want you to believe. Just talk to your friends who are marketing majors the two images that sell most are sex and happiness.

Is smoking really sexy? While it is true there are plenty of images of sexy women smoking cigarettes, I challenge you and Ms. Little to think beyond the image being presented. The women are sexy NOT the smoking. We see smokers every day. They are huddled outside non-smoking office buildings, driving in their cars, and many in their own homes since 25% of Oklahomans still smoke. How many of these people look sexy? Can’t you see the sexy image is really just that an image of a sexy woman or man who is smoking.

Even if you still believe smoking is sexy, think about how many people you know over 30 years old who have been smoking very long. Are they sexy? You may be able to say yes to one or even two, but most are not sexy. They smell like cigarettes, NOT sexy! Their faces are aging quicker than others who do not smoke, NOT sexy! And they are coughing regularly and may even have serious health problems related to their smoking, NOT sexy! Why do we allow a few images of sexy people to influence us? I suggest Ms. Little try a little academic exercise and try to look beyond images presented in movies and media to determine if something is truly sexy.

The bottom line is - - Smoking has been portrayed by the tobacco companies as sexy and Ms. Little and the editors of The Oklahoma Daily have fallen for it! I’m sure most of our fellow students at the University of Oklahoma will NOT fall for the same!

Furthermore, Ms. Little casually points out 440,000 people DIE each year in the United States from their tobacco use. That is ONE in FIVE deaths, not getting ill but DEATH! Ms. Little might want to do some more homework before she lights up again because the risk starts with smoking just a few cigarettes. There is not space in this comment box to address all the health issues related to smoking and the risk at various levels, but there is plenty of easily accessed information on websites like the CDC, American Cancer Society, American Heart Association and others. If you don’t want to look that hard, just think about those smokers you know or see who don’t look so sexy. The TRUTH is: cigarette smoke is aging their internal organs, just as it is their wrinkled, yellow skin – NOT SEXY!!

Mary Williams
Graduate student of Epidemiology, OUHSC

Thanks for writing this honest column. Yes, smoking is bad for your health, but, yes, many people also view it as sexy. You obviously have set off the anti-tobacco political correctness police in this column, but good for you. One of the great mistakes the anti-smoking movement has made, in fact, is the failure to understand why people smoke. The explanation is not as simple as "people have been snookered by the tobacco industry's ads". Native Americans used tobacco long before Madison Avenue dreamed up the Marlboro man. For many people, smoking latches on to something deep in human psychology, such as sexuality or transcendence. Anti-smokers don't understand this.

Hello Cassie,

I agree, but disagree, both at the same time.

I'm 46, I was born in 1962, and I've collected cigarette ads since I was 9 or 10 years old. I've smoked, on and off, my whole adult life. Unlike what appears to be the norm, I don't seem to have ever developed any strong dependence on nicotine. But, I've always been very attached to the cigarette ads.

I think you can make some claim that there are some aspects of smoking, particularly cigarettes, which are inherently sexual. Suckling behavior is very oral, one could claim that perhaps it's strongly related to some infantile sexuality. (I don't recommend suggesting this to most smokers, however.)

However, I believe the association that many of us... very much so including myself... have between cigarettes, smoking, and sex, is largely learned... at least, IMHO. Yes, my mother was a heavy smoker, but none of my four other siblings smoke, so I still feel the cigarette ads played perhaps the most substantial role in my smoking.

I recall a social psychology professor of mine told me that cigarette ads were largely second-order classical conditioning. At this level of influence, you identify with the models in the ads, and you experience through your identification, whatever rewards they experience. Actors, and actresses, smoking in movies, like "Breakfast at Tiffany's", presumably one might expect some similar impact.

I've always loved the cigarette ads. I wish we still had cigarette ads to speak of, even on TV. Unfortunately, that appears to be unacceptable in today's society because it means more people will smoke more cigarettes.

The long-term consequences of smoking can obviously be very bad. I lived with my mother as she died of lung cancer.

For better or for worse, you and I will not likely have opportunity similar to Audrey Hepburn to enjoy cigarettes anything like she did. So, what I see with many of my favorite cigarette ads, and what you're talking about seeing with Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" may largely represent unattainable manifestations of relations with cigarettes in our society today. Our society will not, both more concretely, and also at a collective psychical, or collective unconscious, level, support such relations with cigarettes... or, only marginally so relative to 1961.

Most of one's relation with their cigarettes is internal, but I can certainly testify that you're likely to encounter great difficulty in maintaining any internal relational framework to your cigarettes similar to one that one might deduce Audrey Hepburn's character held in "Breakfast at Tiffany's".

Unfortunately, those of us who feel that the positives with cigarettes, smoking, and cigarette advertising and promotion outweigh the negatives, or even can with some realizable modifications that don't ruin the whole thing, appear to be very much so in the minority today.

Take care,

Paul McCarthy

Congratulations to Cassie Rhea Little for having the courage to write a column that was inevitably going to trigger some typically overly-emotional critiques. Also, thank you Cassie for not taking yourself too seriously. A woman holding or smoking a cigarette in social settings does indeed project confidence. The message is, "I'm secure in who I am. Deal with it!" Very sexy. Cigarettes are also often used by women as an attention-getting prop, much like a heal that's 1-inch taller than what the rest of the crowd is wearing, an ahead-of-the-curve hair-do that commands attention without being trendy, or an outfit that accentuates the curves.

My wife likes to joke about her pack-a-year smoking habit; she engages in the ritual in social settings where smoking is permitted. For her, it's a form of "letting her hair down," relaxing and setting herself apart from the hum-drum frumps who spend all of their time passing judgment rather than loosening up and enjoying themselves, for a change.

Good column, Cassie. Keep telling it like it is.

Get over youself people who think this article is trash. There is a huge community of people (guys) that find a sexy lady/girl/woman who smokes very attractive. In fact it enhances her attractiveness to us -- those with the fetish. Some people gamble, some drink too much, and some are just plain a-holes. We love to watch attractive women smoke. Not sure how it developed, but it is very strong. I dont smoke myself, but have the fetish. They choose to smoke...I choose to like it. You can choose to comment negatively on it

Artists must always challenge the narrow minded moralities that can sometimes prevail in society. The demonisation of smoking has been achieved through hate fear and ignorance: fascism.
Fashion is Art. At is about imagery. Those who create imagery are in love with aesthetic and ambience. Smoking can create it. It is ...always was...beautiful, charismatic and glamorous. Not all smoking is so; but every fashion accessory can look bad on a person who does not think about how to wear it well.

Those that respond to your piece with vitriole show themselves to be the petit fascists they are; bent on forcing others to conform to their morality. Smoking bans and health fascism were the invention of the Nazis, who , failing to find solid proof that smoking caused disease, manipulated statistics to back the prejudices of Adolf Hitler.
www.forces.org/articles/art-fcan/nazi2.h...
Of course, we once fought a war against those who would restrict our liberty, and it is no coincidence that when the Luwtwaffe banned their pilots from smoking, Churchill and RAF pilots posed with cigars cigarettes and pipes. Smoking suddenly represented a Liberty as great as that of the British tradition of foxhunting, something the Nazis also banned.
In the post war period the statistical untruths were perpetuated by Dr Richard Doll of Oxford University. His academic reputation masked the fact he was in the pay of giant pharmacuticals and studied under a senior SS radiographer at Frankfurt Unversity.
Virtually all the momentum of the anti smoking movement comes from the flawed work of Doll.

If smoking caused lung cancer all or most smokers would get it. The truth is only 6% of smokers get it. And 2% of non smokers. So all we can say is that he is a small correlation. BUT there are clearly there are factors more important, and by blaming smoking we allow the real cuplrit to go unapprehended.
But that is not to say smoking isn't a risk. However, every day we take risks. Indeed, risk is exciting, and has a glamour about it. The matador or steeplechase jockey resplendent in their colourful garb.
The death defying will always have a glamour about them. And blame the anti smoking lobby for making it seem so. For they have made it appear dangerous; and danger excites.
Now the beautful, defiant and chic smoker, stands resplendant as the matador in our psyche. They care lttle about death; and that makes them immortal.
Both myself and my models are furious about the fascist legislation that stops us enjoying a pleasure we fought a war to keep.
Smoking isn't just a fashion statement now, it is the obligaton of the artist to stand up and say we need to fight against those who would inhibit our liberties; it is a symbol of resistance to the new nazism:

http://www.ponygurlcouture.co.uk/photo_2...
Only a fool or a fascist would say that isn't sexy.