Women Who Smoke Cigars
There is Smoke and There is Smoke
This is a sort of loose follow-up on a prior Hub regarding the allure/or its absence regarding women who smoke. This Hub is centered on women who smoke cigars.
To get my own opinion out front at the beginning, I think cigars stink to the high heavens regardless of who may be smoking them. Cigarette smoke can be obnoxious. The residue of cigarette smoke can be detected -- even in outdoor places -- long after the smoker has left. For non-smokers, the smell is repellent -- perhaps equivalent to the spray of some insecticide.
Cigar smoking is an entirely different matter.
As a youngster I remember being in the backseat of a car where the driver (a man) lit up a cigar. He rolled down his side window to flick out ashes. My sister and I in the rear felt as if we were being gassed. The stench was so overwhelming that I felt as if I might launch my breakfast into the front seat. Men ... cigars ... I don't get it. I never smoked one in my life and probably never will. I guess it's one of those "acquired" tastes. I don't know.
But now we must also endure women who enjoy puffing on cigars.
For a time I lived in an apartment that had an adjoining balcony with another occupant. To my horror, I began to smell the acrid odor of cigar smoke filtering into my apartment -- as I kept my balcony door open most of the time. I knew my adjoining tenant, a woman, fairly well, so I couldn't imagine that the source of this odious smell originated from her. It took some investigation, but I eventually learned that my female neighbor was lighting up cigars. It was rather shocking.
I'm not a moralist. If people want to smoke cigarettes, cigars, drink alcohol, abuse drugs, that's all fine and dandy with me. Well, no, I do draw the line about cigars. I can understand why someone would enjoy a cognac but I do not understand cigar smoking. I'm not even centering on the lip, tongue, throat, etc. types of cancer such an indulgence entails. Second-hand cigarette smoke has probably killed off more people than all of those who enjoy smoking cigars.
The workplace used to be a killing zone -- not just because of the job itself but because there were no regulations about smoking. I worked in "atmospheres" where I probably inhaled a pack per night and left with a heavy feeling in my lungs and with eyes kind of watery. My clothing reeked of smoke. Well, okay, that was then, but I still don't "get" the whole cigar attraction -- particularly for women.
Other than my neighbor, I've never seen a woman smoking a cigar in public. That has been my good fortune; however, I know that some women indulge themselves in this way and find as much pleasure in it as men.
Where cigarette smoking by women MAY have some strange but undeniable allure, cigar smoking works in exactly the opposite direction. I can't cite facts or figures, but ladies, if you are even considering lighting up a cigar, don't. Again, I'm not preaching sermon that you would not easily find on the American Medical Association's website. This Hub has nothing to do with health concerns. That's an entirely different topic and issue that I'm purposely avoiding. I can only say this from a personal standpoint. Cigar smoking is vile. Only the most twisted of psyches could find a woman smoking a cigar as a sexual turn-on.
I don't know what manufacturers have to do to make tobacco so rank and putrid but they somehow manage it. The last -- the very last thing -- that an ordinary and wholesome American man desires is a woman who smells like a cigar. So my advice is to not even step into this bizarre territory. Smoke your cigarettes, if you must, get your nicotine fix, but forget about the stogies. I don't care if they are made in Havana or anywhere else. But above all DO NOT assume that men will get turned on by your smoking a cigar. I'll speak for most men here and say without equivocation that women smoking cigars is a huge, huge minus.
