#like. people have been smoking tabacco for centuries

[goodhickey]

why do people keep saying hickey smoking cigarettes is historically inaccurate I've seen this a couple of times now and I feel like that's just not true

[curioushabitforarivergod]

So curious from your reblog - how is smoking a metaphor for gay sex in your writing?

My brain kinda jumps through hoops and muddles lines so I end up connecting things which don't really have a connection, but I'll try and explain it the best I can. Sorry if I end up offending anyone or something, wasn't intended, etc.

I think it kinda links back to the idea of what is considered taboo and to opium dens in the 19th century? Like opium dens were generally in the bad parts of town and I associate that with gay sex mainly because of The Picture of Dorian Grey when he felt this really strong desire to go to the dens and just get high. I kind of read this as a metaphor for the desire for gay sex, particularly with the homoerotic tones of the book because it was this thing that was common — people knew about it — but in a lot of social circles it was frowned upon? It's been a while since I read Picture but theres a kind of vulgarity to Dorian's need for drugs which my brain connected with gay sex. Tabacco is obviously a drug and so I made the connection between one addiction and another and thus gay sex, etc.

Moving forward, the wide-spread smoking of the 80s and 90s and the fact that a lot of the stories I begin writing take place during this time, surrounding queer characters usually who do drugs or smoke, kinda just reinforces it. I kinda accidentally trained by own brain here and so it became a link in my brain. There's also the obvious link with cigarettes being called fags in the uk especially where most media I end up consuming is from.

There's an element of hedonism to smoking (this links more back into drugs, but smoking too) and the pursuit of pleasure which links back to Dionysus who was very queer in Greek mythos. Gay sex has also largely been perceived as an upper-class thing in the past simply because that's what we have sources on and the upper-class is notoriously hedonistic, particularly queer circles from the 19th century until WWII which means the two kind of again, connect in my brain. So I'm basically saying that historically, gay sex is hedonistic as is smoking because of surviving historical evidence and what we see portrayed in media. (Note: I'm saying 19th century because that's when being gay was actually outlawed in the uk and not just a dot point under sodomy and/or buggery.)

Finally, the intimacy of a cigarette is something that I don't think is unfamiliar, e.g. lighting a cigarette for someone (either by lighting two in your mouth at the same time or cupping someone else's hands to light, etc.), sharing a cigarette with someone or spending time while smoking together, and of course post-coital smoking. There's something very intimate and social about smoking (which is why I think it became so popular in the first place) and so I often use it as a moment of intimacy in my writing even between straight characters or characters who aren't necessarily romantically or sexually connected.

In a long winded way, what I'm trying to say is the cigarette and smoking represent desire and gay sex is repressed desire. So by using the cigarette and a conversation that borders on flirtatious, you can play around with sex without actually saying anything explicit and your audience can get a gist of this desire. I think I do this more often than not because I prefer to write historical fiction and so the characters are often placed in an environment where they can't voice or act as we would today while still remaining polite.

I probably explained it quite poorly but that's how my brain is making these connections and it's weird actually voicing something that usually I don't think twice about. Thanks for the ask! <33