Someone who has a sexual interest in smoking has a smoking fetish. People with this fetish enjoy watching others smoke. Generally, smoking fetish involves smoking cigarettes, but it may also involve other smoking devices like hookahs, pipes, and cigars.
Smoking fetish is a paraphilia—a sexual interest in non-human objects, body parts, or typically non-sexual behavior.
Some people believe that smoking fetishes develop because a cigarette may represent a phallic object. Placing it between the lips simulates having sex.
For others, there is an aspect of dominance and submission to the fetish. They enjoy fantasizing about the taboo aspects of smoking. Some of these scenarios may include encouraging someone to smoke for the first time or holding a cigarette to the lips of someone who is tied up.
Other Names for Smoking Fetish
The medical term for smoking fetish is capnolagnia. The prefix “capno” comes from the Greek word for smoke. The suffix “lagnia” comes from the Greek word for lust.
A more extreme version of smoking fetish is called black lung fetish. Those with this paraphilia have sexual fantasies of nicotine addiction and harm caused by too much cigarette smoking.
Safety Advice and Special Considerations
Smoking fetish is harmful because smoking cigarettes and using other tobacco products can harm your health. It can cause:
- Cancer
- COPD
- Diabetes
- Buerger’s disease
- Gum disease
- Tooth loss
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Vision loss
- Blindness
Smoking is particularly harmful for people who are pregnant or nursing. Smoking during pregnancy causes premature birth and lower birth rates. It can also cause birth defects like a cleft palate. Babies of parents who smoked during pregnancy have a higher rate of dying from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).
Smoking is bad for everyone, but especially for people who have HIV. Smoking makes people with HIV more vulnerable to smoking-related diseases plus serious infections like:
- Bacterial pneumonia
- Pneumocystis pneumonia
- White mouth sores (hairy leukoplakia)
- Oral candidiasis (thrush, or yeast infection of the throat)
Smokers are also more likely to have depression or anxiety. However, researchers are not sure whether smoking causes those mental health issues, or if there is another reason for the correlation.
Smoking may also cause erectile dysfunction, especially in men over the age of 40.
Secondhand smoke can also harm those around you, especially children.
Watching videos or looking at photos of people smoking is not harmful to your health. However, smoking or being in the presence of someone who is smoking is dangerous, especially on a long-term basis.
