Attempting a new fetish: pipes.

Not my face. Rather, an evovcative image from a non-fetish menswear blog..

Capnolagnia. Another form of paraphilia. I’m not sure whether the suit and tie fetish has a clinical name yet, but I suppose there are as many fetishes as there are objects.

I’m not a smoker. This was my first time ever attempting to light a pipe. I went through a whole box of matches. I took some instruction from a pipe smoking fetishist, who gave me very kind pointers on how to keep the tobacco smoldering. I felt alarmed by the hot smoke on my palette: years of warnings about the dangers of smoking, years of avoiding cigarettes, cigars, and tobacco in any form. Yet here I am, trying it out. The allure of the forbidden.

Pipes in particular connote a kind of slowness, leisure. They’re ritualistic, scholarly, gentlemanly. I believe part of the appeal of smoking in general lies in that need to slow down and savor. There’s certainly the Freudian oral fixation, as well,—though sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

There is the metaphor, too, between the nose jets and ejaculation, the sensuality of the velvety smoke, the aromatic tobacco as layered and rich as scotch.

Will I take this up as part of my fetishistic persona? I’m not sure. But I enjoyed the experiment, and I doubt a single pipe of tobacco will damn my health. I might take it up as an occasional luxury, which I suspect is the case for many fetishists. For now, I’ll let the rings of smoke roll off my tongue, and enjoy the richness of the experience.

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