I wasn’t a cool teenager. I was the geeky, skinny uncool teenager who didn’t listen to the ‘coolest’ music, didn’t hang around with the rough boys, didn’t do make up, didn’t let the rough (or any other) boys into my underwear.  In order to fit in, a little, I took up smoking at 16. Stupid.

My clothes stank, my hair stank and I’d no pocket money left with which to buy uncool music or uncool clothes.

To be entirely honest with you, I liked it. I liked the ritual of unwrapping the pack, smelling fresh tobacco and lighting up. So my smoking continued until…naturism saved me from it, aged 18! Sort of.

When my cousin and I headed off to Cap D’Agde to do a summer’s waitressing, we both smoked. But the days were long, hot and sweaty in the sun and kitchens, and there would be periods throughout the day when we barely had enough time to down a glass of water to stay hydrated. No time for smoke breaks from maybe 10am right through until 10pm and beyond. Sure, to begin with we’d run out the back of the cafe to grab a cigarette in the slacker periods, late mornings and late afternoons, but out cigarette consumption plummeted. From almost 15 a day, I was suddenly on 2-3 a day and what’s more, not missing it much. We’d try to make up for it on the way home from the cafe, late at night, practically chain-smoking, but after a couple of weeks of this long daily routine we were exhausted and it was more of a dash to get back to the tiny flat we shared in order to see if we could grab an extra 10 minutes sleep rather than a couple of cigarettes.

2-4 weeks into this daily routine and we’d both almost stopped smoking altogether, and happily had found our feet in terms of the demands. We got a second wind. Yes, maybe the odd one now and again. But now a pack of 20 lasted us almost a couple of weeks. By the time I got home in late-September I was a non-smoker. And also considerably richer. By the time I got home I’d managed to buy some really fashionable French style that I couldn’t have afforded if buying cigarettes. I’ve been a non-smoker since.

I don’t judge those who do smoke, it’s their choice, but I often think of cigarettes as being incompatible with naturism as my sense of naturism has progressed and developed. Smokers on a beach tend to stub a cigarette out in the sand. That cigarette butt has dire consequences for nature. 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are littered every year.

They pose a threat (as do fast food cartons, plastic bags and all other manners of litter) to our marine life.

As naturists with a wider perspective on our naturism, ecological concerns are part of the lifestyle. Never mind the damage cigarettes do to our own bodies. Thank of the consequences to the planet!

There’s currently a series of ‘cigarette’ styled poses at the ongoing Posevent. 

Which is where I got the pose (L$50) above. There’s five male, five female poses. And while one can admire the skills required to make realistic poses, smoking’s no longer cool. Those of us who don’t smoke are the cool ones these days.

Ella

(note: while the pose above is a very realistic representation of me standing at the back of the cafe, grabbing a quick smoke between serving customers, in real life I’d have been dressed for work, rather than nude).