Smoke Signals

...kinky at the end of the 20th century, you have to embrace the technology: you simply must have access to the Internet. This is doubly true if the things that make your dick hard don’t fall somewhere on the hip & urban leather/SM/fetish continuum. Say, for example, SM turns you on. Going online, you can meet SMers in chat rooms, surf through kinky personal home pages, and find heaps of pornography. But if you don’t have access to the Internet, you still have options: in any city of more than 75,000 people, there’s gonna be enough folks into SM to populate a viable in-public, in-person, real-time scene. There’ll be at least one SM club, a fetish night at a local bar, and probably a support/affinity group. The rarer your kink, however, the less likely there’ll be folks nearby who share it. There will never be enough people aroused by cigarettes or horses or the Amish in one place at one time to support sexy smokers’ clubs, fetish nights for horse lovers, or support groups for WBCs (wagon & bonnet chasers). The Internet, however, can gather “weird” people from all over the world, creating viable fetish scenes online for even the rarest of kinks. Type “smoking fetish” into a search engine (we used snap.com), and you’ll find dozens of sites devoted to images of sexy women destroying their health. The best by far was Smoke Signals, www.smokesigs.com, which has “served the smoking fetish community since 1994.” It features pics, news, TV and movie listings, and has links to companies selling videos. Smoke Signals also publishes a newsletter, which it describes as the world’s “only professional monthly smoking fetish newsletter.” (For a copy, send $5 to Smoke Signals, 500 Waterman Ave., Suite 193, East Providence, RI 02914.) If you have a particular bone for Kate Moss, mom and smoker, you might want to check out the Kate Moss Gallery, www.geocities.com/Broadway/7746/km.html. I know you don’t have a computer, KW, but maybe it’s time you invested in the one tool that can help you realize your fantasies. iMacs are cute and colorful, and have made recent vintage Power Macs practically free, so don’t tell me you can’t afford a computer. If you have the time to record stuff off TV, clip pictures, and remain on “surreptitious lookout” whenever you leave the house, then you have time to get a second job, save your money, and buy a goddam computer. Finally, considering that 23 percent of women over the age of 18 smoke, it shouldn’t be difficult for you to find an actual female smoker for dating purposes. Try going to a bar (except in California, where you’ll have to go to the restrooms in a bar). Since women find quitting more difficult than men, your smokin’ girlfriend is likely to stay that way until cancer or common sense catches up to her. If she’s creeped out that you’re aroused by her smoking, remind her that it could be worse. You could be into the Amish. (Kinky folks, remember: There’s always someone out there kinkier than you. Don’t be shy about pointing to “weirder” fetishists to let a nervous lover know that, hey, it could be worse. Smoke lovers can point to horse lovers, horse lovers can point to poop lovers, poop lovers can point to necrophiliacs, necrophiliacs can point to the Amish, etc.) I am a straight 36-year-old, and I have bad breath. What causes it? I read things like diabetes, chest infection, etc. I am healthy. Some people in my family have this–is it hereditary? I have no medical coverage. Any Chinese herb suggestions? Amy Herbs, shmerbs. Most cases of bad breath are caused by poor oral hygiene, stinky food, cigarette smoking, gum disease, or all of the above. If you’re taking good care of your mouth–flossing, brushing your teeth, brushing your tongue–and your breath still stinks, quit smoking. If you don’t smoke, don’t eat so much pizza. If you’re not eating pizza, smoking, or neglecting your mouth, have a dentist look at your gums. Gum disease can cause your gums to pull away from your teeth, forming little pockets that can fill with plaque, bologna, and bacteria. If your gums are the problem, filling those pockets with Chinese herbs won’t help matters much. I am a 26-year-old female. I have a boyfriend, and we have been together for six years. About two and a half years ago, we broke up for eight months. During that time, I slept with one other person. It was unbelievable. He had me doing things I had never tried with my boyfriend. He was truly unfucking believable! He’s the kind of fuck you dream about! I don’t love this guy, or really even care about him–and he cares plenty about himself, so he doesn’t need me. My boyfriend is truly wonderful, considerate, sexy, and trusting, and I have an orgasm about 95 percent of the time with him. I told him how I wanted him to treat me in bed, but it’s still missionary position most of the time. It could be so much fun if only he could say, “Do this! Do that!” like this other man did! I want to have sex with this other man again, and I know he would do me. But I don’t want to betray my boyfriend! But I want to experience a man taking complete control of me again! Help! Cindy Does your boyfriend know about this transcendent sexual experience you had while you two were separated? If not, tell him about it, and suggest a three-way with Mr. Truly Unfucking Believable, so your boyfriend can see what “taking control” looks like. If he can’t stand the idea of sharing you with another man, tell him he has to do one of two things: give you that “Do this! Do that!” lovin’ you need so bad, or give you his blessing to get it from Mr. TUB. You say you’ve told your boyfriend you want him to boss you around, take control, bark orders at you, etc. And it sounds like he did–once or twice. When we ask our lovers to indulge us in something that turns us on, they may not understand that we want to be indulged over and over again, forever. Make it clear that you need “Do this! Do that!” on a semi-regular basis. And, hey, don’t forget that, in time, sex with anyone becomes a grind. Fuck Mr. TUB once a week for six years, and his barking orders act will start feeling pretty routine too. !-- Dingbat -- letters@savagelove.com Are you or were you the “Slut” of your high school? Did people write nasty things about you on the bathroom wall? Whether you earned the reputation or not, I’d like to interview you for a book I’m writing about girls and women who went through this. Confidentiality is guaranteed. Please call Emily at 1-800-750-0099 or email ewhite@speakeasy.org.