Well, this will be a completely different article!
Inspired by one of the articles on the Portuguese side of my blog (sorry, no translation available; the articles are not kept in sync, since they actually target different audiences), which featured smoking fetishism — something completely unheard of in Portugal, while it has a widespread audience elsewhere — I thought I could write a simple tutorial (well, at least the first episode of a series) on the art of smoking with a holder in the female fashion.
There are a few good reasons for that! I’ve always wanted to do something like this since I gave a few “lessons” to a genetic female living in Brazil, using CamFrog, which is a webcam chat with a rather friendly environment; I gave similar lessons on other webcam chat sites. Ironically, most of the people interested in the “smoking lessons” were almost always genetic females.
Why? The answer is a bit strange, but easy to understand… we crossdressers still pride ourselves in trying to excel in presenting a most feminine image, full of glamour. We learn from each other to do that, and get inspired by others who do the same, and teach us how to look more feminine. While styles vary — from coy to sexy, from sultry to slutty — the truth is that we actually have lots of opportunities to learn.
Genetic females, these days, have less choice. At least in some areas. One is smoking: a generation of anti-smoking prohibitions have made the old-time tradition of mothers teaching her daughters how to properly smoke in public an aberration in political correctness; girls still learn how to smoke on their own, but their teachers are — guys. And men smoke so differently from women…
So, to revert this, we need to train all those young, lovely, sexy smokers in the Ancient Art of Glamour Smoking — and this is my small contribution!
You’ll probably need to press start/stop a lot of times to catch all the information on that video (sorry, I’m unskilled in doing tutorials). So, for your convenience, here goes a textual description of all the scenes.
Your accessories
First of all, buy a thin lighter. Girls use thin, slim lighters; it’s guys that get the blocky, stocky ones (remember Zippo? That’s a guy’s type of lighter!).
Then get the longest cigarettes you can. This is because everything long and thin is automatically more “girly”. All-whites are best. 120s are best. 120s all-white slims are perfect. For this video, I’m smoking a 100s John Player Special “Black” brand — there are no longer cigarettes available in my country, unfortunately.
I’m a holder fan, so — like all my previous movies — I’m using a holder here as well. But here is a tip: there are fantasy holders, and there are casual holders. In the 1920s, everyone (guys included!) would use fantasy holders: that’s the kind that is a foot long (30cm!). These days, they would look ridiculous in public. A fancy, elegant holder should be about as long as the cigarette you’re smoking, so a 100mm cigarette holder (4 inches) is what you’d use in a public setting.
Lighting up
The first thing to remember is that women always hold their cigarettes (and that includes casual holders as well) between the topmost finger bones (the distal phalanges), as close to the nail as possible (fantasy holders have a slightly different technique, but I’ll explore that on a future tutorial…). The exact spot where you hold the cigarette and holder combination depends a bit. If you’re just using a cigarette, hold it as near to the cork as possible (guys tend to hold them mid-way, which looks ugly on a woman). If you’re using a holder, there is some extra weight there and the exact point of equilibrium varies on the holder brand and model. As a rule of thumb, holding it half-way across the holder should be fine; as close to the mouth tip as it’s comfortable (but you should have some control, which means that the equilibrium point should not be too far away, or it will be awkward to hold).
The next rule of thumb is to do everything slowly: slowly move the holder and cigarette towards your mouth. There should be a graceful curve, when you flip the holder + cigarette so that they point upwards until it comes close to your lips (aim for the centre; it looks far better that way, at least in an elegant setting; for sultry looks you can use the corner of the lips, which will give it a more powerful and dramatic look). Of course there will be a moment where you’ll have to lower the holder to actually light it: this means clenching your teeth on the holder’s mouth tip. Then you can dangle in safety.
It’s hard to see it in the video, but ideally your elbows should be tucked in, and the hand holding the lighter should be facing outwards (or as much as you can — I’m not that good, either, as you can see). Usually, you use both hands — one to hold the holder and cigarette, the other for the lighter — because it’s guys that “show off” and just use the lighter but never hold the cigarette to their lips when lighting up.
Avoid making grimaces when lighting up: look at the flame and pull in very very slowly. Then it’s always the same technique: hold the holder + cigarette always at an upwards angle (so many women and T-gurls do that wrong!); exhale slowly at an upwards angle, too! There are lots of reasons for that, but one is very obvious: when looking upwards, you’re exhibiting your lovely neck and showing it off (or your jewelry, if you’re wearing it).
Inhaling and exhaling
The pros seem to always inhale seriously, but smile afterwards. I tend to naturally do that as well, unless I’m in a naughty mood and wearing a playful, sultry smile. But in an elegant or casual environment, you’ll be doing a natural smile between inhales (where you can be serious).
Why are women serious when inhaling? Well, depends a lot. If you’re a smoking fetishist, then the sucking in has a connotation with oral fixation — deep pulls are erotic, so pull those cheeks in! This, of course, means it’s hard to smile 🙂
What is a no-no is to keep doing a serious face with very open eyes between exhales. Remember, you’re supposed to be enjoying the smoke; we smile when we’re enjoying something. Men, by contrast, don’t worry much about the “enjoyment” bit, so they keep a serious face between smokes. Note that you should also wear a smile — even a thin smile — when smoking by yourself, not only when in company (it’s also a good training: it keeps you constantly in mind that you’re enjoying yourself). Smoking, for the fetishist, is not merely a “dirty habit”: it is, above everything else, pure pleasure. So show that pleasure with a smile!
Dangling
Of course rules are there to be broken (more on that later). But first, some dangling. It’s hard to do with a very long, fantasy holder; I recommend the training with a casual-length holder first (anything between 3″-5″ should be fine). Here is the trick: you will totally spoil the effect if your lips are compressed and tensed in a thin line. Instead, make sure you have full control of the holder with your teeth and part your lips. Lips parting is always sensual, and you don’t need to overdo it; just enough so that you can exhale properly. Since dangling tends to get the holder on a downwards angle, you compensate by blowing smoke upwards when dangling (it requires some practice). Of course, there are a lot of ways to break the rules when dangling which will make it look nice 🙂 But when in doubt, part the lips — because tense, compressed lips will never look sexy. Not even if you’re lucky to have thick, sensuous lips.
Dangling at an upwards angle is also possible — and was very typical of the 1920s and 1930s — but you should practice the look so that it doesn’t look too “severe” and “aggressive” — which is what it invariably will look like. You might get away with it if you’re smiling. This is because, specially for us crossdressers, we’re trying to soften our image, not making it harder. You will still look “powerful” enough — at least for another smoking fetishist — even if you don’t smoke in a “powerful” way. This is the whole trick of female sensuality: softness, well played, is powerful in itself, it doesn’t require “enhancement” in any way.
Tapping ash
The video is also not very good for the last point — dropping the ash in the ashtray. The feminine way to do it is to tap the holder + cigarette ensemble along the axis (and not perpendicular to it, as guys do). The whole point here is that we are trying to imagine the holder and cigarette as an extension of our own fingers. We like long fingers. We like long fingernails. So, we like cigarettes and holders that extend that long line as well. That’s another reason why women smoke with extended fingers and hold cigarettes at an upward angle — to continue the illusory line extending from the fingers.
That’s why we also avoid smoking with the hands curled in a fist. We try to keep the fingers extended, even the ones not holding the cigarette. We want to encourage that illusion of slimness and long-ness all over the hand. Of course, at some point, there is a limit and the cigarette will have to be held at an angle sometimes, but we can aim to make that angle as soft as possible. Guys, by contrast, will aim to have the cigarette always at right angles to their fingers, and hold the cigarette with their hands curled into balls. We wish to avoid this.
Breaking the rules
So of course that following the rules all the time is not fun; also, we have our own personality, and so we want to show that we’re independent 🙂 That’s fine! But my recommendation is that you practice a lot “by the book” first, before you start breaking all the rules.
Perhaps some of you have learned ballroom dancing (I certainly did in my late teens). If you remember your dance classes, there were always a lot of “basic steps” to learn first. When you mastered those, you’d learn a few advanced steps, and then you were on your own, free to improvise — which is what pros do, improvise all the time. If you’re like me, you might probably have forgotten everything — except the basic steps 🙂 But I know that if I’d pick up ballroom dancing again, I’d remember the basics very quickly again, and would be very comfortable with the rest of the steps with little training. This is natural: the basic steps are a foundation, with which we’ll “never go wrong” and always look great. Not extraordinarily great, but good enough to look like we know something about dancing.
Once we have mastered the basics, then it’s time to “show off” with breaking the rules. Now genetic girls will have an advantage here: no matter how “funny” they smoke, they’ll still be looked upon as women, even if they smoke like guys. They will just seem… inelegant, but that’s the worst they can get. We crossdressers have it harder: if we step outside the rules for feminine smoking, we’ll just enhance our maleness, because we’ll revert to “smoking like guys” immediately — probably because we’re so used to it. (If you only smoke when you’re crossdressed, you’ve got it easier: you just need to learn the female technique, and never worry about “getting it wrong” 🙂 )
The first “rule breaking” is easy: smile all the time. This is usually combined with some form of sultry smiling, of course; if you can pull it off, you can smoke that way all the time. Lots of women do it to seduce guys (if you hang around on smoking fetishist websites, you’ll see that’s their primary technique to “catch” their guys with seductive smoking — using the smile to enhance the sultriness of the experience).
The reverse rule, not smiling, is far harder to achieve. You will see a lot of GG pros doing it. Usually they have gorgeous bodies (at least on the videos), so you will focus on pretty much everything, and the lack of a smile can actually give them a more powerful look. But if you’re not specially attractive — or merely a crossdresser — the lack of a smile will make you look horrible. I know from my own experience: my very first videos, where I tried to put on a “sexy”, hard, serious look simply looked — ugh! — awful! (I’ve removed most of those videos, I couldn’t stand them any more!) Why? Because 90% of what people see in my face is the smile, the eyes, and the hair. Of those, the smile curiously draws the most attention. If I’m looking serious, I’m just a guy in drag and a wig. If I’m smiling, people start having doubts about my gender. That’s because women, in general — not on the porn movies, though! — are smiling most of the time when engaged in public conversation. Their smiles might be coy, or sensual, small and timid, or large and attractive, but they’re always smiling. Guys, by contrast, only smile when drunk — or after having sex 😉 — or, well, under extremely exceptional circumstances. So, as a rule of thumb, when crossdressed, just keep smiling as much as you can. Show your teeth!
A variant of smiling is just parting your lips, something that a guy will never do (or if he does, nobody will pay attention). You can get away with a sultry look with parted lips — but you will need to have very think, sensuous lips to start with, or it will just look like a “smirk” and, well, spoil all the effect. See, I know, because I’m lucky to have pretty female-ish lips; even so, parting lips doesn’t come easily to me, and in most cases, I tend to spoil the effect as well. It requires a lot of practice to do it “just right”.
Now about the upwards-pointing cigarette… you can try to hold it horizontally. It will work, too, but make sure you have your fingers well extended. Downwards is always tricky to get it right, but you see some 1950s divas managing to do that. But in then 1950s, women had so many curves that the downwards angle would actually enhance the effect. You can catch Greta Garbo smoking with the cigarette held at a downwards angle. But then again, we’re talking about one of the most beautiful women ever of the 20th century — she could pull it off 🙂 For the rest of us — genetic girls or crossdressers — we’ll have a much harder time.
Of course, dangling is different, as mentioned above: it will almost always be at a downwards angle, simply because gravity will demand it — you’ll be only holding the mouthpiece of the holder, so, very far from the equilibrium point. Obviously you can clench your teeth and force the tip upwards, but, as said, this “powerful” look requires a lot of tension, and while it’s appropriate for a “powerful” setting (say, if you’re playing Domme in a D/s relationship), remember that your face will become tense with the strain, and even doing that with a smile will always looked forced, or, at least, will project strength. While women project weakness and softness. In the 1930-1950s, women would even push the holder as downwards as they could, specially with fantasy holders, and this would work — even without a smile. As we’ll see in a future tutorial with fantasy holders, it’s actually rather difficult to dangle them properly at a horizontal level (they’re too heavy, and the equilibrium point is too far away from the tip).
By the way, why a holder? Many of my fans always complain about my holders, for them, what is so exciting is to see the lipstick stains on an all-white cigarette (you get lipstick on the holder, too, but you cannot see them on a dark holder though). Well, there are — for me — three main logical reasons for using a holder (and a fourth is simple: it’s because I like them!). First, holders — casual holders, that is — will have a tar filter, which will at least prevent some of the tar from entering your lungs; when you switch the filter (which I do every day) you’ll be truly shocked on how much tar is actually deposited in your lungs! The filter does not remove the taste — the nicotine is not absorbed by the filter, only the tar. It doesn’t make smoking more “safe”, of course, but at least it keeps a bit of tar away (which is where most of the harmful elements in tobacco are). The second reason is avoiding nicotine stains: you will never get them if smoking with a holder (and this was my main reason for using them when I was 15; the breath can be disguised with chewing gum or something like that — even mouthwash helps! — but explaining nicotine stains on the fingers to my parents would be harder). Not everybody will get their fingers stained (it depends on skin type), but you will at least get them “smelly” if you don’t use a holder. And the third reason is that you won’t get smoke in your eyes when dangling. These three reasons are enough for regular smokers, male or female.
As a female, the holder is attached to a nostalgic past where smoking was glamourous, and obviously it will enhance the “long line” of the fingers which I have alluded to earlier, far more than a very long cigarette — because, well, a holder will always be longer. “Long” is directly connected with “slim”, and we associate “slim” with “female”. That’s just how our minds work. These, however, are emotional reasons. And since it’s not fashionable to use a holder casually on a daily basis, many might feel uncomfortable using them. In my country, in the past 27 years I’ve been using a holder every day, I just found, so far, two persons using a holder as well. Both were male; I haven’t yet found a woman smoking with a holder, although a few use those super-short “filter tips” which are technically also holders (even if they’re just half an inch long). So it’s a dying art!
Anyway, that’s it for today. I hope you had some fun watching the video and reading the text 🙂 I’ll promise to do a few more tutorials; on the next one, I’ll specifically address some tricks for smoking fetishists, which a woman would probably never do in public, except if she were alone in a bar and looking for a date 🙂 Except for smoke rings, which I cannot do, I’ll try at least to show French inhales, nose exhales, snap inhales, and double pumping. And if I have the opportunity, I’ll show the special technique for using a fantasy holder, too. All these are appropriate for smoking fetishim, while on this video, I tried to show everyday smoking techniques. You can even use them if you hate holders and prefer to go without them: the technique is pretty much the same one.
