To me, it seems telling that the hot chick this guy can finally get is both white and thin–this being the ideal for black [hetero] men, maybe? Like, while the chubby loser smoker black guys are getting black and fat women, this cool non-smoker black guy is getting a white and thin woman. I mean, considering that couples perceived as “the same” race are often the default in visual media, is this supposed to be a “racial upgrade” for the guy?

Except that, looking at the ad again, it seems to be marketed at the female side or at least at people attracted to men. I’m too tired to make sense of this whole thing.

So, as a fat person, how long will I have to wait until we decide that it’s time to *subsequently* ‘deprogram’ the sizist message reinforced and normalized by this ad? Because I’d like to know when I can begin looking for a mate who will find me attractive, a job opening where my weight will not work against me, an insurance policy that won’t reject me…

Explicitly equating a lack of visible body fat with “the sexier look” is also one of the main problems here.

Rational is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to the nature of the various sources of pleasure people seek. Deciding what’s in our best interest is tricky for mortal beings since the idea that we could find ourselves dead from a million random causes on any given day tends to make hedonism in general sound entirely rational.

I’ve known smokers who were very fatalistic that way; they got pleasure from smoking and said things like “One-hundred percent of vegans and joggers die!”Technically, they’re right. I might be able to come up with a thousand alternatives commonly seen as “better” than smoking that are even more pleasurable (such as sex involving ice cubes), but if someone chooses to smoke instead well then as they say, there’s no accounting for taste.

A friend once told me in no uncertain terms that she wanted to live as hard and as fast as she could, and didn’t give a damn about old age because she wasn’t going to see it anyway. She made it to 27, but at least she did exactly what she wanted to while she was alive.

It’s an inconceivable mindset to many people, but she was well educated (we met in college) and very smart and consciously made her decision (to live a high-risk life, not to die young). Thoreau may have been a part of it since she did bring up that “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation” quote a lot. Sometimes I see her point, sometimes I don’t.

Of course, the fact that nicotine withdrawal causes physical stress, anxiety, and irritability and that smoking a cigarette causes those symptoms to disappear implies that a free choice is not necessarily what’s being made here, although initially it was. Hmm, so smoking the first cigarette was a free choice unless the eternal pro-smoking propaganda blitz took that away, too. And yet, smoker’s rights groups tell us our bodies are our own to do with as we will, but apparently our minds are still up for grabs.

It’s a strange, subtle, and fascinating topic (to me anyway).