GenQ - For the not so straight individual

I am on the balcony of one of my favourite mixed queer venues. Normally, at this time of the night, it is abuzz with excitement. But tonight, it looks rather sad and deserted. ?Where is everyone?? I wonder, thinking that I might have come too early, or on the wrong night. Then I notice somebody walking around the corner to a cordoned-off section just out of sight. Oh yes, the DOSA! I quickly follow him and, through a haze of cigarette smoke, soon discovering the usual, fascinating crowd...

On 1 July this year, the Queensland government introduced tough new anti-smoking legislation which bans smoking in all areas, inside or out, where food or drink is being served. Food can include everything from a seven-course meal to a packet of crisps or a stick of chewing gum.

Fortunately, most venues have set aside a Designated Outdoor Smoking Area, or DOSA, often in an out-of-the way place that only those ?in the know? can easily find. The intention is that smokers go there, quickly have their nicotine fix (while feeling guilty about their disgusting habit), and return to the main part of the venue, where they can continue drinking, eating, dancing, and having fun with the enlightened crowd.

The trouble is, the legislation overlooks the fact that more queer than non-queer people smoke. As the late Professor, Julius Sumner Miller would have said, ?Why is it so?? Perhaps it's to do with our artistic temperament, the circles in which we move, or because we spend more time cruising than our straight counterparts do. When out and about, we need something to do with our hands, and lighting a cigarette, asking someone for a light, or offering to light someone else's, can be a good way of looking cool and, more importantly, starting a conversation.

Maybe our obsession with smoking is related to our desire to ?fit in?. At school, especially, many of us with secret sexual desires will do anything to be accepted by our straight peers. Smoking has traditionally been one way of being part of the ?in? crowd, blending in, and taking the emphasis away from our perceived differences.

But perhaps the reason some of us smoke is to do with our own, internalised homophobia. One of my closeted bi friends once told me that he smoked because it was a slow way of committing suicide. So the slogan, ?Every cigarette is doing you damage?, may actually be an incentive to light up. Even those horrible pictures on cigarette packs of stained teeth and gums, clogged arteries, and gangrenous limbs, may hold a macabre appeal to some.

Now, being a non-smoker (actually a reformed smoker, which is even worse), I couldn't wait for the anti-smoking legislation to come into effect. Finally I could go to a queer venue without feeling compelled to take a gas mask, and without having to shower and wash my hair as soon as I arrived home (hopefully sharing the shower with a hot number I picked up). Furthermore, I wouldn't need to put my stinking clothes straight into the laundry basket ready to wash next morning, but could drape them over the end of the bed, ready to clean up any sticky mess that my trick and I might produce.

However, I had forgotten just how many queer people smoke! Now, when I go out, I am faced with a dilemma: wander forlornly around the venue trying to look nonchalant in the empty spaces, or find the cool crowd in the DOSA. If I do the latter, I am suddenly surrounded by the most interesting people on the premises, all lighting up and chatting, and introducing themselves to newcomers as if we are old friends who share a dark secret. Indeed, Oscar Wilde's ?love that dare not speak its name? may now mean the love of a somewhat different type of fag!

So, the legislation is actually having the opposite effect. Instead of cigarette smoke been diffused throughout the venue, it is thickly concentrated in the DOSA (which soon may have to be expanded). I am now removing my Calvin Klein's before I even walk in my front door, much to the consternation of my neighbours (fortunately, few are still awake that late). There is even the temptation to start smoking again. For the first time in my life, I find I have a smoking fetish, and am logging onto websites that show guys sucking on a ciggie. It just proves that the surest way to make something attractive is to outlaw it.