Doing the nasty in your own home when you have guests over

The BBQ Pit
81

This.
And now, if I may…

I am Dominican, married to a Dane. There can’t be two cultures more dissimilar when it comes to smoking. Luckily I only see my in-laws once a year, so it keeps some of the discomfort to a minimum.

As Martha Medea said, smoking is rare, and highly unapproved of in the Dominican Republic, only doing drugs rates worse. Booze is our poison of choice.

People don’t have ashtrays in their home. They don’t expect people to smoke when they come to visit. As a smoke-free nation that means that we are not used to the smell, smokers might be refer as disparagingly. I remember people saying that “kissing a smoker was worse than licking a dirty ashtray”.

The problem is that Dominicans, generally speaking, are gracious hosts, at least our version of it. And however much we’ll fucking hate it we’ll rarely tell a guest, that no, they are not allowed to smoke in our home. “Under no fucking circumstances” is what we’d like to say, instead we’d smile and say “sure”. Which fucking sucks.

The best thing, IMHO, is that smokers kept their smoking confined to the zone where people would really feel free to tell them “no”. Asking if they can light one is already plenty rude to me. YMMV. It’s not that smoking makes me sick right now, it’s that a)it’s inconsiderate as it *might *make me sick, and b)I fucking hate the smell, just fart in my face already, while you are at it.

And now we come to my mother in law, a better in-law could not exist, I adore her, bless her soul, but she smokes. Like a choo-choo train. Houses in Denmark are poorly ventilated (it’s fucking cold, it’s better to keep them warm). Studies have found that the air in some Danish homes are way past the level of contaminants that are safe for humans and animals. Contaminants from cigarettes lingers for days, and worse, smokers loose the ability to notice the stench.

My MIL smoked throughout two pregnancies (yet my husband managed to be a good 10 lbs at birth), she’s smoked all her adult life. Last year she buried, within a couple of months, her only sibling and his wife, both died from lung cancer, both were smokers. Yet she hasn’t managed to quit.

She smokes in her home, in front of her non-smoking adult kids, her heart-weak husband and 3 small grandchildren. And yet, she manages not to see anything wrong with that.

My mind is so boggled that… well… I don’t even know what to think. Just thank my lucky stars that we live an ocean away, and that they own a hotel, so we don’t have to stay with them full time when we visit.

82

I know I said I wouldn’t post again in relation to this, but this is a tangent to the hijack, which I don’t think violates my intention. I’ll apologize anyway – sorry for the further digression.

I just found that the IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer) also classifies alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen. Which leads me to a technical question (and I’m honestly asking, as it’s not clear to me how to apply this information): does that classification mean that, according to the IARC, ingesting a single alcoholic beverage can cause cancer?

Make of the factoid what you will; I’ll emphatically state that I’m not attempting to draw a comparison to smoking, nor am I trying to trivialize the inherent danger of tobacco…I simply had no idea, found it startling, thought others might also, and had a subsequent question.

83

Self righteously asking someone to stop is not good.
Smokey is in his own house, but I guess since he was hosting a party he should not have been smoking. But, asking him nicely would have had better results. You dont command people to act as per your wishes in their own house, flat out rude and assholish.

84

XBox? Bricker?

Who’d a thunk it.

85

That’s really interesting; thank you for the information. Yeah, they are calling alcohol a known human carcinogen, too - it seems to be more dose dependent, and more of a co-carcinogen, but again, I’d have to say the safe exposure for alcohol is no exposure.

I’m sure glad I stopped drinking now. :slight_smile:

And now for something incredibly gross - the breast cancer that took over the woooooooorld! Seriously, it is a horrible, horrible picture - don’t click if you’re squeamish. I was eating chicken and apricot jam when I saw the picture, and it damned near put me off my food.

86

Forgot to mention - one of the things alcohol is particularly co-carcinogenic with is smoking. Big surprise, eh?

87

You’re welcome.

I have to say that it seems really odd to make that claim (even with the “dose dependent” qualifier). I’m still so startled that I’m having difficulty believing it – I keep considering it, then dismissing it as hyperbole. Are we sure that that’s what a Group 1 classification means? (You, actually, as I can say definitively that I’m not sure.)

88

If you’re looking for parallels with smoking (and appearing to suggest that tobacco is demonized more than alcohol), consider this conclusion from the CDC:

“There is no known amount of alcohol that is safe to drink while pregnant.”

89

Guest with allergy leaves the house. Makes an appropriate apology to the hosts as to why she has to leave, and that is all.

90

There’s also the very germane point that drinking alcohol is not something that can be forced on you against your will like smoke (well, not easily or commonly).

91

Wow… while I was gone, it got seriously stupid in here.

No one is going to die from a night of secondhand smoke, people. Take a nice deep breath of whatever air you’re currently occupying, however fresh it may or may not be, and try to have a tiny bit of perspective.

Y’all do *realize *that you sound like crazy people, right?

92

More questions regarding norms for behavior in the DR:

We have two on-board sources confirming that smoking is socially very unacceptable in the DR, and one who tells us that culturally people in the DR place a high value on being gracious hosts. We also have our op implying that the stereotype of loud and passionate disagreements is true for at least his in-law family (and presumably for their friends).

Given all that together what are the social norms there for guests when a host violates two social norms (both against smoking socially and against being a gracious host)?

93

Unless they have a really bad asthma attack, though hopefully they’d have the sense to leave the smoke before it became an issue.

94

*"Greek researchers at University of Athens say
close investigation of 48 smoking and nonsmoking men revealed
that "both passive (‘secondhand’) and active smoking are associated
with an acute deterioration in the elastic properties of the aorta,‘’ the
major artery leading away from the heart…They discovered a significant "stiffening’’ of the aortic wall occurred
"soon after the initiation of passive or active smoking… (which) is
maintained for at least 20 minutes.‘’

“Our study shows that very low levels of exposure to secondhand smoke may be associated with appreciable increases in cardiovascular risk”

“What we are seeing in the data is a substantial biological change that occurs with even 30 minutes of exposure to secondhand smoke.”*

You do realize that you are displaying major ignorance here?

95

Do you realize that you’re displaying major hysteria here?

We’re talking about smokers smoking in their own homes. You feel a threat to your health, take responsibility for it and leave. If you fail to do that, I can only assume that you’re hyperbolizing your fear a bit here.

Let me make this very, very clear.

If YOU **really **believed this shit, you would take great care not to expose yourself to smoke. You wouldn’t just bitch about people smoking, and stick around anyway.

96

I’m assuming you’re talking to me. When smoke starts to bother me, I do leave. I don’t think I’m displaying any kind of hysteria - there are no screaming fits involved. I just let the host know why I am leaving, and then I leave.

What I can’t understand is why a host would smoke (yes, even in his/her own home) knowing that the smoke causes discomfort, let alone a genuine dangerous medical issue, for a guest. Doesn’t seem terribly hospitable to me.

97

I wasn’t. I was talking to Jackmannii, who in the face of grave danger, sticks around to bitch that we’re killing him.

98

If you’d bothered to read my initial response in this thread, I said that people with health problems affected by secondhand smoke who know that a relative is a smoker should either make arrangements beforehand to avoid the problem or not visit (and that smokers anticipating a bunch of guests should avoid smoking in their home due to the likelihood of someone having a problem with it).

In responding to your claims of “hysteria” over secondhand smoke exposure, I pointed out that there are rapid deleterious cardiovascular effects, and it should be obvious to you that someone with, for example, a serious heart problem could in fact die because of “a night of secondhand smoke exposure.”

Whether or not nonsmokers and smokers choose to behave recklessly and/or rudely is a separate matter.

If in the face of facts you continue to spout ignorance, you run the grave risk of confirming the impression that you’re a moron.

99

My mother smokes, as does my grandmother. I have asthma, which is triggered by smoke, pets, perfume, and air fresheners. My mother makes an effort to be a considerate host, but my grandmother refuses to make any changes to her behavior as a host or a guest. If she drives me somewhere she will even refuse to allow the window to be open in any way going so far to roll the window back up and scold whoever dared try to breathe. I visit my grandmother at most once a year, and her smoking makes me feel way less guilty than I would otherwise for seeing her so rarely. I don’t invite her to my house usually because she will light up and get offended when KellyM insists that she step outside if she is going to smoke.

Even my mother’s efforts fall short in that I am nearly guaranteed to have an asthma attack while visiting her. Once it was her smoking on the porch and the smoke coming right back in a window I was sitting at. Another time it was one of those damned timed air freshners which shot out as I was sitting in front of it. I would have not been there if I had know it was there, but it was disguised as a piece of harmless kitsch. I stay at a hotel rather than her house, so I get less sick, but a visit to her place does mean I will feel ill for a few days after.

While there may well be psychological factors in asthma triggers, it doesn’t mean the resulting attacks are less deadly. I know that smoke often triggers an attack, so I suppose it is likely that what I expect contributes to the attack. My eyes sometimes feel itchy just seeing pictures of cats too and I know I am not allergic to pictures of cats.

However I also know that whether I am aware of the trigger, it can work. My landlord came over to fix the furnace, and he reeks of smoke. He came through the dining room, and left a trail of stink, but I did not get an asthma attack right then. Pretty soon though, I felt an attack starting. The the scent that I thought was just his reek lingering was caused by the asshole lighting up next to the circulator which was then pumping the smoke right at me.

I try to be considerate as host or guest, letting hosts know ahead of time that I will not stay around smoke, so if there is no area without smoking, I will have to leave. As a host, I have a clean chair and an ashtray available outside, away from the door, for smokers to use. When circumstances permit, I will sit with them and keep them company. moving my chair so the smoke blows away from me.

I do worry that exposure to smoke at my mother’s place will harm my children. I don’t think random chance that I have asthma after growing up surrounded by smoke.

100

I grew up in a family where nobody smoked, and I had asthma from birth. Go figure.