First Place APME
As a baby boomer I was born into a home with a lot of common sense and matured into a world of changing morals and mores.
As a child smoking was socially acceptable: businesses and schools provided smoking lounge, magazines published cigarette ads, television shows with stars who smoke were sponsored by cigarette companies. Smoking polluted the air, left one with bad breath and nicotine stains but it was socially acceptable at the time.
However it was not socially acceptable to flaunt one’s private behavior. Unwed teenage mother disappeared from school. Health classes on reproductive issues were gender segregated for topics inappropriate for mixed groups. As a middle-school student I perched on a gym bleacher watching a film carefully selected by the school nurse for female eyes only. The boys watched their film in the cafeteria.
Then the sexual revolution came. Free love flowed and those like me who waited until marriage did not make the headlines, were not asked to talk on shock radio nor the increasingly popular talk shows. Everyone else knew it was healthy to not repress and wait because except for a occasional unplanned pregnancy, there were no complications.
As sexual talk and activity were encouraged: somking was increasingly discouraged. New information on the hazards of smoking lead to the Surgeon General’s mandatory warnings on cigarette packages. Cigarette jingles were replaced with ad campaigns against smoking. The message was, “Stop, if you’ve started and don’t start if you haven’t.”
Quitters were assured a renewal of health … if they quit soon enough. Slowly the case was built until recently cigarette manufacturers reaped expensive legal and financial consequences.
Ironically, as most forms of media banned or scored cigarettes, prime time programs on major networks with sexual content increased to an astounding 75 percent according to the Kaiser Family Foundation — during the two decades after the discovery of AIDS and the silent epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. TV shows tantalized viewers with the celebrations of casual sex but rarely hinted at the miserable time some had in the doctor’s office weeks later.
I find it ironic that smoking and sexual freedom both enjoyed a time of social acceptability. Both were revealed as potentially serious health hazards yet smoking’s visibility has decreased to near invisibility while sexual visibility has increased. This in spite of the reality that it takes years before one realizes the effect of tobacco, but extra- and pre-marital activity only require one night with an unknown carrier to contract a death sentence.
Stop smoking and the health risks not only decline but may improve. Stop sleeping around, reduce the odds of contracting a STD — only to find out months later that the decision came too late. After everything done to reduce the physical damage of smoking, I find it ironic that so little is done to reduce the glorification of free love and free STDs.
Social moral and mores have changed since my childhood.
I wonder if it isn’t because there is a dearth of logic and common sense.