I have about as much business writing about electronic cigarettes as I do writing about inflatable sex dolls, but I can’t help noticing that they are being marketed in a manner that might be charitably referred to as ‘identical’.

Here are some advertising points that were presented to me in a recent email urging me to give e-Cigs® a try; below, I have merely substituted italicized sex-doll words for the word ‘cigarette’.

• Looks and feels like a real… (woman?).
• Cheaper than real…  (women?).
• Freedom to…  (diddle?) anywhere.
• No offensive… (girly?) odors.
• Reduce health risks… (STDs?)

Hon Lik

You will no doubt find this analogy distasteful, childish and utterly facetious—until you reference ‘electronic cigarettes’ on Wikipedia and discover that they were invented in 2003 by a pharmacist named Hon Lik.

Yeah, that’s not a typo. Hon Lik. Just saying is all.

Personally, I never developed a taste for medical-grade silica and I haven’t taken so much as a hit off a cigarette since I was twenty-two, so I am conspicuously unqualified to review either one. I will, therefore, restrict my comments to the mundane, the ludicrous and the snide.

First, electronic cigarettes are cylindrical, ultrasonic cartridges through which the user inhales a propylene glycerin-based liquid that apparently contains cancer-causing nitrosamines which have been zapped into an aereosol mist by an atomizer.

Now, does that sound like a perfectly safe way to cut back on smoking or doesn’t it?  Nevertheless, our Big Brother FDA has seen fit to actually test electronic cigarettes, and has found traces of nicotine in some cartridges claiming to be nicotine-free.  Hence, in July 2009, they issued a press release discouraging the use of electronic cigarettes.

As might be supposed, that decision had the Electronic Cigarette Association® fuming; they insisted that the tests were ‘too narrow to reach any valid and reliable conclusion’.

Even so, ignoring  such a well-composed and doubtlessly unbiased diatribe, Health Canada also issued an advisory against electronic cigarettes.

Leave it to the American Association of Public Health Physicians—whoever they are—to breath some fresh air into this smoky debate. They maintain that that the effects of second-hand smoke will be significantly decreased by using electronic cigarettes.  Well, AAPHP; considering that the smoke that e-Cigs® users exhale is merely ‘simulated’ rather than real, I’d say that you’ve reached a pretty sound conclusion.

Smoke on, buddy. Smoke on.

What Do You Think About What I Think About What I Just Said?

I’m glad you asked.  Quite frankly, I’m not particularly concerned with the health effects of either e-Cigs® or Marlboro Golds®, and in fact, encourage inveterate smokers to continue down their road to personal extinction.  Perché?  Because I bask in the sense of superiority I derive from having given up a pack-a-day habit two decades ago and having never suffered a single relapse.  To me, this means that I am smarter, more disciplined and healthier than you—never mind that I substituted many even more self-destructive habits (some of which are legal) to replace my cigarette jones.

If you die, I will just have to find some other sap to feel superior to.

At least, I am smart enough not to fall for the small-print scam that the e-Cigs® email is attempting to foist upon me.  Although the sample pack that the company promised me is free, I have to pay ten bucks for shipping and handling—most of which I am guessing goes to handling since the whole package is designed to fit in your vest pocket.  So confident are the e-Cigs®  folks of my complete satisfaction that I need do no more.  On the 15^th of every month, unordered,  e-Cigs® will send me refills for which I will be charged $100 on my VISA—plus shipping and handling.

This is the same kind of crap that Publisher’s Clearinghouse used to pull on me when I was a kid, where I could order twenty albums for a nickel, then, every few weeks, they would send me a box of records I didn’t order, for which I’d then be billed.  I remember shoring up my album collection for about a year before I sent them a letter saying, ‘I’m a minor, so good luck trying to collect.  BTW, thanks for the free boxed-set of The Statler Brothers Greatest Hits, who I can’t even stand.’

Unfortunately, I had to click an ‘Over 21’ box before I could order the e-Cigs®, so there goes that ploy.

Let’s Talk About Sex Simulacrummery Instead…

As it turns out, there is not much available at my local branch of the Detroit Public Library® regarding inflatable sex toys (other than the odd fact that Hitler issued them to his troops to guard against syphilis)—that, or the librarian just wasn’t with the program when I asked her for reference books.

Gypsy sex doll

Next, I did some online research and found the following spec sheet for a ‘semi-solid inflatable Size 1:1 human Gypsy Erotic Doll with high, feel good, real skin’ from Guangdong, China.

(Some of the selling points appear to have been translated into English more or less correctly:  ‘She is the privacy of your most faithful lover,’ which must be a relief to those gentlemen living in fear that their sex doll has a wandering eye.

But some of the other ad bullets are harder to grasp, so I will attach them verbatim and leave them to you to work out:)

• Water: All models are solidly insoluble in water
• Pollution: That nothing can stick to doll body.
• Realistic: In strict accordance with the proportion of correct human.
• Flexibility: The interface has a wide range of activities at the regional points.
• Security: On the human body is absolutely safe, no odor.
• Easy: Ready available, the total mind and body can give you the highest level of enjoyment.
• Temperature: Able to withstand any temperature below 300 degrees.

It would seem that even in Catonese pidgin, every possible contingency—including doll-play on Mars, where the temperature is, in fact, below 300 degrees—has been anticipated, engineered and perfected by those horny, chicken-feet-eating, warm-water-drinking, ‘Hello Kitty’-watching, sleeve-protector-wearing, noodle-slurping Chinese.

I may not know art, but I know what I like to wear to PTA meetings…

Or Has It…?  

Apparently not, or at least according to Dutch ‘artist’ Sander Reijgers, who has released a line of NSFW couture made from recycled sex dolls.

He snorts: “These raunchy, waterproof windbreakers and tracksuits are not for the prudish, but if you’re looking to make waves at your local Starbucks or, better yet, next PTA meeting, sporting one of these should draw some stares…”

Stares and waves, indeed, Sander.  But I will go you one better, you red-pants-wearing, gezellig-saying, raw-herring-eating Dutchman.  Since the doll’s ‘anatomically correct’ bits are intact on the windbreaker’s hood, I intend to adorn the ‘orifice most associated with Linda Lovelace® on mine with an e-Cigs® cartridge, fully atomized and leaking simulated smoke.

That ought to make the Harper Valley PTA sit up and bark, ought it not?

*

But, Don’t Take My Word For It!

Slightly Modified e-Cigs® Testimonials:

Rüdiger K.

Rüdiger K., Schutzstaffel officer, Einsatzgruppen, Russian Front:

“I received my (Eva Braun-shaped sex doll) just a few days after my order and I’m more than impressed by the solid feel.  It certainly feels like some time went into the design.  It’s almost like a high-end (hooker).

Diatronia M.

Diatronia M., Medical Lab Technician:

“These (George Clooney-shaped sex dolls) are amazing. I love being able to (cop a quick schtupp) anywhere, even my own home, without worrying about the (really bad example) I would pass on to my children.