Sex & The City: An Unlikely Intersection of Tobacco-Control Advocacy, Generational Reconfiguration, and Queerness
A Conversational Piece by OABT-LA Staff, Jess and Victoria
Consider these articles:
Intergenerational Friendships at the Workplace
How Gen Z is Transforming the Workplace
The Carrie Bradshaw Effect – smoking
A content analysis of tobacco content in season 1 of ‘And Just Like That’
What does the show, Sex and the City, have to do with tobacco-control advocacy work?
Jess: Growing up, I sneakily watched Sex and the City because I was absolutely mesmerized by this group of four unapologetic women navigating their lives so independently in such an intimidating place (New York City). Those of us who watch the show know that Carrie battles tobacco cessation on and off throughout the entirety of the series. I find myself working to fight the exact habit within the communities I love – tobacco-control advocacy in the Los Angeles County LGBTQ+ community. My work with OUT Against Big Tobacco – Los Angeles (OABT-LA) delves into understanding the attitudes, beliefs, and ultimately, the reasons why our communities continue to engage in tobacco use.
Carrie, a naturally fabulous icon for the queer community, and the LGBTQ+’s respective communities share a few things in common. Albeit a fictional character, Carrie was depicted as a social outcast in her own respect – a single woman in her thirties who embraced her own sexuality and encouraged other women to do so through her sex column. The LGBTQ+ community has a long history as being perceived as “socially deviant” and therefore experience social stigma, stress, and other significant social determinants of health at higher rates than their heterosexual counterparts.
Ultimately, my upbringing coupled with my interest in public health and my own identity as a pansexual late bloomer, seams these sectors altogether. Suffice to say, sorry not sorry Carrie, we’re fighting back to reduce the tobacco-related health disparities within Los Angeles County by shedding light on the reasons why commercial tobacco should no longer be romanticized in the ways even Sex and the City portrayed, and rather, focus on the health and wellness of my community.
Victoria: Even though so many women grew up watching Sex and the City, I only recently discovered the show a few months ago during a random search through HBO Max. During my experience as a first-time watcher, I noticed Carrie tends to pick up a cigarette in stressful or uncomfortable situations to help herself relax. Using smoking as a coping mechanism for stress is far too common among the LGBTQ+ community, which I have witnessed with my loved ones who rely on smoking to cope with the daily challenges of existing as queer in today’s world. While Carrie was typically lighting up a cigarette to escape the challenges of single life in New York City, the current political and social climate regards queerness with such hostility that it forces our community to engage in escapism through smoking so they can lessen the burdens of their reality, even if it’s just for a few minutes. If there is a generation of people who grew up watching Carrie alleviate her stress by glamorously smoking a cigarette to escape her troubles, I can understand how susceptible the queer community would be to trying out that coping mechanism for themselves.
However, it’s the character growth that Carrie experiences throughout the series cements the connection between my work with OABT-LA and Sex and the City. Carrie does eventually quit smoking successfully in the later seasons, and I believe that her support system empowered her to continue to stop smoking cigarettes. While her boyfriend is the reason she initially decided to quit, her three best friends were there for her during the journey and continued to encourage her to stop. One of my core beliefs is the power of community and showing up for each other, and one of my main goals for OABT-LA is to be that community for queer folks who don’t have support. Lacking a support system makes it incredibly difficult to maintain motivation to quit smoking, so I am happy that I can be involved in a program that lends a hand to those who may not have anyone else extending one to them.
Generational Recon-what?
Jess: One thing I want to highlight as a part of our work with OABT-LA is our public health internship program – this program allots funding to recruit, hire, and build up students who are seeking public health professions after graduating from their educational institutions. This places us in an interesting space, as I am currently 29 years old, and our intern is 21 years old – we get to work together to cultivate a space that adheres to our work/life balance needs. We may not be too far off in age, but we are technically from different generational eras – I am a millennial, and Victoria, is a Gen Zer. The similarity effect dictates that we are likely to have pleasant experiences in our working relationship because we have similar age and generational backgrounds. Our inclination to collaborate, while also taking time for ourselves when needed, is uncanny and a newer phenomenon compared to our elders’ work/life experiences.
Thus, a generational reconfiguration is well underway at The Network, our parent organization where OABT-LA is housed. I think it’s safe to say that tobacco-control advocacy is a space where neither myself, nor Victoria, would have expected to be five years ago, but this work has not only given us an outlet to make an impact on the health of the LGBTQ+ community within LA county, but has also given us the opportunity to have more sustainable and autonomous choices in our working environments. For example, Victoria has participated as a panelist, providing a queer college student lens on LGBTQ health needs; I have sought opportunities to highlight the data collection OABT-LA has been able to gather during Pride Month by applying (and being accepted) to speak at the American Public Health Association Expo in Minneapolis, Minnesota in late October; and both of us are planning a Tobacco Awareness Day alongside community partners LGBTQ Center OC and LA LGBTQ Chamber of Commerce to be held later this year. Essentially, we are claiming and taking space in places not necessarily familiar to either of us, but exponentially important to our mission of reconfiguration.
Victoria: Watching Sex and the City reminded me that we are all simultaneously trying our best to navigate life, just at various stages. Tobacco use impacts people of all ages, so knowing how to relate to all ages is crucial in tobacco cessation work. One of our most recent events for OABT-LA focused on providing resources and collecting surveys from the community during West Hollywood Pride, and that experience reinforced for me that people of all backgrounds and ages are struggling with tobacco use. Gen Zers like myself, millennials, and the previous generations all experienced tobacco being marketed towards them. In order for us to push back against this advertising using our advocacy, we must be able to make everyone feel comfortable and heard regardless of their age. Each generation has different ways of engaging in tobacco, so it is important to understand the unique challenges for every generation. Although Carrie only smoked cigarettes throughout the show, many people in my generation prefer vapes to cigarettes. Because of this, it is important that we are equipped with resources for all types of tobacco use that fits the needs of every person and generation.
What is your personal connection to queerness, and how is it highlighted in your advocacy work?
Jess: I am a first-gen, Latinx, pansexual, Aquarius woman – all identities I am proud of and especially relevant to this work. We tend to forget that queer folx have identities beyond their queerness, and the same rings true for the medical community and other bureaucracies at large. Intersectionality is a focal point of our work because we recognize that it is impossible to extricate experience from identity. This allows us to be intentional about the workshops that we host, how nuanced we can make the topics that we explore, and ultimately better serve our communities with intimacy, unlike many other organizations that stop at educating, instead of understanding why a Lesbian cisgender woman might engage in tobacco use more so than their heterosexual counterparts. My connection to queerness gives me the lens to approach everything with curiosity, and not malice so that this program serves interpersonal community needs related to tobacco-driven disparities. I truly believe our work will lead to others taking notice, mirroring how we aim to be intentional and create space for the very critical notions that our communities have been voicing for decades about the various harms done to us.
Victoria: As a bisexual Black woman, I learned at a young age that feelings of alienation are an unfortunately common part of the queer experience, and it is exacerbated when you identify with other marginalized groups. When I was first coming into myself, I remember desperately wanting to feel anything other than loneliness because of my identity. Alienation is one of the worst feelings of the human experience, so my deep understanding of loneliness due to my born identities allows me to easily empathize with our community when it comes to tobacco use. My experiences allow me to understand why our community turns to smoking to cope, but they also allow me to see that there are healthier ways to manage stress without turning to smoking. Through my struggles with anxiety, I have discovered creative and easy coping mechanisms that allow me to manage my anxiety in a way that does not endanger my health. I am an advocate for healthy communities, and I know that tobacco cessation efforts that target the LGBTQ+ community is a great way to advance that goal. Queer folks deserve to live healthy and fulfilled lives, and tobacco should no longer be able to prevent our community from achieving this.