Abstract:

Cigarettes are a proper example of expanding the sociological imagination of the smell in masculinity research. Data from semi-structured interviews of Shanghai residents show that the significance and mechanism of cigarettes in shaping men’s masculine traits have declined, while the medical mechanism of health and hygiene has risen and anti-smoking policies have strengthened. The smell of cigarettes has increasingly been regarded as a pungent and harmful odor, and has been despised and isolated in an institutional way. The regulation of smoking among women in romantic relationships, families and intimate partnerships, as well as the rise of the “new good man image”, have led to a negative evolution in the moral construction of men’s smoking. Being clean, fresh and odorless has been endowed with contemporary new values in the new male identity. This transformation not only indicates the dominant force of the healthy moral discourse in the current urban society, but also reveals the new appearance of male identity.

Key words: sociology of smell, (smell of) cigarette, masculinity, moral construction, social changes