Adam Zmith

This was a well-written read that dances through the history of poppers, queer culture, gay men, commercialism, and a great deal more. It does so with a lovely sense of place, grounded in nightclubs, Gay Switchboards, bator Zoom chats, even giving the sense of what it might be like to watch a popperbator video on xtube. No chapter feels superfluous, and all the information is deeply interesting. Zmith jumps from queer history, to queer theory, to queer media studies, to queer commercialism, and a great deal more besides with deft aplomb, realising his vision from start to finish, both simultaneously evoking the past, the present, and the future.

This book is tightly written, with an open focus, it's sensual, grounded, but also transcendent, seeking to transcend the concept of labels while also being completely dependent on labels throughout. Zmith seems to have a tense relationship with labels and categories, both advocating for doing away with them (from the very beginning, we can tell he is not quite comfortable with either 'gay' or 'man' despite then settling into 'gay man' as the perspective from which the book is written - though 'white gay man' would have been more honest), while being unable to do away with them. The future he envisions is one that seems to want to embrace the open, dizzying, pleasurable seconds that poppers create in the mind and body, which is admirable, but I don't know if it's one I want as a fellow queer, which makes the experience of reading this review copy really fascinating, rewarding, and thought-provoking.

I will say two things that jumped out at me as being either significant omissions or inclusions. This book has a kind of timidity when approaching the subject of poppers and people of colour. I have no idea how people of colour - even gay men of colour - engaged with poppers because this book doesn't really go there. People of colour *are* mentioned, and always respectfully, but it makes up what feels like less than 1% of the book. So if that's the queer history you're looking for, you won't find it here.

The second is that if you're familiar with BDSM, you will read an extremely narrow and limited viewpoint of what it means to be dominant and submissive, which is fine if you think 'this is autobiographical and not trying to reflect the community' and less fine when you realise that's not what Zmith is trying to do. A one-dimensional idea of domination as objectification and denigration only (sigh) suggests a real absence from the actual BDSM community, or a limited idea of what this is. Just as some people think poppers are only something that 'deviants' use, I fear Zmith might need to have his mind blown open on just how diverse BDSM can actually be, especially once you realise that it doesn't just belong to leathermen communities, and that leathermen communities themselves have embraced different manifestations of dominance and submission. Thankfully that's only a small part of one chapter, but to me it detracted from the open-mindedness of the book overall, since that section read as closed-minded and myopic.

Overall Deep Sniff is an encouragement to get you thinking about drugs and drug use, why we push pleasure and the pleasure principle down in our list of priorities and what that might mean for us as individuals and communities, the commercialisation of machismo and how that creates the idea that certain drugs 'belong' to certain communities when they don't (poppers can be used and enjoyed by anyone, but they're largely associated with white gay male communities, and marketing - as well as gatekeeping - is a huge part of that). It's an embrace of the other, and the arts. I was delighted to see Zmith referring to 'people who have periods' instead of the incorrect 'women who have periods.' And though this book is more a history of (white) gay men and poppers than it is anything else (it's honest about this from the beginning), I still felt seen and included as a nonbinary transmasc kinkster, simply because of the awareness of the QUILTBAG community, the queerness that leapt from the pages, and the familiarity of the way we sometimes end up thinking about sensuality, pleasure, drugs, relating, connection, and our future.

A must read for anyone who is interested in poppers for a start, but also for many in the QUILTBAG community who wish to know more about their history (and their futures). There's a lot of lovely knowledge in here, much of it presented with the spirit of curiosity, and not coercion. Zmith wants you to think about your own queerness and connection to the world, and your connection to others, and what queerness might come to mean going into a queerer future, and that's the kind of thing I enjoy thinking about, so I'm extremely happy to have read this.… (altro)

Deep Sniff by Adam Zmith is a fun and fascinating trip through the history of poppers and into an idealized queer future. Whether you're familiar with poppers or have just heard of them, this will be the kind of read that surprises you as you go.

I read another review and found it interesting that we saw many of the same qualities yet interpreted them differently. It is a good review, doesn't trash the book, but sees disjointed jumping between product history, cultural history, memoir, and speculation where I see the weaving of these into a whole. Albeit an imperfect whole, but not nearly as disjointed as that person sees. That may be because of my past, most of my study and research was interdisciplinary and I am accustomed to reading accounts that weave different threads into a new cloth.

I do think that some readers may only find certain aspects interesting, maybe the cultural/social history and memoirish parts because of the nostalgia (good or bad) or the history of the product itself, which is part basic science and part marketing/PR history. I also believe that the aspect that may miss some readers is also the part that I think Zmith is still likely forming, namely the speculation about some better, or at least different, queer future. Like any speculative theorizing this is a work in progress, so readers should read this as a contribution to the discussion, not the entire discussion.

I would recommend this is those interested in queer studies, as well as those who simply want to know more about a common pleasure enhancer.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (altro)

A short book about the cultural meaning of poppers and their relationship to pleasure and gayness. They’re apparently still widely available in the UK and the USA, “thanks to a pact between authorities and sellers. Everyone agrees to say that these products are not for human consumption, which means they are labelled with fake uses like ‘room odouriser’ and ‘boot cleaner.’” Interestingly, unlike with opiates, pharmacos apparently were actually worried that people—that is to say, young gay men—were using the product for pleasure and reported that to the FDA. I guess pleasure that makes you want to have sex (Zmith repeatedly emphasizes how poppers can be used to relax physically for anal sex) is more morally concerning than pleasure that just makes you happy. Zmith also argues that popper marketing participated in the promotion of a muscular, aggressive gay masculinity, e.g., an ad for Locker Room poppers “showed a butch superhero with a six-pack, cape and battering-ram thighs leaning against a locker door beside the words ‘Purity power potency.’” Thus poppers “were both countercultural, simply by being gay, and also deeply conventional in how they were marketed.” Zmith also discusses how moral panics over poppers were intertwined with moral panic over AIDS—indeed, one contrarian insisted for many years that it was poppers, and not HIV, that caused AIDS. I loved the bit about disputes at a gay hotline over what to say about poppers—one volunteer wrote, “People who sniff poppers need an extra physical kick from sex as they get no emotional satisfaction,” while another responded, “You sanctimonious tie-wearer.” The bit on popper vids—clips from multiple porn videos edited together with a soundtrack and instructions about when exactly to sniff—was also very “through a glass darkly” from my own fannishness.… (altro)