I do suspect that there's a "body chemistry" component to this.
To me, burley often tastes like very rancid nuts, sometimes with additional "off" notes as in soured milk or spoiled meat, or sometimes it feels like dry, prickly, suffocating smoke, like choking on burning straw or weeds.
I've acquired a number of tastes in my life -- I know what it is to dislike something at first, and then acquire the taste over time -- but my impression is that my aversion to burley is not just a taste dislike. There seems to be something else going on, such that I can't just acquire this taste.
As for the fun rib-elbowing and chop-busting over some association between burley tobacco and masculinity, I'm very interested in it. I've done a fair bit of thinking about the deep structure of gender, of which physical sex is only one instantiation. Although I don't prefer current ideological terms, if I were to use such terms, I'd say that I'm a "red pill" kind of traditionalist on gender, the zeitgeist be damned. I'm particularly interested in seeing how traditionally gendered conventions -- popularly dismissed today as arbitrary constructs -- are often rooted quite intrinsically in either essential or practical masculinity and femininity respectively.
So, as you might guess, I've tried to imagine what intrinsic or symbolic connection there may be between burley tobacco (in particular) and masculinity.
But I'm coming up with nothing.
@cosmicfolklore, have you considered the possibility that you parade this arbitrary association to compensate for your fabulous bedazzling of pipes, sort of like some guys install truck nutz to compensate for their below-average endowment?
?
