Everybody loves the spectacle of fireworks, and when you can do it yourself, it's all the better. Even common firecrackers are banned. However, it generally is enforced only against sellers, distributors or buyers caught with large quantities. Dr. Gerald Shiener, chief of consultation psychiatry at DMC-Sinai in Birmingham, says fireworks appeal on several levels. People are fascinated by fire, and some get very excited that you can take something that's so dangerous and control it.
People find that exciting.
It's almost like a sexual thing. When movies want to avoid being sexually explicit, Shiener points out, they often cut to scenes of fireworks exploding. And Dr. Susan Wainwright, a Bloomfield Hills psychoanalyst, agrees that, for some, lighting fireworks is decidedly sexual. Women aren't as interested in fireworks because they're not as driven to control, Shiener says. Men struggle with those things and they're always doing things to prove that they're adequate and that they can be in control.