wtf is kissing

From Lex, the queer classifieds app, comes the question…

Y’all. I love kissing. Absolute favorite.

If you wanna dive straight into the meat and potatoes, feel free to scroll down to the next section. But first, let me take a moment to be proud and share some of how I got here.

Story Time

My first kiss was at 18 years old. I was a mere few months into my college experience. I went out to dinner with a cute lady friend and brought along my best friend, not understanding that it was a date. Luckily my friend caught on quicker than I and left us to it. At dinner, I wanted her to kiss me but she wouldn’t. While playing pool, I wanted her to kiss me, but she wouldn’t. We walked back to my dorm and paused on the sidewalk, and surely that was the moment when she’d kiss me, but… she wouldn’t!

Finally, there in front of the Fountain of Venus, we paused. She said that she wouldn’t take my first kiss. But that if I wanted it. She was there. And willing - if I was willing to initiate it. I was. It was amazing!

We went back to my room, and that’s when the awkwardness hit. How does kissing even work? Where and how do I move my lips, and what’s up with the tongue, and it sure was hard to get into it with my mind full of thoughts…

That woman was luckily much more experienced than me, and she left me with a parting tip that I still find useful: try not to slobber all over your partner.

This night ignited a life-long passion for me and kissing remains one of my favorite sensual activities. For a few years, it became a hobby of mine: go out on the weekend, meet a cute stranger, and kiss.

There was the time when my friends and I made it a challenge. I found 9 people and asked them to kiss (as part of a competition of course). It was Bloomington’s Pride Film Festival, there was a professional photographer, and that’s how we got pics of me kissing many beautiful people.

There was the time when I went to the Backdoor, the only gay club in town, and this cute girl sidled up to me with a 50-year-old man in tow. She said he was newly out and she was hoping to find him his first kiss with a boy. I told her to buy me a shot and we could talk. So I grabbed that shot, downed it, and took the man up to the club’s stage. We had a searing kiss, and I flounced off, shooting him a cute look as he watched me flabbergasted and wanting more.

These are some of the exciting stories, and oh boy do I have more, but let’s dive right into business!

Your question

Must kissing be awkward? Can it be good in the beginning? Or is it just you, dear reader, who struggles? Well. Let me tell you..

1. People have different kissing styles.
   I dated a woman who wanted to only kiss from one angle and I struggled to learn that. I dated another woman who used no tongue, like ever, for some reason?? Another woman liked to "kiss like a man" which appeared to be more like fucking my mouth with her tongue. One man was soft and gentle as can be with no tongue. So 100% yes, there is going to be a period of learning each other's styles and finding the connection that's enjoyable for both of you.

2. Kissing is a skill. As elaborated, I've made it a practice to kiss a lot of people. Those who are "good at it" are near immediately discernable and reflect that back to me. As in, they think I’m good at kissing too. Now, this is one-part style alignment. I’m inclined to enjoy kissing someone who kisses like me. But I claim that I can enjoy kissing in wildly different styles, and there are underlying moves that a person can make which determine whether I like it.

assuming kissing is a skill,
what are some subcomponents?

• Being comfortable and relaxed. Surrendering into the flow of the thing. Kissing is an embodiment skill like any other. The dancer who's listening to their body is more fluid than the one trying to follow their stream of consciousness.

• Being attuned. Noticing how you feel in the moment. Following what feels good, slowing down or speeding up as it feels right. Applying that attention to your partner as well as to yourself.

• Mutual escalation. This is the practical extension of being attuned. It isn't tried and true science, but here's a general approach to follow: never take more than two consecutive steps forward in progression.
  
  Let’s take the dance floor as an example. You can make eye contact and smile at someone (step 1). You can next walk over and dance near them (step 2). If you then move into their space and dance with them without them taking any inviting actions, this is 3 progression steps forward. It’s the equivalent of jumping off the intimacy cliff (which, you can do, but outcomes are much higher variance). Now if you look & smile, approach them, and then they start initiating eye contact, this counts as a move on their part, which resets the counter. You can then begin dancing with them as 1 step of escalation, at which point they might take a step, and if not, you can enter closer dancing as your step 2.

The rough steps of kissing escalation:

1. Suggestive eye contact.
   Bring a sultry energy and let your desire shine through. Pair that with the motion of switching between looking at their eyes and their lips.

2. Going for it or leaning in close.
   When I'm first making contact with someone, especially if we haven't verbally communicated about kissing, I like a ratio of Person A going 70% in, Person B meeting them and following 20%, and Person A sealing the deal on the last 10%. Alternatively, Person A going 90% and staunchly staying at 90% until Person B connects or says, "kiss me."

3. First contact.
   The ideal approach varies here, like with all of this, so feel it out. Sometimes going in hot and intense is the way. But usually, first contact is lips only. You're relaxing into each other. Lips begin about medium firm, not pursed, but held enough that as first contact proceeds, you both can relax into the kiss. Take a long, slow moment to just feel your mouth against theirs with no significant movement. At least three heartbeats. And then as you're relaxing, start a bit of movement. It's a fairly basic open and closing in contact with their mouth. If you’re a bit confused here, I invite you into an explorer mindset. Get curious about what different sensations and motions feel like at this level.

4. Deepening the kiss.
   As you two relax into contact, the motions get larger. Remember to stay present, embodied, and aware of yourself and your partner. Follow what feels good. At this point, there are some times where your or their mouth opens a bit. Start to bring your tongue forward. Lightly at first. Feeling out contact. Do they open their mouth further? Bring their tongue to meet yours? If you make some tongue contact and pull back and wait, does theirs come forward? This is the transition from kissing to making out.

5. Tongue??
   The tongue is some of the highest variance in terms of kissing! Some people do not like it. Some want to have a tongue deeply and forcefully thrust into their mouth. There’s a light use of the tongue to brush the lips, and a light probing into the mouth. My favorite is like a broad sweeping into the mouth, where their tongue meets yours, and the two tongues are dancing in the way that your lips are.

6. Keep having fun.
   There are other moves available with the mouth: sucking on the tongue or the lip, lightly biting a lip, a twirling your tongue around theirs. You’re fully in the dance, and the name of the game is pleasure, curiosity, and fun. Try to notice what you like. Notice how your partner responds to actions. Notice what it’s like to quiet the mind and see what your body leads you to do.

7. Remember the rest of the body.
   While kissing is centered around the mouth and its associated lips and tongue, the activity is a full-bodied one. The breath intermingles. The bodies press together. You can use your hands to run up and down their sides, rest a hand along the back of the neck, or through their hair.

Final Remarks

These are just some of my takes on how to approach kissing. I want to end this with a reminder that there’s no one right way to kiss, nor is it a performance, nor is there one purpose for kissing. We kiss our good friends on the cheeks. We kiss our partners on their lips. We kiss our children’s foreheads. A kiss can be a simple greeting. It can be an invitation into deeper, more intense physical intimacy. It can be an activity with no goal, no direction, nothing more than a moment of connection meant to be savored in its fullness.

Whatever a kiss means to you, I invite you to enjoy it exactly as it is. Awkwardness and all.