the art of osculation

Kissing.  It's nature's ultimate litmus test.  Hitch got it right when he said,  "One dance, one look, one kiss, that's all we get...one shot, to make the difference between 'happily every after' and, 'Oh? He's just some guy I went to some thing with once.' "  A study at University of Albany found that 59% of men and 66% of women ended contact after a first kiss.  We've all been there before.  How many times have you really liked someone, only to kiss for the first time and be totally repulsed?  The kiss of death for the relationship, so to speak. 

So what makes for a good first kiss?  According to that same study, most men like wet, tongue-y kisses, and women ...don't.  And there are all kinds of theories that say when you swap that little bit of spit, you're trading genetic info so you know if your kisser is a good mate.  Increasing your future kids' genetic diversity, survival of the fittest, and all that.  But if you ask me, it's a simple matter of compatible kissing techniques. 

When a kiss goes awry, the blame is always, always, always placed on the other party.  You'll never hear someone describe a horrible first kiss and say "Jeez, it was horrific!  I was slobbering all over him and jamming my tongue into the back of his throat."  I say that 90% of the time, a bad kiss is actually no one's fault-- it's just about mismatched preferences.  It's all about the proportions of preference for tongue, slobber, teeth, ice cubes/hard candy/foreign objects, or whatever else you prefer.  And it's no one's fault that you don't appreciate the same things as the person you kiss.  The remaining 10% of the time? You can point fingers and blame the other party for a bad kiss if:

1. Your face is being eaten.  Om nom nom = gross and unforgivable. 
2. You are caused physical harm.  This could mean broken teeth, literal suffocation by tongue, bleeding of the lips from excessive "nibbling," or any other type of injury (if you don't like it, that is -- like I said, I'm not judging preferences here).
3. You are covered in slobber to the point you need a towel.  Keep your tongue off my chin. There's just no excuse for that.

My friend Sneakasaurus Rex once kissed a girl he liked and it was terrible, but he was too nice to cut off contact and embarked on a long-term, long-distance relationship with someone he had to get drunk to enjoy kissing.  If you like someone that much, it's possible to modify your partner's kissing technique.  You really have to like the person, because it's a long, long process but it is possible.  Trouble is, some suggest bad kissing chemistry only translates to... bad other chemistry.  Something to think about.

I'll continue Extensive Firsthand Fieldwork (anyone want to volunteer as a test subject?) on all of this and report back...

Until then,

L