The art of the kiss

For many of us, there are few physical sensations more pleasurable than a kiss. So why do so many lovers rush through the act of kissing, always expecting it to “lead somewhere”? While couples tend to take their time enjoying the caress of each other’s lips in their early days, many relationships are troubled, as time goes on, by the expectation that a kiss must necessarily result in sex.

Kissing is not a universal practice. The African tribes, Chewa and Thonga, on seeing Europeans kiss, said: “Look, they are eating each other’s dirty saliva.” In tribes from other parts of the world-including Borneo (situated on the Gambia river in Western Africa) and in Birmania, Siberia-the word “to kiss” actually means to smell. For these traditions, the act of kissing is an extension of the desire to smell a lover, a relative or a friend.

Finnish tribes view kissing as indecent; in other African tribes kissing is not customary. In some cultures, people kiss in a restrained fashion, while in others they go at it ferociously, biting and sucking on each other’s lips.

Once considering it to be a form of cannibalism, segments of Chinese culture used to be offended by kissing. Even today this attitude still persists in some parts of the world. In May 1974, for example, the Kuwaiti criminal court, pursuing a case in which a girl and a boy under the age of 18 were accused of indecency for kissing in public, declared that it was a criminal offense to kiss in public.

A kiss is the ultimate expression of intimacy. We cradle in each other’s arms, we take in each other’s bodily fluids—we even get under each other’s skin (literally!). Through the act of kissing we open our bodies and ourselves to another.

As a result, kissing is usually accompanied by a range of emotions: tenderness, sensitivity, compassion, concern, confidence, vulnerability, appreciation, the feeling of loving and of being loved, of being both desirable and desired. We take refuge in the warmth of a network of kisses in which sensuality and passion are amplified.

As such, this physical pleasure is a vital source of emotional well-being. We experience the world through our bodies and it’s the body that seems to melt away with a kiss.