De re French kissing

I really like French kissing.

I remember the first time I did it, when I was in 7th grade, with Erin K. on the steps in her parent's condo. The thrill of it was overwhelming - it seemed incomprehensibly intimate (this was in the days when actual sexual activity between junior high school students was simply unheard-of). To this day, the first time that particular intimacy is exchanged with a woman gives me a frisson that is unique, unlike any of the other very pleasant sensations that may attend further explorations.

One time a few years back I was saying goodnight to a friend I'd been lusting after for a few years (without her knowledge - she had a boyfriend), but with whom I had never exchanged more than bear hugs and kisses on cheeks and occasionally closed mouths. I knew she was mildly attracted to me in that way that a friend can be attracted to a friend, but that carries no actual possibility of physical intimacy.


So we stand up to hug goodbye like always, do the good, deep hug, pull back for the quick kiss goodbye, do the kiss...and her mouth opens and her tongue slides into my mouth. Without thinking about it (thank ghod) I entwined my tongue with hers in the split second before she withdrew it. A thrill shot through me in that instant and I started to get hard instantly, just like that 7th grade boy. This was something that hadn't happened to me in over twenty years, that sort of instantaneous, split-second erection. We pulled back and stared at each other, bug-eyed at the line we'd just crossed without meaning to. All I could think to say was "Uhm...what was that?" She was just silent for second, then helplessly stammered, "oh my god...I don't know...I'm sorry...I didn't mean to do that, but..."


In the four years since that happened, I have not once failed to remember that moment when I've seen her: the power of that momentary act of intimacy has not dimmed at all.


I've been with a few women who didn't like French kissing very much; in most cases it was because some guy in their past had been sloppy or overeager or brutish or just unimaginative about it and they decided they didn't like it. A couple of them have just been kind of weird about having someone else's tongue in their mouth (strangely, both of them loved giving blowjobs, which seemed odd to me).


Most women seem to like it more than a little, but are apprehensive about each initial encounter, probably because of the same problems with previous guys. Gents, evidently a lot of us, possibly a majority, are not very good at this and really need to slow down, consider the value of the tease, and not mistake depth of tongue insertion for guarantor of passion. Immodest as it is to say so, judging from unsolicited reports received I'm evidently pretty good at it, which is nice to hear, considering how much I like doing it.


Then there are those women who are simply mad for French kissing, who seem like they'd rather do that than practically anything else. I've been with a few and each one has been completely different - in some cases it felt like the manifestation of a pathology, in others like the most intimate way to express a hunger for connection (these might be points along a continuum). H. was a girlfriend whose French kissing was of the latter sort; she liked sex just fine, but what truly stirred her was the passion she felt when her face and her lover's face were connected. We once kissed for three hours straight in my car, and I don't remember it ever being exasperating or tedious - her passion was that compelling.


J. was a high school classmate (with whom I would later have the first threesome; see previous post Reminiscence 3) whose mania for French kissing gradually came to seem more like a pathology. Given our relative youth, she was actually pretty good at it, especially considering that I was either the first or second guy she'd ever done it with. But there was something bottomless in her kissing, a complete absence of teasing or active ardour, but rather a desperate inhalation of whatever I could give her, like a desert animal sucking water from a stream after a long drought. She wasn't completely passive, but she was definitely receptive rather than reciprocating. I suppose I could say she was being submissive, but I wasn't thinking overtly in those terms yet and all it seemed to mean at this point was pouring as much passion as I could into her ever-open mouth, which always wanted more than I could fill.


That said, the first few times were great - 30-45 minutes of passionate kissing. But it turned out that's all it ever was, and as we continued to see each other, I began to find myself pulling away during these marathons - many long minutes of initially passionate French kissing, then my ardour inexorably exhausting itself in a shift to more conventional open-mouthed kissing, then face-kissing, and finally nuzzling.

This is, I'm convinced, a byproduct of the threshold nature of the French kiss. The French kiss is usually the first bodily invasion, and it suggests if not invites other, more serious, invasions. A line is crossed with the French kiss: it is not an impermeable line, but it is a line. One can scurry back across the line, but it is, I think, a clear decision point, and there is frequently a sort of sad decay of ardour that occurs during the minutes of a French kiss, a wordless resignation and recognition that nothing more is going to happen. Sometimes this is merely the expression of signals unmistakeably expressed elsewhere: the hand removed from the breast or ass, resistance felt at an attempt to shift from the vertical to the horizontal.

But sometimes there is a mysteriously wordless, gestureless signaling that occurs, where the kiss itself is the signal. One continues to kiss, but perhaps the tongue of the other does not venture out in response quite so ardently as it did mere moments before. Perhaps teeth click or clash together and lips close in response and do not reopen quite quickly enough - a message is sent and received. Sometimes a particular movement of one's passion will be found bizarre or distasteful - you ran your tongue across her teeth, or sucked on her tongue, or bit her lip, or sealed her mouth closed with yours so that she couldn't breath for a thrilling few seconds. One mistake and suddenly the tempo and timbre of the kissing has changed. What seconds ago was mounting passion, urgent violation, suddenly becomes cautious, judicious monitoring. Not quite perfunctory, but no longer passionate. Kisses on the cheek are mere moments away.


Then there is the sad fact that in every relationship I've been in, observed, or heard of, French kissing inevitably shifts from main course or ala carte entree of passion to special occasion seasoning. But that's an entirely different topic. Where does passion go in relationships, and why? I've never yet heard a good explanation.