Discarded drinks surround their private quarters, her hand rests suggestively on his upper thigh, her body – semi-contorted – presses up against his. She leans in. Inhaling his scent, the vibrations of her mouth meeting his. Or is his mouth meeting hers?
I picture the scene every morning. It hangs on my wall; a black and white photograph by Dafydd Jones of two people kissing. A birthday present I bought myself this summer, it serves as a reminder of a past life, a past me, who did once upon a time enjoy the euphoric thrill of snogging a relative stranger after hours. It’s also a postcard to my future self.
Because of all the touch points I miss, it is kissing I long for the most. (According to my calculations, I haven’t had romantic mouth-to-mouth resuscitation for 27 weeks.)
Hence the art procurement, my recent captivation with an Instagram account dedicated entirely to photo archives of “wonderful kisses” (@LostInKisstory, in case you were wondering) and re-discovering Tatia Pilieva’s video on YouTube (146 million views and counting) of 20 strangers filmed kissing for the first time (the mere thought of it makes me smile).
Why? Kissing can – emphasis on the “can” – be the height of erotica. A gateway to intimacy. A playground of romantic possibility.
“When you kiss somebody it tends to trigger the oxytocin in the brain, and the oxytocin (otherwise known as the ‘love hormone’) system is linked with feelings of attachment,” explains biological anthropologist Dr Helen Fisher. Why do I crave this act so much right now? I ask her. The fact that it symbolises the beginning of something is significant, she says. “The beginning of sex, romance, or deep attachment.”
It’s true. The last six months have felt more paved with finales – or the looming threat of them – over fruitful new starts. Even my well-honed daily routine (get up at 7.30am, meditate, grab coffee, work, shut laptop at 5.30pm, go for a long solo walk, try to eat something that isn’t marmite toast, Netflix, sleep, repeat), a healthy mechanism I adopted earlier on this year to shield myself from spiraling too much into negative thought patterns, seems to be wearing thin.
I crave the electricity of the unknown. Of colouring outside of the lines, so to speak. Like this slice of Anne Sexton that I keep coming back to, titled “The Kiss”. More than anything I remain hopeful for that feeling, the Zing! that she refers to:
Before today my body was useless
Now it’s tearing at its square corners
It’s tearing old Mary’s garments off, knot by knot
and see – Now it’s shot full of these electric bolts
Zing! A resurrection
Kissing, more than anything, is a physical manifestation of hope. Even before discovering someone through the delicacy of their lips, there’s the build up; a prelude to both sexual and emotional gravity.
Speaking to Ita O’Brien, intimacy coordinator for Normal People, I May Destroy You and the upcoming dystopian series Brave New World, she reflects that in episode two of the Sally Rooney TV adaption, “there’s this lovely frisson of her [Marianne] being vulnerable [with Connell].” They are both exposing themselves to each other and “we are desperate, as an audience, for them to bridge that gap – from sitting apart, to coming together.”
Mouths are an intrinsic element of sexual attraction. You glean so much from not just what a person says, but how their lips form what they say. Ah, that lovely, almost illicit moment, when you’re sitting opposite someone you like, and just staring at their mouth is a turn on.
“Now, we’re used to seeing people in masks,” Ita says. “From the get go, you’re missing so much of someone’s communication. All because you’re not seeing their lips. The whole face tells you a lot about who someone is.”
Like any body touch, the language of a kiss is complex. As Ita points out, the times that people come together with the same energy, in a joint kiss, is actually very rare. “Often there’s an offer, and a receiver,” she says. “An element of power play. And all of that can be delicious.”
Delving into my own kisstory, the great ones linger, years on. The ones that feel like a slow dance, never quite sure who is leading who. The eyes gently closed. Looking inwards, beginning to explore yourself through another person.
A WhatsApp poll with some girlfriends deciphers that a good first kiss is important. “It sets the tone,” Georgia says. “But I think you make allowances for nervousness if it’s a first date,” Holly interjects. “So sometimes [the] second one is more important.” She remembers her first kiss with her long-term boyfriend, parting ways at King’s Cross station at the end of a date. “It wasn’t bad, but it was a bit awkward because I was like ‘Oh, here’s my train!’. Second one – much better.”
You learn a lot, over time, about what you don’t want, too. Unearthing the bad ones from my treasure trove of Bad Kisses, they tend to fall into two different styles. 1) The “experimental” types – read: horny 14-year-old boy – who explore the inside of your mouth like a washing machine on an intense spin cycle. 2) The ones that are so polite they almost feel incestual.
Surveying male acquaintances for their what-maketh-a-great-kiss deductions, many remarked on the anticipation factor. One of my closest friends, with whom I enjoyed snogging drunkenly during my university years, helpfully adds: “I would defer to the Will Smith classic, Hitch: ‘The secret to a kiss is to go 90 per cent of the way and then hold’.”
Then there’s the guy I’ve imagined in different kissing scenarios since I met him through work a few years ago (I know very little about him, really). “Good question,” he responds, along with three key kissing pointers. “Smell, decidedness, unspoken synchronicity.” Ooph, I love that. It reminds me of that famous Ingrid Bergman line, “a kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”
In so many ways this year has been bound up with rules. Bubbles. Instructions. You can do this, you can’t do that. A kiss, however, is the antithesis of this rigid state of play. The best are off-script. And while the world may feel like a fractious place, we are still – if not even more so – united by our desire to connect. Our desire to be seen.
There’s hope for us yet. Just you wait.
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