All About Kissing
By Linda Young
Kissing has different meanings to different people. It's sexually arousing; it's a way to communicate romantic feelings; it increases intimate bonding and attachment and even contributes to mate selection.
There is some survey support for gender stereotypes around men being more focused on the arousal and agentic (social, choosing) functions of kissing and women being more attuned to the bonding features, but I think that regardless of gender, people who aren't ready to merge love will be more likely to avoid or be uncomfortable with kissing. I think it's because no other physical act offers so many potent and equal sensory experiences for both partners simultaneously. Here's why:
In the moments just before and after lip contact you have the opportunity to gaze directly into each other's eyes as closely as humanly possible. So note when and which partners close their eyes or turn away quickly without maintaining this kind of gaze. It's a marker of discomfort with intimacy.
You simultaneously take in each other's unique scents and tastes, which literally assess your degree of chemistry together.
Kissing raises the attachment and bonding hormone (oxytocin) in both sexes.
No one gets pregnant through kissing so women's disproportionate concerns as potential child bearers are neutralized.
Kissing offers as wonderful a range of leading, following and movement together as dancing, so it gives people an alternative way to communicate intimate (and sometimes unconscious) messages about relationship feelings and status.
There's a unique sexual equality to the act of kissing. It's the only sexual act that allows partners to simultaneously and equally penetrate and be penetrated with identical, incredibly neurally sensitive body parts. (The lips have the thinnest layer of skin on the body and, along with the tongue, are packed with nerve endings).
The bottom line is, kissing offers a truly level sexual and intimate playing field regardless of gender. In a lovely piece called How To Kiss Well , a self-proclaimed "guy who loves kissing" named Ben Van Heuvelen summed it up beautifully:
"In its fully realized form, kissing is an alternate language in which lovers conduct a parallel courtship - they tease, they connect, they discover an accord.... Sarah began to appreciate how a good kiss, like a poem, suggests more than it says outright, expressing those feelings that lovers can share only indirectly".
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Linda Young, Ph.D., is a psychologist whose work has appeared on or in CNN, NPR, The Oprah Magazine, and USA Today, among others.
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God bless your family and your marriage.
Jim Stephens