What better way to celebrate the coming of Spring than with an ode to kissing! Most humans do it, and even many animals kiss, lick and nuzzle each other. Not sure about the birds and the bees. But anthropologists don’t really know too much about when or how it started. Some say it’s instinctive. We know it allows prospective mates to taste each other’s pheromones for biological compatibility much more directly than sniffing. Those biologists do take the fun out of things!
Among the first mentions of kissing in literature was in four Vedic Sanskrit texts. Now that’s a kiss! They knew what they were doing in 1500BC. In Rome, couples announced their wedding by kissing passionately in front of a group of people including family. Today, we’d call that a PDA of the first order. Kisses were even used to seal legal and business agreements, leading to our idea of “sealed with a kiss”. Shakespeare sometimes portrayed kisses as dangerous or deadly when shared by the wrong people as in Romeo and Juliet and the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea led us to the idea that a kiss could awaken and breathe life into a sleeping beauty.
In modern times, the first inter-racial kiss ever shown on television was between Captain Kirk and Uhura on the original Star Trek. Of course, they were enchanted at the time. I knew I loved that show. In our society, two women kissing is generally more acceptable than two men, although I think Adam Lambert may be single handedly changing that idea.
And we get a lot of our ideas about kissing from the movies. So to conclude our little paean of praise to osculation, here are some of my all time favorite kissing scenes. The incredible kissing prowess of Jude Law, who made Cold Mountain HOT. The indescribably sexy Hugh Jackman who can just kiss away forever and I’ll watch. Kissing in the rain from The Notebook, and, of course, the most famous upside down kiss ever.
We all have our ideas of who does it best. Who is your favorite kisser? In my novel Genetic Attraction, a M/M/F ménage, some very serious kissing of all kinds goes on. Here’s the link if you’d like to know more.http://www.loose-id.com/Genetic-Attraction.aspx
And here is a very short excerpt fromGenetic Attraction in which the heroine, an older, renowned geneticist, meets the supermodel boyfriend of her research partner. Here is her introduction (and ours) to Roan Black:
The doorbell sounded. Goose bumps erupted. This was it. She hadn’t even had time to think of what to say to the boyfriend of the man of her dreams.
Fighting a giggle, she hopped up, wobbled a little, crossed the entry, and yanked open the door.
Jesus. Was this what people meant when they said “your heart stops?” She stared.
The man standing under her porch light almost didn’t seem real. She looked up into clear green eyes so heavily fringed with lashes, they looked like they were lined with kohl. And that mouth? Looking at it had to be a mortal sin in at least three major religions. Like female beauty somehow architecturally carved into a male masterpiece.
He extended his long, slim hand and said simply, “Roan.”
His hand was so warm. “I know.”
He smiled. Did the sun just come out? Dimples. And one of those shining white teeth was crooked. Maybe nature could only endure so much perfection and had to fight back with a tiny cosmic joke.
Yikes. She flew off her feet, and breath whooshed from her lungs as he crushed her against the silky fabric of his tux and the hard, slim body beneath. She managed to get her toes back on the ground and looked up at that exquisite face framed by silky black hair.
He beamed. “Hello, darling.” He dropped his head and kissed her, full on the mouth.
Far from a “howdy” kind of peck, the kiss was soft and lingering, with the slightest hint of a warm tongue against her lips. She fought not to whimper.
Gradually, and it felt reluctantly, he pulled back. “I think I’m your date for tonight.”
Only one thing came to mind. “Holy shit.”
From a few steps behind Roan, Jake started to laugh.