A Kiss is just a Kiss…
Trading masticatory juices with someone who may have just consumed something on the menu that you wouldn’t have dreamt of choosing is such a part of western culture that virtually all of us have engaged in it at some time; some by force, some by guile, and some through mutual attraction.
As with every cultural habit, there are strict rules in force that you break at your peril. Strangers are expected to ask permission first, unless they are very famous, then you are supposed to be flattered. Grand-parents exercise the droit du seigneur and if you want to receive your birthday present, you’d best pucker up and endure. Even if Grandpa’s false teeth are loose.
Ignoring the research of literary types, relying on early Verdic texts who claim that kissing originated in ancient India and travelled to Greece when Alexander the Great invaded India – anthropologists prefer the theory that kissing originated in ancient caves with no electricity to power the Babyblender and a screaming infant to feed. Harassed Mothers would chew a mouthful of bison leg until it resembled a Sainsbury’s ‘Organic Bison and Polenta first lunch’ and palm the rug rat off with that. Penguin style. Mouth to mouth.
Kissing originating as a method of feeding infants doesn’t explain why a large portion of society spends Saturday night under neon lights with an earth vibrating bass beat trying to recreate a method of feeding that went out of fashion when the first cave got electricity. Nor does it explain why not all cultures continue the practice. The Trobriand, a Papua New guinea tribe, prefer to bite each others eyelashes off, missing eyelashes being a sign of a potential partner being available for sexual activity. (I assume they haven’t met chemotherapy…) Whilst those of the Manchu tribe, finding our western ‘kiss’ to be far too sexual for public consumption, cheerfully perform fellatio on their young male children as a sign of affection. (Probably best not to mention your proud Manchu heritage when applying for a job as a nursery maid).
Justin Garcia, along with two other researchers, looked at comprehensive data from 168 cultures across the world and found the ‘romantic-sexual kiss’ was present only in 46 percent of those cultures.
‘I think this is a reminder of Western ethnocentrism’, he said. ‘We see something so often, and we assume it’s everywhere.’
The French, who allegedly gave the world ‘French kissing’ or Galocher as the slang term which has only just made it into the Dictionnaire Larousse would have it, kiss on each cheek. Everybody. All the time. Endlessly. Join a party of twelve for lunch and it takes half an hour before you can sit down. All that touching and kissing form an early age does have the advantage that their nurses are the better for it; no hang ups about putting an arm around you when things are dire, or a comforting hand on the arm when delivering bad news. Yet they have social hang ups of their own regarding kissing on the lips, believing the mouth to be an erogenous zone therefore not appropriate to kiss a baby on the mouth.
A hang up that seems to have crossed the channel. I find it strange that the British have no qualms about kissing their children on the lips, nor family members doing so, yet are appalled by the idea of a stranger kissing the kid on the lips. Given that incest is the most likely cause of sexual abuse in a young child, logically they should be more concerned about the family invading this infant erogenous zone?
Having said that, I have known two adults who habitually kissed everyone they met on the lips, one male, one female, and trust me – the female caused far more consternation amongst women than the male ever did. (It did help that he was remarkably good looking – and he didn’t kiss the men!)
So, an incredibly divisive subject (perfect for the Anna Raccoon blog!)
Do you? Don’t you? Would you? Wouldn’t you? Why not? Where not? And if you insist, who not?
- John Galt
August 29, 2015 at 9:22 am -
Absolutely! the French style triple-kiss is the only way I greet my other half in public, like when sitting down for a meal.
Kissing on the lips being a prelude to…ADULT SITUATIONS!
- windsock
August 29, 2015 at 9:52 am -
I shake hands when meeting someone for the first time – both sexes. I hug every person I know (that counts if I have met the only once before and the meeting was amicable). I graze cheeks with people who are acquaintances, I cheek kiss (facially!) those who are friends and those who are my closest, nearest and dearest get full on lip smackers, male and female, publicly.
With children, I let them take the lead – most I have encountered are shy and diffident at first meeting but sometimes they become confident and trust me and the situation, so we hug. I’d never kiss a child that was not a family member – too weird (for me). My great-nephew was the one who surprised me the most. At 10 he was wary and asked me a lot of questions about being the person I am (gay, HIV+ et) to which I replied honestly. When he was leaving a family dinner when he was 17, I went to shake his hand and was surprised when he pulled me closer and gave me a full on smacker in front of his mate.
So – depends on the person and the level of familiarity. I had always assumed that was true of everybody else too.
- SagaxSenex
August 29, 2015 at 10:23 am -
Complicated here in Holland. The air kiss is bon ton among stagey types. If you’re from the South of the country it’s each cheek. From the North and it’s a triple cheek kiss. Amsterdam doesn’t count as it’s full of raving hippies and tourists. Then we have the “who ducks to the right and who to the left?” conundrum. And where are the hands all this time? Clasped in a warm handshake? One hand to the shoulder? The power shake with one hand clasped over the recipient’s? Not on the lips, though.
- Ed P
August 29, 2015 at 10:23 am -
The French kiss 3, 4 or even 5 times on alternate cheeks, according to region. I think it’s 5 in Paris and 4 in Epernay.
Manchu or man-chew?
- binao
August 29, 2015 at 11:37 am -
I don’t recall ever being kissed on the lips as a child, nor did I do it. Probably a generation thing and an undemonstrative family culture.
I still try to shake hands with both men & women unless the semi hug + kiss is inevitable or past practise. It’s not that I dislike it, & I’ve certainly enjoyed plenty of passion related contact. It’s a learned behaviour from the workplace- when there were a lot of women in the factory or office, I found it paid to respect peoples personal space, especially especially if you’re the boss. & I know some attentions by ‘touchers ‘ are seen as creepy.
I’m not overly P.C. though, & am quite happy to follow local custom in foreign parts or where foreigners are involved.
I recall being in the middle of a factory abroad where the culture was a bit verkrampte; a visitor from Italy I hadn’t seen for some years grabbed me firmly, hugged at length & energetically kissed me on the cheeks in a cloud of garlic. The rasp of the bristly cheeks was an added bonus. - Mudplugger
August 29, 2015 at 12:05 pm -
Coming from a robust northern background, familial kissing didn’t happen and parental hugs were generally only applied in response to the occasional childhood traumas for immediate comfort purposes only. It came as quite a shock, therefore, to go on an exchange stay, aged 16, with a French family to find that ma, pa, brother and sister kissed each other at every single meeting – as a guest, I was given handshakes, again at every meeting, first thing in the morning, coming back into the house every time etc. A distinctly more attractive feature was that my teenaged male French host got to kiss all the delectable teenaged French girls in his circle of friends whenever they met, an aspect in which I more quickly learned to participate with some enthusiasm, if without tongues.
I’ll admit to still being broadly uncomfortable with any excess kissing of the non-erotic-greeting type, same goes for hugs and especially man-hugs – if I can’t communicate with words and behaviour how I feel about someone, then such physical demonstrations seem to be a default acknowledgement of failure. I’m not homophobic, I enjoy physical contact, especially with women, but all that random head-bobbing air-kiss and cheek-kiss business just seems a pointless affectation. Maybe I should get out more.
- therealguyfaux
August 29, 2015 at 12:37 pm -
In the case of a small child, yours or someone else’s, you cannot go far wrong with the forehead kiss. Hardly erotic. Nobody will take it the wrong way.
- Joe Public
August 29, 2015 at 12:59 pm -
……. and sometimes it’s to secure/seal political concessions:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b8/Breznev-Honecker_1979.jpg
- AdrianS
August 29, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
Just had a gipsies kiss does this count
- Mudplugger
August 29, 2015 at 3:28 pm -
Better than a ‘Glasgow Kiss’.
- Mudplugger
- Engineer
August 29, 2015 at 1:48 pm -
Never kiss a smoker after siphoning petrol.
- GildasTheMonk
August 29, 2015 at 2:09 pm -
That made me laugh, Engineer. Wonderfully dry.
- GildasTheMonk
- Demetrius
August 29, 2015 at 2:18 pm -
Then there is the Marxist way, “The working class can kiss my xxxx, I’ve got the Foreman’s job at last.”
- GildasTheMonk
August 29, 2015 at 2:34 pm -
Can’t stand all that metrosexual Mwah! Mwah! Stuff. Good firm handshake and possibly a boisterous thump on the back is as far as it should ever go. Same applies when meeting and greeting guys.
- Penseivat
August 29, 2015 at 8:11 pm -
A firm handshake and a pat on the back were not only good enough for Hilary and Tensing but do jolly well for the memsahib and I. All this namby pamby lip action is not for the likes of us. We’re English through and through and have had a happy and joyful marriage. Shame we’ve never had children, but there you go.
- Jonathan Bagley
August 29, 2015 at 9:31 pm -
I always kiss my mum on the lips. She’s 90 and originally working class Yorkshire. Never thought anything of it until now.
- Ho Hum
August 30, 2015 at 1:00 am - David Simons
August 30, 2015 at 7:37 am -
I worked in Romania in the early ’90’s, greeting people there was very interesting. You always kissed women on the hand but kissed men on the cheek. It took some while for me to get used to it, particularly when the men were unshaven! One in particular turned out to have been a middle weight boxing champion in the Romanian army.
- marvvo
September 8, 2015 at 12:44 am -
Being of Hungarian extraction the male to male cheek kiss was considered normal (with Hungarian relatives) and led to astonishment when observed by my teeenage peers in Glasgow. So amazed were they that very little abuse and namecalling followed; one person who normally bullied me and would have been expected to use it to his advantage just came and asked in a strangely normal voice if that was a usual Hungarian male greeting. He was not generally observed to be a fan of multiculturalism or anything ‘different’.
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