ki$$ing

i've been meaning to write a post about kissing for a long time. like, years. but, ya know. stuff gets in the way and i forget. that's not to say i forget about kissing, though. no. i makeout with my dog daily, so i'm WELL practiced.

the evolution of kissing is pretty hilarious. and i'm talking about the evolution of kissing for individuals. not for the human race, because lord knows i have no idea how the hell we even came up with touching lips to lips, and i don't think i want to know how terrible the first attempts were. my first attempts were bad enough.

your first kiss is always pretty terrible. if you're a slut, you didn't have a first kiss. you had a first makeout - you went big right away and that's why you're a slut. but, if you're NOT a slut (or, perhaps, your slutdom didn't come into play until later in life), your first kiss was probs just an innocent peck on the mouth that was either super dry or super wet. there is no in-between for a first kiss. bone dry or nauseatingly wet.

i had a first kiss. his lips were as chapped as if he had just come back from climbing mount everest. it was foul, to say the least. he later punched me in the stomach that school year. we had a bad romance.

my first makeout soon followed, around the age of 7. i invited my "playmate" over and we pretended to dine on fancy cuisine using rubber donuts as props in a dimly-lit restaurant that was, in all reality, my sister's bedroom (she was our waitress. naturally). we then "returned home" to suck face. how i knew to do this at 7, i don't want to know. television, i'm sure. that damn MTV. but we went at it. i mean, full-on making out. we even lifted our t-shirts up to compare nipples and see how similar they looked (ah - the days when you were just pure nipple).

my first "real" makeout session didn't come until i was about 15. i was a late bloomer. for that entire period between 12-15, when your hormones are raging and all your peers are experimenting with tongue in mouths, i was scared shitless. i would go to house parties (yeah, at like 13-years-old. i went to a "fast" school) and when spin the bottle was mentioned, i would panic. no, really. i would literally have a panic attack. i think i maybe even cried one time. this outlandish demonstration of my terror toward kissing is probably what kept my lips to themselves for so long.

but, finally, during one summer at sleep-away camp, it happened. i had become completely obsessed with a strapping young wigger named Kevin, who had better curls than i did, was whiter than a tissue and smelled like straight sex. he had a lot of swag for a 15-year-old dude and constantly strutted around in his pink floyd concert shirt that i wanted to hump. somehow, he liked me back and when one of our camp's movie nights rolled around, i knew he would be my first makeout. i rolled up my soffee shorts as short as i could get them without my vag hanging out, made sure my braces were cleaned out and prepared myself mentally to come into womanhood.

it was awful. it was a really, truly awful experience. i'm pretty sure his tongue grazed my nose a few times and also the rest of my face, since i smelled like saliva the rest of the night. and i had no idea what the fuck i was doing. i'm sure i cut him with my braces and maybe threw up in his mouth, too. there's no telling at this point. all i know is that, the next day, our mutual friend told me that Kevin had asked him "was that Emma's first time making out? i could tell."

OH, I'M SORRY, KEVIN. WHY DON'T YOU GO LICK SOMEONE ELSE'S FACE SOME MORE?

that was the only instance we madeout, but i did end up talking him into giving me his pink floyd shirt, DOUSED with his cologne and slept with it the rest of camp. my obsessive tendencies started young.

the very next summer, i set my sights on a fellow named Clayton. same camp, different guy. since i made out once before, i knew what i was doing and told myself he'd be my next victim (that's right. i didn't make out with anyone in between. i waited an entire year for my next prince to come along). i'm not sure how, but he was worse than Kevin. i was appalled. i mean, we were 16 by this point. he should've been more experienced! yet, it was atrocious and kind of embarrassing since it happened in the middle of the big camp dance. ALAS, i remained obsessed with him as i do with most guys until i grow tired of the yearning.

but then it happened. i got my first real boyfriend. my first true chance at kissing the same person over and over until we got really good at it. this is the universal turning point for all teens - that first significant other that actually counts for something and gives you A LOT of makeout practice. don't get me wrong, at first it was (as always) terrible. awkward and tongues everywhere and no rhythm. but the day we realized how good we were at kissing each other was the best day of our young lives. i remember standing at my parent's front door and just kissing over and over and over.

"okay, now i'm gonna turn my head to the right and YOU go left."

"okay, this time you go right and I'LL go left."

"OMG IT FEELS AMAZING NO MATTER WHO TURNS WHERE."

we giggled the entire time and every kiss was better than the last. we fit into one another's lips perfectly - like we were made to makeout. and we were giddy.

those were the days when purely making out seemed like it could get you off. the feeling stirring in your loins as you kissed was so intense, you really thought you would explode at any moment. and when he touched your boobs? NOPE. DONE. YOU WERE DONE. SO MUCH TENSION. SO MUCH DELICIOUSLY INNOCENT SEXUAL TENSION.

but then, you get used to it. and it takes more than just making out and boob touching to make you feel dangerously close to orgasm. i mean, it's still amazing, but come on.

amazing kissing DOES still exist, though. it's just harder to find once you've had your first heartbreak and continue to explore the deep, angry levels of dating.

one time, i made out with this dude in college and it was so bad, i started laughing into his mouth. Y'ALL, I COULDN'T HELP IT. he "sexily" took his glasses off in the middle of our kissing and his tongue darted in and out of my mouth like a lizard. i excused myself and walked home to my dorm room, laughing all the way.

another time, i made out with a dude who had literally just had full jaw surgery only weeks earlier. it was what i imagine making out with the tin man would feel like. i needed an oiling can. i think i also laughed during that makeout. or cried.

all that being said, i have had my fair share of really wonderful kissing, too. knee-buckling kissing. kissing where you say to one another in a moment of passion "it's like our mouths were made for each other" (typing that out made me cringe, but YOU KNOW YOU'VE FELT THAT WAY BEFORE. and if you haven't, you haven't lived). nothing in this world can compare to incredible kissing. when their lips are great and your lips are great and everyone likes the same amount of tongue and everyone knows how to linger for a bit and the smell of their face makes your heart palpitate. CAN I GET AN AMEN?

what else gets you started? for a female, nothing. unless, again, you're a slut. but for a regular, everyday female, if you want to "heat the oven up" and heat it up right, better be doing some pretty legit kissing all up on my mouth. otherwise, i'll probably be daydreaming of food or cleaning my apartment.

for the sake of us all, try your hardest to hold on to that kissing as long as you can before you let it go further. because, although it seems impossible, you CAN bring back that high school makeout feeling even at age 25 or 26 or 27 or 45!!! it's the sex that ruins the kissing. the damn sex. it takes all that mystery away, all that raw passion. the longer you can go with just heavier than heavy makeout sessions, the more intense and better everything else following will be.

but sex is awesome, too. so. ya know. do both.

xx,

emma