Lori Lothian wants men to know lip intimacy is less about technique and more about attention.
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First off, I’m not a kissing instructor or sexpert. I am however a woman who has been kissed by at least 20 men in my life not to mention a handful of women. And in all that lip intimacy, I’ve learned there are woeful lip locking tactics that I can only guess come from magazine articles or watching porn or just plain bad habits.
Just to give you an example: my first make out session with a guy, I was 15, in the rec room of his parents house. We were classmates, and he clearly was as inexperienced as I was because at one point I found myself gagging on mustache hairs after enduring an hour of lip mashing.
When I escaped back to my house that night and looked in the mirror I was shocked—my mouth was swollen and blood-smeared from the times his teeth (or was it braces) managed to bite instead of nip. Needless to say, I steered clear of a second date. In fact I stayed clear of kissing anyone for another year.
What got me thinking all these years later about writing a kissing advice article? A bit of lip-intimacy one night with my husband who just happens to be a great kisser, reminding me of how much sensual fun kissing can be. And also the realization that great kissing is never really about technique. Here is what great consensual kissing is really about:
Great Kissers Show Up.
Yes, you heard me. It means you are in room, here, now, with me. Not in your head, and not just in your gonads either. Your full presence takes ordinary lip lust to a new intimate dimension. When a man is present with a woman sensually, time slows down, it even seems to stop. (The women I’ve kissed seem to know this instinctively.) And when you are present, you notice things, like how she is responding (or not). Bottomline: there is no better place to be than here now in both heart and body.
Great Kissers Tease.
Sometimes it’s fun to bypass the kissing warm up. But most times it’s exquisite to have your lips brush against the back of my neck (chills) or trail along my collarbone before working their way up to the main event. This is called seduction. It works…and it’s fun for both of us.
Great Kissers Use Their Hands.
Kissing is only one instrument in the symphony of sensual connection. Your hands can be a beautiful accompaniment—I don’t mean groping. Rather, hold my face in your hands while you kiss me, or stroke or even gently pull my hair. Find ways to make the kiss a part of the music, not the whole song.
Great Kissers Eye Gaze.
You know this already. It’s not about that new-age-movement staring contest. It’s about every now and then pulling back from the kiss to look at me. I might be just as shy as you, but when your eyes meet mine, the thrill of vulnerability is worth the risk. And it ignites passion. Try it.
Great Kissers Don’t Have a Destination.
This means I don’t feel like the kissing part is something you are doing to get points on the way to the next base. In fact, one of my most memorable first dates ended up in a two hour kissing marathon on his sofa—that was the most turned on I’v ever been fully clothed! This is a bit about being in the moment, again, but it’s also about intention. If feels different to a woman if you are languorously kissing her for the sheer mutual pleasure of it versus kissing her on a mad dash to get to the sex finish line.
and finally
Great Kissers Receive.
This means you are not always running the show. Guys tend to take the lead when it comes to kissing, sometimes inadvertently over-ruling their partner’s natural inclination to kiss back. Slow down and don’t kiss—see what happens when you allow your lover to love you back. Give her some room to play with your lips too. You will be delighted at the interplay of kissing and being kissed.
And now for one of my favorite all time kissing songs, Kiss Me Forever, by Julian Dore. The video is funny but the song is sexy. And it sticks in your head for days. Enjoy!
Photo: Flickr/AngelsWings
Great article. I believe kissing to be an intimate conversation and both partners need to be present for each other. I would take issue with only one thing, the part about women knowing instinctively that time slows down. That’s a bit of a blanket statement and I’ve kissed my share of women who didn’t know how to be present. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the read!
I’ve had amazing success with one additional piece of advice.
Ask first, get the consent, I have been told on multiple occasions that the fact that I did this made them find the kiss even more amazing.
Consent is amazing 🙂
I just realized I’ve never had a good kiss… And that I’ve never known an emotionally intelligent man. Where are they hiding?
Very well written. And spot on 🙂
My first n last kiss was from someone with bad breath, every kiss made me want to hurl and it was so sloppy. Turned me off to kissing….I hope a better woman revives that spark! lol
This is good advice for any kind of kissing, with and from any gender.
“When a man is present sensually with a woman, time seems to slow down…it evens seems to stop…”
With a man of high emotional intelligence, nothing needs to be said…you can almost feel the electrical stimulation just standing there in front of him…just a look or a word is like a blast of oxytocin…the thrill occurs even before any contact may occur….
Thinking about the best kisser I ever knew makes me tingle in a way that thinking about the guy best in bed doesn’t. Ahhhhh
Yes, Carol. Same. It’s my most fun memory.
Same for me too Carol and Laurie. There is something about kissing that’s just special and intimate.
Love the advice in this article. Couldn’t agree with it more.
Hear hear, Carol. Yes indeed.
Hi,
Funny you should say that thing about being present when kissing, and that women seem to know this instinctively.
Because my last ex-GF always seemed to be somewhere else in her mind whenever she started kissing me. Most often it turned out to be an attention-getter before starting to tell me about all the trials and tribulations she had to endure during her working-day.
Ain’t it funny that people really are all that different?
Yeah, I’m a woman and I was thinking about how I sometimes have a difficult time “showing” up for kissing. It would be nice if she said “some people” rather than women.
How dare she recongnize any gender independently from the other! It must mean she only thinks guys can use instruction to kiss! How dare she!