THE KISS.

Probably the most likely image to come to mind when seeing the words THE KISS as far as art is concerned is the huge stone sculpture by the renown French sculptor Auguste Rodin.   Apart from the fact that one has to admire the sheer physical ability of carving such a huge piece stone ,having  seen it many times and touched it too I don’t myself see it as a thing of beauty – or even truly representing the erotic pleasure of the kiss. 

 

 A more modern interpretation of a vaguely similar pose by Jacob Epstein is without doubt also an incredible piece of art, but to me personally still doesn’t really characterise the erotic reality of two persons engaged in a naked caress.

 

The posture of Rodin’s sculpture has been copied many times since its inception, by various artists and commercial enterprises and sold practically all over the world.   Some are good, some not so good and some totally indifferent in both artistry and quality.

 

If I had the opportunity to choose any one of them no matter what the cost, I would take the one that has sat on top of a chest of drawers in my bedroom since it was bought for me by my lover almost 20 years ago.  We have often tried -without much success -to capture the pose ourselves  in various photographic sessions over the years  – however lack of achievement did not lessen  the pleasurable experience.

 

There are of course various kinds of kissing.   A kiss on the cheek is no more than a sign of friendship - a kiss on the mouth a sign of familial love.  Parents kiss their children – children kiss their (older) parents .    A kiss on the mouth between adult men and women can also indicate a closer kind of friendship, not necessarily sexual.  In some countries heterosexual men/women  may also kiss family members or very close friends on the mouth without any sexual motivation.   

A sexual kiss is very different – for this there needs to be no personal connection at all.  It can be between man and wife, lovers, casual acquaintances or even complete strangers.

 

Within seconds of a sexual kiss the brain makes an almost immediate connection between the lips of each individual to their own genital regions.  If this does not happen almost straight away the kiss has little chance of lasting satisfaction.

 

Kissing is a universal form of communication because it is a natural human instinct. Anthropologists believe that kissing originated as a derivative of pre-mastication –chewing food until it was soft and then transferring it into the baby’s mouth. 

Modern sex play often involves passing erotically charged foods – sweets, oysters, strawberries and etc; and drink especially from lovers – mouth to mouth. So there might be some truth in this theory.

 

Ancient Chinese erotica links the upper lip of a woman’s mouth to her clitoris and the lower lip of a man to his penis.  Their manuals of sex instructed the woman to run the tip of the tongue along the mans lips and then gently suck his upper and lower lips individually.   Sounds good to me.

Philemamania is a constant craving for kissing.

Collette. 

Just about the most unusual and in many ways very erotic description of A  (sexual) KISS that I have ever come across is from a story entitled la Vagabonde,  a part autobiographical work – written in 1908 by the French writer, author and enfant terrible known as Collette. The hero of the novel was  based on her real life husband  Henri Gauthier  Villars, known as Willy .

Sidonie – Gabrielle Collette , born in 1873 in Burgundy is recognised as being one of the great writers of modern times and although she is often associated with immorality and depravity , dancing in the nude, lesbian adventures and other depravity – shocking behaviour even for the times she lived in – she was in fact a deeply moral and truly liberated woman. 

 

“I move my head imperceptibly because of his moustache, which brushes against my nostrils with a scent of vanilla and honeyed tobacco.  Oh! .... Suddenly my mouth, in spite of itself opened up  as irresistibly as a ripe plum splits in the sun.

And once more is borne that excruciating pain that spreads from my lips all the way down to my flanks, to my knees, that swelling as of a wound that wants to open once more and overflow – the voluptuous pleasure I had forgotten - his mouth tastes of mine now and has the faint scent of my powder.  

Experienced as it I can feel that it is trying to invent something new, to vary the caress still further. But already I am bold enough to indicate my preference for a long, drowsy kiss that is almost motionless – the slow crushing one against the other of two flowers in which nothing vibrates but the palpitation of two coupled pistils.”

 

The Kiss as a specific did not make much of an appearance in either ancient or modern art, but has more than made up for it in recent times , mainly used in photographic images in the promotion of just about every kind of product under the sun. 

 

 

 

 

even old people love to kiss.

an artistic kiss

 

a multiple kiss-in

It also features in modern erotica in many instances providing a useful  separation between this more civilised genre and the crudeness of the vast majority of pornography.