The Dating Gods

A bunch of men exist who know exactly how to 'level up' with women. These are the guys who have the instinctive ability to find, bed and wed the most desirable females at will. They don't need to even think about it.

We meet these dudes in high school. They're the ones who always had a girlfriend, and kept her with their smile alone. They're also the guys who had sex with their girlfriends, effortlessly, and, given their confidence, more competently than men double their age. They're the guys who just knew shit about girls, and apparently always did, as if they'd been kissed on the dick by a fairy at birth.

You know the type, right? Guys like this were a step above and beyond mere journeyman women-lovers like me. Even at this distance, I could name them all from my Year 12 class. I can see them now, flirting with their many female admirers, making it look easy. How could they keep that group of seventeen-year-old-hormone-addled schoolgirls rapt for the entire lunch-hour? It just wasn't fair.

Ahem.

At a guess, they make up somewhere south of 5% of the male population. And they're not all handsome, sporty types, either. Sometimes they are simply good communicators, or they're funny, or skilled at operating in groups. Oftentimes they look to be working effortlessly, because although they care, they never look like they care. It's a form of magic.

I chose my metaphor about 'leveling up' carefully. Especially in high school, the precise status of the relationship you have with your girlfriend is calibrated in very fine increments. Just where you are on the road to hands-in-her-pants or bare breastedness is measured zipper-tooth by bra-hook. This might be because all of this is general knowledge - after all, what's the point of finally getting your finger wet if no-one in the school quadrangle knows about it? High-school dating is nothing if not a group ritual.

'Leveling up' is from the gaming world, of course, the other obsession of teenaged boys. The irony is that those nerd-types who can easily level-up in video world demonstrate inversely proportional skills in a real life world filled with females. The nerdy types might know all the hacks to reach the ultimate game level, but the 5 percenters know all the hacks to get to the ultimate girl level.

So here we are, years later, and I still see the 5 percenters getting all the babes. Some of them turned out to be gay, for sure. Others kept leveling up, and, unable to settle, are still measuring their lives by numbers of ladies bedded. But I think most of them married (good lookers) and had all the same difficulties in life as everyone else. Still and all, they have that effortlessness that most of us will forever envy, even if they are totally unaware of it.


Bottoms Up, All-Knowing Ones.

It's Just a Little Kiss

If you and I were anthropologists from another galaxy, I'm sure we'd want to know more about kissing. What is this behaviour, and why do these humanoid life forms engage in it?

Kissing is perennially popular, for a start, which is a hint as to how enjoyable it is. That act of putting my lips to her lips is irresistible. Smell and taste a female once, you're hooked. Y'all are so soft and creamy, like a delicious cake, only an alive cake that kisses back. Hmmmm, perhaps not the best simile.

My first real make-out session was with Anna R. (Surname withheld so as not to embarrass her in her current marriage and high-profile public figurehood.) I can still taste her saliva and lip-gloss mix, not only because it's a life-changing act, but but because in the dark of a movie cinema, one's senses of smell and taste work overtime. Oh yes, the cinema was then the best place for teen snog-sessions, much like the drive-in movies were for the prior generation. I think Anna was further along the snog/sex continuum than I was, looking for more than just an hour of high-energy mouth-love. But I was happy and grateful and really only qualified for a snogfest. Anything more would have been an act too far.

Which brings me to the whole question of tongue interaction. As interstellar anthropologists, I'm certain we'd wonder precisely what pleasure results from such a thing. In the cool clear light of day, the idea of tongues engaging in the way we do when we kiss is at the very least a mystery. No doubt the internet has plenty of theories, but it seems to me it's all about connection. In some fundamental way, because we eat, speak and taste the world through our mouths, sharing that space with another person is as close a connection we can have without actual intercourse. 

It's telling that prostitutes reputedly consider kissing a John's mouth to be much more intimate than taking his cock into her mouth.  

My only point of concern about making out is that we so often think it's only a lead-up to more sexual activity. The joy of kissing as a destination of itself is worth consideration.



This link to a terrific BBC World Service Radio show about kissing, courtesy La Tigresse.

Bottoms Up, Crazy Snogging Fools.

Necking, Making Out and Just the Right Seasoning

Alena Seredova pic credit.

What ever happened to making out? I wonder if people still sit together on a couch or in the car and fool around with their clothes on, or whether we're all so sophisticated thesedays we go straight for the bonking.

Good make-out is more than just kissing, because kissing by itself is like food without seasoning. The salt and pepper of a smooch session are the little things, like some nibbling, a little hair-pulling, deep eye contact and so on. A skilled make-out artist knows the value of piano and forte, of innocence and raunch, and of fast and slow.

As any professional lady will tell you, kissing is more sensual and personal than mere fucking, which confirms my thinking - that we communicate more with a long kissing session than in a straightforward shag. Okay, maybe not, but it's certainly more subtle than all the reproductive stuff. Let's face it, all shagging is variations of thrusting and grinding, but kissing is infinitely more nuanced.

At least half of the make-out experience is smell and feel. The smell of a woman is an enormous turn-on, something that we all know but seem to think pertains only to her juicy parts. I, for instance, love the smell and feel of a woman's neck. The right neck - attached to the right woman - is a thing of beauty. Necks have heavenly curves that no mathematical formula can describe, and if they're touched in the right way, moaning results.

I like it when women moan and I'm pretty sure they do too.




Bottoms Up Make-Out Bandits.

Kissing Confidential

Gwendolyn Whiteside's photo credit. 

I was seven and she was seven. She kissed me once, then she kissed me again. She turned into my first kissing partner, a classroom conspiracy engineered by her. I was a lost but complicit co-conspirator, unsure of what it was all about. Why is she doing this? What part should I be playing here? Why does she taste so good?

Jane Phillips, where are you? Wanna give it another shot?

The kissing faded, as did her ardor for me. Perhaps our mutual lack of make-out skills doomed us from the start, but my suspicion is that I killed it. Too much thinking, not enough action. I should have just rolled with it, especially as Jane not only brought extra lunch to school for me, but went out of her way to walk home with me too. She was the definition of the perfect girlfriend. With memory of the kissing faded, what remained was her smell, which I can conjur to this day.

But Jane wasn't the first person to kiss me. That would, presumably, have been my mother. Right, so they're two completely different kinds of kissing, but they're the same physical action separated only by context. Interesting that at a family function we can kiss a close friend or relative as a sign of connection and fealty, then go on to kiss our wife or husband and communicate something so much more. Kissing is both an instrument of alliance and of overt sexuality.

If you're a mechanistic evolutionist you'd look for a reason for the kiss. For kissing to survive as a behaviour it must have some benefit for both parties. Let's see. There is the transfer of germs - good for babies acquiring their parents' immune sophistication. There is the shared smell of swapping skin flakes and saliva - a sort of hazmat solidarity. And there's the busting of the very last ring of personal space - a what's yours is mine suspension of physical defences. Add up these elements and we have that most endearing of human qualities, the ability to give yourself to another, signalled by the pressing of one's mouth onto the body, head or mouth of another.

Evolution is a brutal judge of superfluous behaviour. Kissing survives for only one reason, and that is because it aids species continuation. Kissing is a quick and dirty way of figuring out if you're a sexual match. Bad kisser, bad lover. If she tastes wrong, she probably is wrong. On the other hand, someone who gives good kiss moves a long way up the list of preferred partners, and, speaking personally, a good kisser is a heavenly gift notwithstanding the outcome. A good kisser stands alone as such, or can lead to extra complexity ie: another generation of kissers.

Which brings me to the undeniable fact - that kissing has power beyond simple intimacy. We're social creatures, and we're tactile too. We want to meld with a special other, and the power of this drive appears to go beyond mere reproduction. At a fundamental level, we understand that attachment to another one and then descending levels of closeness to relatives and non-related individuals in concentric circles fulfills us. It's tribalism, the need to belong and know that we belong. Hence the kiss of enormous variation, from the humble kissing of the hand - at your service, Your Majesty - to the unbridled heat of connection during sex.

 Kissing sends the universal message - I want to be a part of you.




Bottoms Up, You Big Beautiful Kissers You.

Horror Movie

I feel I have to tell you that whenever I watch a movie and a couple kiss, I have to turn away.

Zombies with arms torn off, bloody violence, Fight Club - none of these raises my blood pressure one point. But that close-up of a big smooch with that swelling music ensures that I look away from the screen and imagine myself elsewhere.

Phew. That feels better.






Bottoms Up, Kissistas!

Kiss Types

Reward offered.



Bottoms Up, Snoggers!



Click on Wombatgram for larger image.

Friday Fluffer - Kiss the Wombat

Today's Fluffer is for you nature lovers.






Bottoms Up, Marsupials!





Sweet kiss from here. [link]

I am not associated with Kiss the Wombat in any way. Who owns that site is a mystery to me, buy it's incumbent upon me to promote something so worthy.

Good Morning Kiss

Another reason (if you're single) to find a mate is to make certain you start each day right - with a morning smooch. People everywhere wake up and pucker up, a sensible ritual that might even aid your health.

I read about a study recently where 500 people, both couples and singles, kept a diary about their morning kissing schedule. The results were surprising only to the extent of the scale of the benefit to those who made a point of kissing their mate upon waking. On average, the men lived around 1 year and three months longer than their non-kissing peers, and women likewise lived around 1 year five months longer.

Actually, I totally made that up. There is no such study, although it would be fascinating to see. But I bet you had a positive reaction. It feels right to us that a morning kiss is good for you. And you know what? I'd put money on the fact that couples who deliberately have a kiss and a cuddle in the morning do in fact live longer. And those who have sex as soon as they wake live forever. Okay, I made that up too, but I got you thinking.

That's the wonder of relationships. I believe we can influence our happiness, and even our longevity, by being even the tiniest bit conscious of how we think and how we communicate, especially with our sig oth. Even if you get out bed on the proverbial wrong side, a thoughtful kiss might well mitigate your mood.






Pic from here.[link]

Kissing Cousins

A friend has a world-class nose. Yes, it's cute from the outside, but she must have a freakishly large number of receptors up there, because she smells the world better than a bloodhound. Not only that, but she can apply word labels to the smells, which means she can verbally communicate smell to dopes like me. It's a rare talent.

I tell you, she should be working designing perfumes or judging wine. I'm in rhino-love.

Presumably this is good: she says I smell like popcorn. My immediate mental image (smellage?) is of movie theatre lobbies, which stink of grotty carpet and that stuff they call popcorn. I hope I remind her of home-popped corn. In either case, it's way better than being told I remind her of sauerkraut or space junk. (Not that I know how space junk smells. I just don't want to have the dreaded 'space junk' rep.)

This being Kiss Week @ K&B, I have been investigating just why we kiss.

Scientific American has a detailed and fascinating article. Astound friends with facts like 80% of us tilt our heads to the right.

Here's another short piece that talks about the importance of smell in kissing. During a pash session, women (unconsciously) sniff the man out for immune system compatibility.

Apparently my immune system is made from corn. Does that mean I'm compatible with women from Iowa? I wonder.