The date is going well. It’s midnight. A soft breeze caresses your face, and your hair is gleaming in the moonlight. You feel like Cheryl Cole in the back of a taxi, in an advert. The gentle scent of jasmine perfumes the air, even though it’s November in Hackney. Woodland animals gather, spelling out the words ‘GO ON, MY SON!’ on the ground, with acorns.
The time is right, you’re thinking about bed, the stars get red and oh! The person you’ve spent the evening with, the person who has charmed you with their kindliness and drinking skills and nice jumper and witty and sophisticated sentiments... well, that person is going for your chin as if it’s an apple, and they’re a horse. Or they’re licking the area around your lips like they’re overenthusiastically sealing an envelope flap. (Who posts stuff any more? Do they work in a post room?) Or they’re actually gobbing into your mouth. Gobbing. That’s a word that rarely comes up once you’ve left primary school. Why is it on the table now? Why is it happening to your face?
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Plenty of us have been in the position where our first kiss with a new person was so bad that, once we extracted ourselves from their busy teeth, we were tempted to ask, ‘Was that your first kiss with another human?’ But you can’t. Because the only thing as bad as kissing a horrible kisser is hearing that you are a horrible kisser. When someone is practically perfect in every other way, it’s a real waste to kiss them, then dismiss them. If you like them, you have a duty to reform them - for their sake, for all the other people they might go on to kiss, and most importantly, for yourself.
‘Our first reaction to sloppy, toothy, or plain weird kissing is always going to be “Ewwwwww! What was that!?” but before you run away, you need to remember that the way we kiss is as individual as our fingerprints,' explains sex and relationships expert Petra Hill. 'It’s a mix of what we like, what we’ve learned, and every relationship you’ve been in before - well, everyone you’ve ever kissed before. That doesn’t mean you’re obliged to get used to someone else’s terrible technique, but you do need to have a little patience and sympathy with them. The good news is that kissing is easy to coach. You just need to be prepared with lots of positive reinforcement.’
1. Go slow
It’s a marathon, not a sprint. It applies to all day drinking, it applies to, er, marathons, and it definitely applies to kissing. Petra says: ‘One thing bad kissers usually have in common is enthusiasm. They want to do everything all at once, and it needs to be all about the build. When they start mauling your mouth, pull away slowly, count for a beat and give them a single, tender, kiss on the lips. It wouldn’t hurt to say “I love being kissed really gently” or “I like going slow”. It might feel awkward, but most bad kissers really are crying out for a little instruction.'
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2. Moisture management
Drooling is one of the biggest problems when it comes to bad kissing, and one lady’s optimum level of slipperiness is another’s ‘Can I have a disposable poncho, please?’ According to Petra, it’s OK to be direct about this, if you’re polite. ‘If they’re a bit spitty, pull away, discreetly wipe your mouth, smile and say “Sorry, that’s a little wet for me, can we try again?” Make it about your preferences and focus on the fact that you’re comfortable asking for what you’re into, instead of making them feel objectively bad. It works miracles.’
3. Take the lead
Teaching by example takes guts, but it pays off in the long term. Take a deep breath, perhaps a restorative sip of sherbet, and say, as huskily as you can ‘Don’t move, I want to kiss you properly,' Petra explains ‘It’s a Defcon level five move, and one that takes a nerve wracking amount of confidence, but if you do it once, no-one will ever be a bad kisser on your watch. Remember that people love to feel desired, and they love the excuse to not have to do any work. So it should be surprisingly easy to get them to keep their mouth still for a few seconds while you show them what a good kiss is.
4. Bringing the heat
Occasionally the problem is that the person you’re kissing isn’t going a little too forcefully, but that they’re letting their tongue lie in your mouth like it’s a leaflet for double glazing quotes, and you’re a windscreen. This sometimes happens when your moisture management has been overly successful. ‘Saliva contains the sex hormone testosterone, which triggers libido,' explains Dr Helen Fisher a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, New Jersey. 'So the more time you spend kissing, the more primed you'll be for sex, resulting in a more intense sexual experience.’ Great - but how do you make your partner remember their biological imperative? ‘Sometimes, behaving as if you’re being kissed the way you want to be will make that kiss happen,' says Petra. 'If you’re very passionate, and tell your partner how much you love kissing them, they’re going to lose their inhibitions and go for it. There are very few bad kisses, just very nervous kissers.’
5. Don’t panic, have patience
If the kissing isn’t great straight away, it might be because we’ve evolved beyond it. ‘Kissing evolved as a way to assess a potential partner's compatibility because it exchanges a host of information about health and hormonal status. Yet, once people choose a partner, kissing may die down because there's no longer a need to gauge each other's DNA,’ explains Dr Gordon Gallup, a professor of psychology at the University of Albany. The way we meet and match ourselves with new crushes has changed so dramatically over the last few years that we don’t need to kiss each other for clues about whether we’re going to get on. And as our need to kiss declines, our skills decline with it. That’s not to say that we should give up on kissing - quite the reverse - but we do need to accept that it’s a skill, and it comes with practise.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.