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Do you remember your first kiss?

I received my first peck when I was four years old. I was hiding in the closet with a neighbor during a game of hide-and-go-seek when he planted his ashy-lips on mine. It was our little secret and also my first and last kiss for the next six years. When I was ten, I kissed another boy (his lips were freshly chapsticked) during a game of “Truth or Dare” at our karate school lock-in after someone dared him to kiss me. We were “boyfriend and girlfriend” at the time, so he gave me a quick peck and everyone squealed.

When you’re young, kissing is such a big deal. I remember hearing (and ignoring) warnings that girls shouldn’t kiss a guy on the first date. That advice is now “don’t have sex on the first date”, but still, kissing plays a significant role in a new relationship. A bad smooch can even be a deal breaker.

What about down the line in a relationship though? I wonder, do people still passionately kiss even when they’ve been together for a while? Does kissing too often go on the backburner in marriage or even long-term dating relationships?

Last year, the Huffington Post published the results of a survey that found married couples kiss less than once a week.

“Nearly one in five married couples go without kissing for as long as one week at a time. And when they do finally lock lips, it will last no longer than five seconds for 40 percent of them.”

It sounds like these researchers found the root of a sexless marriage – or sexless cohabitation. If a couple isn’t even taking the time to kiss, then it’s fair to assume they aren’t making time for much else either. Jill Blakeway, author of the forthcoming book Sex Again: Recharging Your Libido, told the Huffington Post:

“Kissing can be “more intimate than having sex” but is one of the first things to go in a long-term or sexless marriage.  When kissing falls by the wayside, it’s the first step to losing passion in a relationship. “

Sheila Gray, author of Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex says kissing helps a marriage and Jill Blakeway agrees telling HuffPo.

“Kissing is one of the first ways we connect sexually. And then over time it goes down. But there are some physical things that make kissing important. It decreases the level of cortisol, which is a stress hormone and it increases oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone. And that’s why, chemically speaking, kissing makes people more relaxed and builds connection. Chinese medicine says that the mouth and the tongue have a connection to the heart. So it’s the same idea. Kissing attaches people to each other.”

Apparently, kissing relieves stress and makes a couple closer. That sounds like a good reason to bring kissing back to a relationship where the frequency has fallen off, but how often should we kiss our mates? In her 29 Days to Great Sex blog, Sheila Gray advises couples to kiss for at least fifteen seconds each day. That seems short, but it’s longer than a quick peck and once you get into it, you likely won’t stop at exactly fifteen seconds.

Of course kissing doesn’t have to lead to sex. Personally, I find stand-alone kissing to be romantic. In fact, I have always wanted to re-enact that “Love Jones” scene with Darius and Nina kissing in the rain. Also, the scene in “The Notebook” when Noah says to Allie “It wasn’t over. It still isn’t over!” and Allie jumps into Noah’s arms and they’re kissing in the rain. Can’t forget that scene in Spiderman when Mary Jane is kissing him upside down…in the rain. (Clearly, I like the idea of locking lips in a downpour though my hair would never allow that type of spontaneity.) These movies all portray a fairly new relationship, but even if you’re in a long-term relationship you still may want to make time for kissing.

Hey, if the President of the United States has time to lay one on his wife, then what’s our excuse?

What do you think? Do you think kissing goes on the backburner when you’ve been in a relationship for a while?

Follow Alissa on Twitter @AlissaInPink

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock

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Dear Damon,

I was in a … on and off again relationship with a guy PJ. We were young when we first met, started off as friends, then eventually fell for each other. We tried the dating thing 3 times. Each time he broke my heart over the same girl. The last time this happened was in 2010 , and I finally told him I’m done, don’t contact me any more & move on. I am over him & doing great.  Thing is I am very cool with his best friend Taylor, who recently (over the past year) has been trying to be in a relationship with me. Now Taylor has always been a big cheerleader of me & PJ’s relationship. I never thought anything about it. I knew he was the one always telling PJ  ”She’s a good women, you need to keep her” and “PJ stop messing this up with her you got a keeper.” I always thought he just saw me as real cool and was trying to make PJ see what he saw. Anyways I told him that we could never date, that it would be inappropriate (several times) and change the subject. Well now I’m starting to have feelings for him. Thing is while me & PJ were complete opposites me and Taylor are on the same page and have so much in common. Tay is college educated and going back to school to continue his education and is a big supporter of me getting my masters degree, Tay has a relationship with the lord and even volunteered to go to church with me when none of my girls can make it (my church is 1 hr away & he makes the ride with me), he is romantic and wants to settle down, he makes me laugh and is very attentive, he is respectful of my vow of celibacy till marriage….he is basically what I’m looking for. But isn’t it a bit taboo to date an ex’s friend? I keep saying ” no that would be wrong” when i think about it, but is it worth throwing away a perfectly amazing man to not cross any lines or step on my ex’s toes? So what do you think? Is it never worth it to date an ex’s friend? Or should we as grown people get over these so called “dating rules’ and see where love takes us?

Sincerely,

Ethics or Heart?

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