It’s been glorified in the movies for centuries.
It goes against all the basic tenets of personal hygiene.
It’s soggy, mushy, squelchy, damp, watery and simply disgusting.
And yet we just love it, don’t we?
It’s the French Kiss!
It screams romance and it is unavoidably sexual.
It is, undoubtedly, one great and yet disgusting thing the west introduced to Africa; revolting as it is, we Africans (and the world) bow down to it.
We have gone from affair number one to love affair number 3 and 10 and we have French kissed all the way!
I am one to believe that saliva is the most revolting thing to come out of the human body (save for some things I will not mention today, or ever, thank you) but it seems we will drink the next person’s saliva though we can’t drink our own!
Shame on humanity, really.
Maybe people get blinded when their libidos are ignited because French kissing is a prelude to sexual combat.
Simply, French kissing is when one participant’s tongue touches the other’s tongue and usually enters his or her mouth.
The intimacy that is provoked when one allows another person’s tongue into their own mouths is unmistakably sexual.
Unlike other forms of kissing, like brief kisses in greeting or friendship, episodes of French kissing are not designed to be short; the tongue kissing may often “be prolonged, intense and passionate”.
When I first heard the term French Kiss, I thought it was termed thus because the French invented it.
I, however, later learnt that the term itself has nothing to do with France being a country of excellent kissers. The French themselves have a different name for the kiss and it does not mean “French kiss” but “bassier amoureux”, meaning love kiss.
I also remember when the act of kissing was regarded as disgusting in our society.
I have nothing against the French kiss; I personally think it is the best thing next to chocolate!
But I can’t divorce myself from the fact that I am actually taking gulps at someone else’s saliva, and the remnants of whatever food he ate earlier. God help us!
Next to the human hands, the mouth carries the most germs on the human body and yet it’s preferable to some to stick their tongues into someone’s mouth than to suck at their own thumb.
And, as we all know, the tongue stores God knows what every time you eat something. It is actually disgusting if you think of it this way, when you smooch with someone, you are actually exchanging the bacteria both of you carry in your mouths and some of us view a toothbrush as if it’s a stick just used to kill a snake.
The French Kiss is made more exciting by its spontaneity. It’s not planned; it’s expected between romantically intimate people and none of them ever stops to think when the last time their partner brushed their teeth was.
Even though we know that the mouth is home to many microorganisms, we go on and take the dip.
Why, for goodness sake?
I guess it’s just like the pork chops we admire in the butcher’s window; we never stop to think of the lifetime relationship and camaraderie between pigs and mud.
Saliva carries various infectious diseases that cause colds and skin diseases. Herpes and mononucleosis/Glandular Fever, also known as the kissing disease, are among the most common infectious diseases that can be passed through a French kiss.
The worst thing about this is that mouth rinsing after swapping saliva with someone won’t protect you from herpes or any other infection you might have scooped from around or from inside a foreign mouth.
People don’t usually talk about the tiny wounds on their tongues or inside their cheeks but will gladly just kiss a partner.
Open sores or any blood around the gum line should be of great concern since the virus needs “blood to blood” contact.
It is most disturbing to think how one kiss can be deadly.
Pleasurable as it might be, the tongue kiss is hardly a hygienic act, regardless of how we feel about our partners.
While a small drop of infected blood dropping on an open sore might infect us with the HIV virus, there is good news for all the Casanovas out there.
While conceding that the HIV virus could be spread through saliva, some doctors say the Casanova has to drink at least a bucketful of his infected partner’s saliva to get infected.
I don’t think there are any takers for this, with most people preferring to do it in smaller portions and doses.
I understand this is no subject before lunch, so I will shut up for now.
