The Language of Touching & Being Touched
We now return you to the blog revival series, already in progress.
This piece was originally published on May 2, 2012, on AFF.
Once again, it’s about words. It occurs to me, that I don’t really like the word kissing. It’s just too cute. Now sure it works for cute kissing, that sweet little pecky stuff you occasionally give in to, or when you kiss more to elicit a giggle than a moan. For that stuff, it works.
But for the other kinds of kissing, it just doesn’t seem to fit.
Those kisses that steal your breath, those kisses that send your mind into a spiral, those kisses that can leave you shaking like John Cusack and Ione Skye in the back seat of a car…
Somehow kissing doesn’t seem to be a big and grand enough word for that feeling, that action, that expression of affection and/or desire.
The ironic thing is, it’s the only variation I don’t like.
Now the word kiss, that works. “Kiss me” turns the lips in a lovely way. When you say “We kissed” you drag out the middle just a skoch, if the kiss was memorable enough. When I write “she kisses him softly” in a script, I almost always smile.
But I still feel like kissing doesn’t do justice to the action in some forms, and I think the words do infect how we view things.
Fuck is a good word. There’s a reason fucking and making love are two different things. Fuck is a guttural word, strong, aggressive. In my opinion, the sounds of serious fucking are also guttural, strong and aggressive.
Fondle is a great word. I love the sound of the word fondling. It has this “tickling the ivories” feel to it, which is entirely appropriate to its action. Who wouldn’t love to be fondled?
When you really think about it, isn’t it rather appropriate that the word cunnilingus is a tongue-twister?
Petting is an unusual word. It sounds so very decadent, it makes one thing of being stroked from head to toe, like a cat. And let’s face it, in many people any resemblance to feline movement is sexy. Not all mind you, but many. And heavy petting is just delightfully antiquated, invoking images of making out on your own couch, like you were still teenagers hoping a parent doesn’t walk in.
I just realized though; cunnilingus doesn’t sound nearly as appetizing as fellatio — you know someone in this world thinks that’s a name for an Italian desert.
I wish there was a better word for the kind of kissing that makes time stop and hummingbirds flutter nearby just to show off the effect. I just feel like such an overwhelming sensation deserves a little something extra.


