KISSES AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE

Most everyone over 50 remembers the chaste kissing of old – the
pressing of two sets of lips together gently, almost apologetically.
It was the embrace that counted most, the kiss was the means
to and end.

The kiss, when it was allowed by the fairer sex, had its moments.
The merest tough of a lover’s lips could send shock waves from stem to stern coursing through our manly veins.

Those of us who were more adventurous would try a little mouth exploration with delicate, probing tongue sorties. This was not always received well. Slaps and verbal rebuffs were not uncommon and female mouths would remain hermetically sealed… virginally closed as it were.

The sixties ushered in a whole new set of rules. It was called no rules; Everything was not only allowed, but joyously participated in.
Tongue battles ensued, tongues feinted, thrust, parried and scored. Tongues laved tongues and a real mouth cleansing followed. Oral hygiene it was not but no one seemed to care.

Mouths swooped down on open receptive mouths; Lips were swallowed along with saliva as one went about greedily gorging, gulping and gasping.

Meantime, hands became busy exploring everything it could reach. One came up for air from time to time.


Thin lips in the eighties became passé. For a consideration of some $300 , the gentle sex could have their lips enlarged by plastic surgeons who laughed all the way to the bank. Since the results lasted only three months, much laughter was heard throughout the land.

Armed with new, enlarged, “sensuous” lips, women went about with their lips on parade --- ready, willing and able to join the kissing game with renewed vigor.

Television and cinema screens took time out from scenes of murder and arson to deliver the very latest in mouth to mouth resuscitation, close-ups and a bit of copulation as an additional treat. Pay t.v. and exrated movies, had tongues and mouths going ever lower into territory never even mentioned in days of yore.

We’ve come a long, long way from a time where kissing to some was thought to bring on pregnancy.

Wither now: Girl meets boy, boy meets girl, lips and mouths meet and mesh. This is sometimes followed by introductions and sometimes not. Hello is now passé. Onward, ever onward.