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French Kissing
Did
French kissing start in France?
BY COLLEEN CANCIO
Human
beings indulge in a range of affectionate behaviors, including hugging, kissing,
handshakes and high-fives.
But
one of the most curious of couplings is the so-called "French kiss,"
where the tongue of two people make contact, presumably for the purpose of
sexual stimulation.
French
kissing is a well-established expression of love across many of the world's
cultures, but the first person to try it must have been quite brave.
Who
was this person?
References
to open-mouth kissing appear in a number of ancient texts, with the earliest
mention appearing in Sanskrit works around 1500 B.C.E. [source: Kirshenbaum, The Daily Beast].
In
the famous Kama Sutra text from the third century C.E., the places on the body
designated for kissing include lips and the interior of the mouth, suggesting
that tongue kissing was being practiced in India by that time [source: The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana].
One
hypothesis for the evolution of tongue kissing is that it occurred as a natural
consequence of feeding offspring in mammal populations [source: Lorenzi].
However,
this doesn't explain why the practice was adopted in some human societies, but
not others.
There
are multiple instances across the globe of human communities that had never
heard of tongue kissing before contact with Europeans — and were disgusted by
the very suggestion of it [source: Foer].
For
the widespread practice of kissing in Europe, we can thank the Romans, who
described kissing in three forms: the osculum (a friendly peck on the cheek),
the basium (a more erotic kiss on the lips) and the savium (the most passionate
of kisses on the mouth) [source: Lorenzi].
In
Roman society, when, where and how you kissed someone was an important
indicator of social status.
The
term "French kiss" was likely coined by American and British
servicemen in France during World War I who noticed that Gallic women were more
open to employing the erotic technique than their American counterparts [source: Kirshenbaum].
So,
while the French were clearly not the first people to engage in French kissing,
it seems fair that they are given credit for it due to the amorous enthusiasms
of French lovers a century ago.
Interestingly,
the French had no specific word for its famous export until very recently. The
verb galocher, defined as
"kissing with tongues," was added to the French dictionary Le Petit
Robert in 2014 [source: Neuman].
Appearing
in this popular yet unofficial dictionary doesn't give any mere collection of
letters the credentials of a proper French word, however; there is no mention
of galocher in the Academie
Francaise, the 378-year-old regulator of the French language [source: Dewey].
These
days, French kissing is so popular that a team of Japanese researchers recently
invented a French kissing machine, in which couples that are separated are able
to connect via straw-like devices that work through a computer [source: Yin].
That's
some impressive dedication to a long-distance relationship.
Based
on these facts, it's clear that French kissing did not begin in France.
However,
it's equally clear that we have the open hearts (and mouths) of French lovers
at the start of the 20th century to thank for the term. Merci beaucoup!
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