|
|
|
| Sunday, 28 August 2005 |
 |
|
 |
Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
All I wanted
to know...
by Aditha Dissanayake "You should be kissed - often, and by someone who knows how", says Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) in "Gone with the Wind", and Scarlett O'Hara, (Vivien Leigh) her face only inches from his, swoons. But John Bunyan, thinks otherwise. In the 'Pilgrim's Progress he calls it an 'odious' practice. He might be right within the framework of business etiquette, where the general rule is don't, and where it should never be assumed that even a gentle peck is acceptable. Unless you are in France, where everyone is always busy planting kisses on one another's cheeks, it would neither be safe nor wise, to join in, with anywhere else in the world when it comes to kissing at business gatherings, as The Complete Book of Business Practice and Etiquette says, "a safe fall back rule is, if in doubt, don't." Yet, that 'touch with the lips' is important when it comes to matters of the heart. For, according to psychoanalysts, having shed our body hair in the process of evolution, our skin today, is ideally equipped for non verbal communication. But in practice, in our day-to-day lives, we have surrounded ourselves with touch taboos; that it has become socially unacceptable for us to get the stimulus we have been designed for. Culture and society has made us keep a 'no-go' area around our bodies. Unless it's an encounter between parents and children, doctors and patients or clients and hair dressers, etc., others, especially members of the opposite sex, are forbidden to trespass on this personal space, and if there is a breach in this unspoken agreement of keeping a physical distance, it often ends causing embarrassment to at least the passive onlookers. But, as Desmond Morris writes on the final page of 'Intimate Behaviour', "how much better it would be if we could accept the fact that tender loving is not a weakly thing, meant only for infants; if we could release our feelings, and indulge ourselves in an occasional and magical return to intimacy, most of our problems will disappear. After all, one touch of the lips is worth a thousand words." Ask Donald Norfolk, the author of 'Fit for Life' and he'll say kissing is "a splendid way" of making a relationship work, because, "couples get so close together that they cease to see each other's faults." According to H. Morris, who wrote more than sixty years ago on the Art of Kissing, when kissing techniques were taught as assiduously as techniques of copulating is taught on the internet today, there are a wide variety of kisses ranging from the soul kiss to the vacuum kiss, to the eyelash kiss to the neck kiss, all offering vital means of communication especially during the early stages of a relationship. Experts believe all kissing should be gentle and slow. It should be soft and expressive and should never be hurried, if it's to give maximum pleasure. After all, a kiss can be more than a mere physical contact. As Captain Wasantha Ratnayake demonstrates in Nihal de Silva's 'The Road from Elephant Pass'. I bent over and brushed my lips on her forehead. I then gently kissed her eyes, nose, ears and finally the edge of her mouth. Kamala asked "Where did you learn to kiss like this." 'Watching English movies on T.V.' says the Captain and feels it spoils the whole mood when she starts to giggle. But he is glad to realise that this was when all the barriers between them, he a soldier from the South, she a Tamil rebel, finally breaks down. But the best advice comes from the author of the Art of Kissing, who writes "Forget time. Forget everything but the kiss'. While your lips are pressed together, think only of the joy of giving and the pleasure you are receiving. Kiss as though at the moment nothing else exists in the world. Kiss as though your entire life is wrapped up into the kiss. Kiss as though there is nothing else you'll rather be doing." Hmmmmm. Kissing. After a few phone calls and e-messages, my friends have bombarded me with enough material to write a thesis on the subject. But all I wanted to know was whether one had to keep one's eyes open or not? |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
