Kissing can be a bland and perfunctory task, or it can be a means to a deeper, lasting connection with another person. Pressing our lips together provides a moment when we're able to communicate feelings that words alone can't express, or it can be a missed opportunity. According to one study, by the time the average woman in the U S. has decided on a mate she will have kissed seventy-nine men. While that statistic seems to suggest a lot of happy lip-locking is going on, it may reflect, at least partly, something else： a frustrated search for a pair of male lips that are as willing and enthusiastic as her own. In Shere Hite’s famous book on sexuality, The Hite Report, she revealed that many women she interviewed found kissing to be more pleasurable than any other sexual activity, yet these same women often expressed frustration with the lack of kissing in their love lives. In a separate study on the same topic, 60, percent of the women surveyed felt kissing was more important than sex. The number of men who felt the same way? Only 24 percent.
Of course, this seems to support a familiar stereotype： Men tend to focus on sex, while women desire an emotional connection above all. Women value a man who takes his time and wants to build a relationship, a man who wants to make love and not just round the bases as quickly as possible. If you're a man who's among that 24 percent this is good news for you. In the competitive world of partnering up, most men are clueless about how much value women place on kissing.
On the other hand, if you're a man who up to now has rushed through kissing on the way to other things, consider this: The results of another study showed that men who knew what they were doing when it came to kissing were considered good lovers by their partner.
In fact, though they may not always agree on how much kissing there should be in a relationship, both men and women place a high value on a partner who kisses well. In a recent survey of 2,000 men and women, 90 percent said that they would not date someone who was a bad kisser. In the same survey, 8 out of 10 people believed they could predict what a long-term relationship would be like based on that first kiss.
If kissing is important at the start of a romance, it turns out that ifs no less important for couples who are in a long-established relationship. Through time, kissing can help maintain feelings of connection and closeness. Unfortunately, couples who've been together for years sometimes kiss less often as the relationship settles into a daily routine and commitments to work and children mount up. Those little romantic moments and gestures that felt so important when the relationship was new may begin to feel like luxuries that can be skipped in order to get the more pressing needs of the day met. Sadly, this can put a relationship at risk.
If you find yourself in a relationship that seems to have drifted into an emotional rut with little or no kissing going on between you, there is good news： It can be easier to get a positive romantic vibe going again than many people realize. Although partners often have the idea that they must be swept along on a wave of intense feeling before a meaningful kiss can take place, in fact, in successful long-term relationships action often proceeds feeling Kissing, along with other forms of romantic touch such as hugging, holding hands, cuddling, and caressing, do more than provide a way to express our feelings for our partner — they help create those feelings. Human touch makes us feel loved and connected.
In her book, 'The Ten Second Kiss relationship expert Ellen Kreidman discusses the value of acting as if the connection you want with your partner already exists. During an exercise in her seminars, Kreidman encourages couples to kiss for 10 seconds At first, many people are reluctant, but as the exercise proceeds the mood in the room soon changes. Writes Kreidman: "They may feel distant, annoyed, embarrassed, humiliated, or uncomfortable before the kiss. But when they do it anyway, the result of their action is a feeling of connection, warmth, safety, tenderness, and even passion." Kreidman recommends that couples make a commitment to engage in at least one ten second kiss every day; at first, even using a timer to make sure they^e not short-changing themselves.
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