Kissing: Challenges, Explorations & Tips

This episode dives into all things Kissing. We'll cover basic Do's and Don'ts, and unpack common concerns about this very common activity. Many couples communicate pretty poorly if at all about their desires and preferences around kissing, which makes it very hard to get what you want. I'll help you get free of that and understand how to improve your kissing situation, whether you want more kissing, less kissing, or different kissing. 

Get a free guide to Finding Your Deepest Turn-Ons, plus learn how to work with me at https://laurajurgens.com.

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Transcript

Welcome to Sex Help for Smart People. I'm Dr. Laura Jurgens. I'm here to help you have better sex, intimacy, and relationships. So let's get at it. Okay. Hey everyone. Welcome to episode 60. Today we are talking about hissing and we're going to talk about technique and the varying levels of kissing enjoyment out there.

There is no shame. in not really liking kissing that much. It's totally okay, and it's actually more common than you think. There's also no shame in not being so great at kissing, which is also really, really common. And, you know, there's a lot of shame about both of those things that people hold. So I want to help you release some of that.

And also, If you want to improve your kissing as it relates to sort of your enjoyment, your partner's enjoyment, and your enjoyment together, I'm going to give you some tips for that too. And this one is by special request from a former client. And you know I like doing podcasts by special requests. So if you ever have a special request, shoot me an email and let me know what kind of topic you would like.

Or if you actually want to get coached on the podcast, you are also welcome to reach out and ask me about that too. All right. So kissing, let's talk about it because I think kissing is just a really wonderful topic for so many reasons. It's something a lot of us do pretty regularly. It's something a lot of us would like to do a little bit more.

And it's something that sometimes we can feel like we're supposed to just magically know how to do it in the perfect way for our partner, and we don't. And if this is not you, if you actually, if you and your partner just are super kissing compatible. Congratulations, that is super awesome. I know how that feels, because me and my primary partner are super kissing compatible, and it's great, but I've also been in a lot of relationships where I wasn't super kissing compatible with someone.

And look, it's totally okay to need to work on that. It's absolutely okay. Just like any other type of touch, what works for one person and what feels good for one person doesn't feel necessarily the same amount of good for somebody else. So it doesn't mean that you're like blanket horrible at kissing.

It just means that whatever, if your partner isn't quite into your kissing, or you're not quite into theirs, it just means that you've got some work to do together to sort of get on the same page. No problem. All right. Some people also love kissing and want tons of it. Some people like it some of the time, or for a little while.

Some people don't like it at all. And they feel really ashamed about it and kind of often can be kind of in the closet about not liking kissing. Like they don't want to tell anybody. They feel like it's somehow really. aberrant, like, unnormal and abnormal, I guess is the right word. But it's not, actually.

I get a ton of people who are like, hey, I have a secret. I really don't like kissing. I'm like, oh, you and like a bunch of other people. So if that's you, it's okay too. And it's possible that maybe with some changes, you might wind up liking it a little bit more or not. And either one is totally okay. So if nothing else, Let's just normalize that not everybody has to like everything.

That's totally okay. If you have ever been told that you are a bad kisser, I also want to say I am sorry for how much that probably hurt because, ouch, right? It can really hurt. But I also want to say it's not any different than learning any other physical skill. If you're told you're a bad swimmer, you usually kind of know.

Sometimes you don't know that you're a bad kisser. But they're really very similar. Sometimes you just need practice and feedback to get better. And to remember that it's just for that particular person. that your kissing isn't quite working. So everyone can get better, I believe anyway. Now look, my first kiss ever was fucking horrible for me.

My first boyfriend, Jamie, he was the kind of person who would Like, shove their tongue, like, all the way down your throat, as if he was, like, searching for, like, the lost treasure of Atlantis. It was, it was, it was like, there was no ceasing of the shoving of the tongue. It was horrible. I didn't know any better.

I was just like, oh, that was awful. But I didn't know that that was just, you know, he wasn't a very good kisser at that time. He was, like, 16, and I was 14, and it was just nuts. not a good scene, right? Like both of us were clueless. Then my first girlfriend, Andy, which was like, I was a year older, so I was 15.

She was really good and I learned a lot from her. She was good for me, right? Someone else might have really loved Jamie's like tongue pile driver situation. I just didn't. But I bet now I could teach him to kiss me the way I like. We just need to do some practice. And I need to offer some kind feedback, right?

So, I want to invite that no matter how long you've been together with your partner, thinking about doing Like a kissing practice and offering each other some positive feedback about what you really like, along with some, you know, Hey, that part, that style isn't so great for me, type of constructive feedback to let them know what they're doing Well, and what they're not doing so well for you and make sure that it's like for me when you give feedback It's for me.

I don't really love it when our teeth like You know, bump together. Could we not do that so much? Or for me, I really want more variation in your mouth being closed versus open. So being very specific about what it is that you like means you have to pay attention and look. You can be together with somebody for 30 years and still say, Hey, babe, you know what might be fun is if we did a little bit of just kissing exploration and we gave each other really honest feedback about what we love and what we don't love.

That could, you know, just be a fun exercise and rejuvenate things. Or if you're early on in a relationship, it can be a really good idea to just, you know, get it all out now so that you can have lots of kissing that you both enjoy. It's what you individually like and what your partner likes that matters, and that is going to take communication between the two of you, rather than just assuming that somebody should magically know exactly how you like to be kissed.

Okay, so we're going to talk about some general do's for kissing, some do's and don'ts too. General do's and don'ts for kissing, and then just know that all of this has to get filtered through each person's individual desires. Just like oral sex, right? There's That's even more specific to the individual person, I think, in my experience, but there's some sort of like general do's and don'ts that I teach and then you have to really communicate with your partner.

But that should be okay, right? Because you're in a relationship in which you are kissing this person, hopefully you're also capable of talking to this person. So general do's and don'ts. Number one, this is a big deal for kissing. Breath. You know, sometimes you think it would go without saying, but it really doesn't.

Make sure you have decent breath. It is really hard for someone to focus on the enjoyment of kissing if there is nasty breath going on. And it, it doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't mean that you should feel ashamed. Just means you should go to the dentist and take care of it. So if you have halitosis, if you have gingivitis, if you have tooth issues, if you have ketosis, so like if you're on a keto diet, you can have a special kind of bad breath that's from all the acetone that's getting produced.

So you know, deal with this stuff. If your breath is bad, no matter what your technique is, you're going to be turning your partner off and they're just going to be sort of like cringing the whole time. So take care of that shit. And please try to receive any breath feedback with a mask. Gratitude as hard as that is, I know, but just remember that it is very hard for other people to tell you because they know that it's going to hurt your feelings.

So, Please try to appreciate that they went to the trouble of telling you and they decided that you knowing was more important than how uncomfortable it was going to feel for them. So, alright, we're going to assume now you've taken care of the oral hygiene part. So all the other stuff is about technique.

Number one. Take it slow, especially when practicing, so that you can learn and be responsive to your partner. If you are moving too fast or they are moving too fast, right, if they're moving too fast, ask them to go slow. If you are moving too fast, just slow down a little bit. It doesn't mean you always have to kiss slow, but when you're starting to become aware of your own technique, it's worth it to really slow down so that you can process what's going on without getting too out of the moment.

All right, number two, keep your mouth as soft and relaxed as possible. You don't want to. So I'm going to talk to you a little bit about how you can make your lips pucker up really hard or make your lips hard. And look, you may be listening to this like, Oh, I learned all this stuff when I was 15. Good.

Great for you. There might still be something in here that you didn't know or that you don't know. If you maybe haven't tried recently with your partner, so just keep an open mind. And if you've never learned about the details of kissing, welcome to the vast majority of people who've just been winging it for their whole life.

You may be 75 and are just like, Oh yeah, I've never really thought about kissing technique. Maybe now's the time to learn. Isn't it fun to learn new things? Yay. All right. So, try not to like super pucker or make your lips hard, just keep your mouth soft and relaxed. Number three, avoid having your mouth totally open all the time, or totally closed all the time.

So we want to like vary variation is really great for kissing. So, A little bit of open mouth kissing, a little bit of closed mouth kissing. And if you learned kissing from, I'm laughing because I remember remembering when I tried to learn how to kiss when I was a little kid, from watching people on TV.

So if you, like me, tried to learn how to kiss from watching people on TV. It's very hard to see what's going on and you kind of see this moment where they look like their mouth is open and you may have gotten stuck in that and decided that you were just always going to have your mouth open. Remember that you can't quite see what's going on and also TV is not reality.

So trust me when I say varying keeping your mouth open and closed is really nice. Like, so a few closed kisses and then some time with an open mouth and some tongue action and then followed by a few closed kisses, like keep it varying. All right, when I learned This is totally another aside. You're going to get a lot of those today, cause I That's apparently where I'm at.

When I learned I didn't learn kissing from TV. I just tried to learn kissing from TV. But I think I was like 7 and I was trying to practice on my hand. And all I really could take from the TV was that they turned their heads. So I thought I was supposed to just sort of kiss like A normal closed mouth kiss that I was supposed to give my grandma, but then like, turn my head 90 degrees.

And so that's what I thought kissing in like, romantic settings was. It was turning your head 90 degrees. That's what I took away from movies and TV. I wonder what you did. I would love to hear. I would just love to hear what you thought about. When you were a little kid, what you thought that was going on in there.

All right, next up. Besides just varying the closed and open mouth, also switch your area of attention or focus and your speed pretty often. Because the key to really good kissing, a lot of that is variation and softness, you want to go to other areas. Either other sides of the mouth, the top lip, the bottom lip, the left, the right, but also other parts of the face and head, the neck, the ear, right?

And I'm not saying go kiss somebody's eyeball or their eyebrow necessarily, but if you're in the mouth for a little while, maybe go to the neck for a little while. Maybe go back to the mouth. Maybe go like right under the ear, right? Go to different parts of the neck, come back to the mouth. So changing things up can really Increase the sensation because our bodies start sort of tuning out when the sensation stays the same.

Also changing up the speed or intensity can do that as well. Alright, next up, please go easy on the tongue. Don't be like Jamie, the 16 year old tongue pile driver. Let your tongue be relaxed and occasionally exploratory. So it like goes for a gentle walk, right? It's not a pile driver or a wrestler. You don't want it to be like tongue wrestling unless you and your partner are very specific that that's what you love.

Let it just kind of be relaxed and occasionally go on a little walk. All right, next up. Some other ways to vary things. Gentle nibbles on the lips can be nice. Some people. Like and enjoy a light sucking sensation on their tongue, but not everybody, and it's okay if they don't like it. If that's your favorite go to move and your ex used to just go wild for it, alright, but your current partner may not love it.

And that's okay and they don't have to, right? You don't, don't be like a one trick pony where you can only do that one thing, right? So, Ask, don't assume if they like it, and in general, most people don't like their teeth like clashing together, but you know, you can see how you all feel about that. But the gentle nibbles on the lips, a lot of people really like that, as long as it's gentle.

Some people actually like it to be kind of firmer, and you will best find out by asking on that one. All right, don't, next one is don't forget to breathe. Sometimes it can be really hard to breathe when you're kissing and that is just going to pull you out of the moment. So just please breathe, pull back if you need to in order to breathe.

Let your partner know if you, if the kind of kissing they're doing is making you struggle to breathe that will eventually make you not want to kiss them anymore. So make sure that you're communicating about that, right? And most of all, try to be attuned to your partner and yourself, right? You need to stay attuned enough to yourself to know what you're enjoying and what you're not.

And you want to also try to be attuned to your partner and even kind of mirroring them. So like mimicking your partner sometimes, especially with someone new or if you're trying out new kissing Oftentimes, long term partners have kind of naturally start mimicking and mirroring each other. But when kissing someone new especially or if you're kind of reengaging with some kissing play and you haven't experimented in a while with your long term partner, trying to mimic what they're doing can help teach you And then finally, pull back for eye contact and to check in sometimes.

So, pull back, take a look at the person, check in with them. And definitely do that before escalating anything beyond kissing, right? Pull back for eye contact and to check in and maybe have some words, right? Alright, so if you love kissing, ask for more. It's okay. And it can, it can just be kissing. It doesn't have to escalate into anything else.

Just ask for more kissing. If you don't like kissing, but your partner does, see if, for you, you might just need some adjustments in technique. So maybe ask them to explore with you and see if there's anything that you respond to better. stay really attuned to yourself. Go back to one of the early episodes as attuning to yourself first.

So make sure you know how to do that and you can stay present with yourself so you can see what you respond well to. So you just might not like how. You're making out with your partner, but you also just may not like kissing that much. It's not everybody's jam. And that's totally okay. I'm kind of like medium of the road.

I'm not one of the like, absolutely loves kissing, like it's my favorite sport. And I'm not like a hates kissing, never wants to do it all together. I know people on both sides of that spectrum, plenty of them. There's a lot of them. It's fine. It's great. Right? People have preferences. That's totally okay. If you don't like kissing but your partner really does, see if you could do some more short bursts of kissing.

You may enjoy it better if you know you're not on the hook for a long session. Or see if you like it better if they very briefly kiss your mouth and then kiss other parts of you. You may enjoy that better. But if, you know, if you just really don't like it, hey, It's okay. Not everyone likes strawberries either, and that's fine.

We don't have to feel ashamed of it. You just want to communicate it with your partner so that you're not doing something that makes you really unhappy. They're gonna pick up on that and they're gonna think there's something wrong with them or that they're doing something wrong that's gonna create disconnect between you.

So if it's just a general thing, like I just don't like kissing, let them know that. So that you can figure out what activities you do love and have some things in your foreplay repertoire or just your connection, physical connection and affection repertoire together that you really like. But it's best to just be honest about that up front.

And for the love of like everything good, please don't assume that kissing is always a prelude to sex or some other sexual activities. Kissing doesn't entitle you to sex. Somebody who wants to make out for, you know, 10 to 20 minutes on the couch, that's, that may be all they're up for. And that's okay.

That's lovely. A lot of couples could use way more kissing for fun without having like a pressure to escalate. So let yourself enjoy it. If the only time you get kissed is when your partner wants to have sex, it becomes this like signal of almost like an obligation instead of an enjoyable activity that really just contributes to the connection between partners.

So be careful you don't go into that slippery slope of like you only ever get kissed when somebody wants. to have sex with you and it just starts feeling kind of icky. And if you need practice at kissing together, do it and let it be fun and exploratory, right? See if you can treat it like you're learning to ice skate as a couple.

It's hard enough to ice skate, but then like ice skating as a couple, you would have to really practice that. So. It's not 100 percent intuitive for most people, and you're different people. You're going to move differently, you're going to like different things. So see if you can just get on board with it being like a fun couples sport.

All right, my friends, I'll see you here next week. Hey, if you're curious about how you could have Better Sex and Connections. Go grab my free guide, Find Your Secret Turn Ons. It's right on my website, www.laurajurgens.com and the link is in the show notes. I'll see you here next time.