Sex might be important, but kissing is even more intimate and powerful when it comes to building a bond with your partner. Here are 10 reasons why you should spend more time locking lips and less time worrying about getting it on between the sheets (though that’s pretty fun too).
- It doesn’t get the praise it deserves. For starters, everyone’s always talking about sex, especially casual sex, and how great it is. People don’t really think about kissing. Kissing is considered to be an act leading up to sex, but it can be a main event in itself! It’s fun, sexy, and linked to greater intimacy.
- Lips have lots of nerve endings. There are nerve endings in the lips that make you and your partner feel more connected. This is because the nerve endings arouse the brain’s oxytocin hormones, which are considered to be love chemicals. This is why you feel so much closer to your partner after kissing them passionately.
- A kiss offers no place to hide. When you have sex with someone, you can choose to make it just about the physical elements. You can look into the person’s eyes, but you don’t have to. You can look away from them and focus on your own pleasure. With kissing, you’re putting all that sexual chemistry into one place. Your eyes are (hopefully) closed and you’re paying attention to your lips and tongues.
- You have to feel something. While you might say that sex is packed with emotions, this isn’t necessarily the case every single time. But when you reach in to kiss someone, it’s all about what you’re feeling for the person. You’ve probably heard people say they’d sleep with more people than they’d kiss – and you might sleep with someone without even kissing them! – and that just shows you how intimate kissing can be. We’ve all seen Pretty Woman, right?
- It tells you everything you need to know. It really is all in his kiss (thanks, Cher). You can tell a lot about someone by kissing them. You can tell if there’s sexual chemistry between you or not. This can prevent you from wasting time by having sex with someone right away and finding that you’re not in sync as you’d thought.
- It’s highly personal. Yeah, sex is personal because you’re naked, but it can be impersonal too. A kiss is usually always personal. Think about it. When you kiss, you have to ensure you and your partner are in sync when it comes to how slow or fast the kiss is to make it passionate and feel amazing. (You also want to avoid knocking each other’s teeth!) You can make it even more personal by focusing on nibbling each other’s lips or doing other things to elevate it to another level.
- It’s linked to smell and taste. When you kiss your partner, you smell their breath and taste their lips and tongue. This contributes to how intimate it is, and it’s why you want to make sure you always brush your teeth and swish mouthwash around your mouth before reaching in for a smooch!
- It’s romantic. If you spend an hour kissing instead of using it as nothing but a form of foreplay, you’ll be bathed in affection for your partner and feel closer to them than ever. Kissing is so romantic. Just think of foot-popping kisses that you see in the movies, for example. You can also make kissing more romantic, such as by caressing your partner’s face during a kiss.
- It’s linked to the fun stage of relationships. Go back in time to when you were getting to know your partner. There was a buildup to that first kiss you shared with them, and it was such an exciting time. You’d be trying to spot the signs that your partner wanted to lock lips, which was nerve-wracking yet delicious. By having kissing sessions with your partner, you’ll be taken back to that time while building more intimacy with them.
- It cuts out a lot of the drama. Kissing is an intimate act you can engage in with your partner without worrying about issues such as falling pregnant or getting an STD. You can relax and get into it while having fun, which makes it one of the real rarities in the dating world that’s not to be missed!
