Maybe not the average post on here...
OK, here we go - I'm a guy, who's been seriously shamed about his sexuality by his feminist mother and co-educating prudish grand-mother. Anything that was even remotely related to sexuality was either dirty and amoral or potentially violent against women. I mean, I was basically told as a pubescent boy that what I wanted the most was both amoral and dangerous to the girls/women I would wanted to do it with. So, well, no big surprise, I wasn't exactly happy for a long long time. It's not that I was "bad with girls", I was (and am) very popular with them but I'd still be unkissed if a girl hadn't just lost her patience with me and kissed me instead of waiting for me to do initiate. So I dealt with my sexual sexual shame in therapy and it got a lot better - but this, in a way led to a new level of disappointment. Since I no longer hide my sexuality women do seem to pick that up and not rarely seem to want more than I seem to be able to give.
Case in point, I'm currently on holiday and last Sunday I met this girl who's a friend of the friend I'm staying at, and we really liked each other instantly. We saw each other again on Monday and Wednesday, both times with other people, but yesterday we were alone with each other for some time. She had to leave this morning, so it was clear that it would be the last time we'd meet. And she wasn't hiding her sexual interest, she even said in a third-person that she thought I would think that she was "just another girl who's interested in me". She definitely was interested. And I was definitely interested in reciprocating - I really wanted to kiss her, at least keep this as a great memory, not knowing if we would ever meet again. And she seemed interested, too, by all standards of body language, she was all over me. But, as so many of my female friends have told me, most women would never initiate a kiss.
And I couldn't. These are the moments when my rational understanding of the situation is always getting tainted by my sexual shame and my fears of doing something she wouldn't actually want. Rationally I am pretty sure that she was sad and probably feels disappointed and rejected even though she definitely wasn't. But I just couldn't do it, I couldn't take the risk of attempting to kiss her - somewhere, for all the therapy, there still was my feminist mother telling me to never "pressure a girl". So I didn't do it, and so we went home and I bet we both lay awake for a while last night wondering why we didn't kiss, when the attraction was so tangible.
So, feminists, maybe you have some practical advice for a guy who's been educated to see feminism as "the voice of women".
How would you want a guy to initiate a kiss? Please be as specific as possible. Thanks for your time and consideration!
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There is nothing wrong with saying, "I'd like to kiss you. May I?" I'm dating someone who at first was very concerned about the same things that you are due to a bad experience of his own. Until we both got comfortable with each other enough to be certain of "non-verbal" consent, we asked permission for each kind of intimacy. It worked well.
Seconded.
Communication is key. If you want to treat women as unique individuals, you have to understand that we can make up our own minds and that kissing is not just something men do to women. It's something shared. Trust women enough to answer truthfully if you ask. You hazard rejection for being so upfront, but both your and her desires would be clear.
I also find communication dead sexy. "Is it okay if I kiss you?" from a man I was attracted to would make me melt.
Thanks deMoiselle and Ellestar!
thanks a lot for your comments!
"I also find communication dead sexy. "Is it okay if I kiss you?" from a man I was attracted to would make me melt."
Yeah, I had thought about something like that. I was about to say "I'd really love to remember you in a special way, would you like to kiss me?" But I thought it would have been too cheesy, in the way Emily H. mentions below. Would you think there would be a difference between asking "is it ok if I kiss you?" and "would you like to kiss me"? I prefer your version, because it's more about *my* intent, but as I said I'm having trouble expressing my sexual interest and so I'd intuitively always go for the "would *you* like to kiss" version, making it more about her decision than about mine...
Parents sometimes pass their own damage down to their children; I think this is completely unintentional on their part. It's tough not to internalize someone else's damage or to bare the brunt of their conditioned response that occurred as a result of damage you yourself did not create.
One of my very good friends, for example, draws very intensely defined boundaries around herself and is constantly on guard at all times with every man. This response is due to past unfortunate events and abuse. Her sense of feeling extreme vulnerability at all times is so palpable that I know it cannot be healthy and that it consumes her. Even so, it's not really my place as a man to tell her she's limiting herself severely by taking this approach.
But what I will say is that there have been a few instances when I feel the fear of being spontaneous because I am concerned that whomever I might be flirting with might presume malicious intent rather than genuine interest. This, however, is very rare. Most people, I find, regardless of gender don't set adequate enough boundaries.
ComradeKevin,
"Parents sometimes pass their own damage down to their children; I think this is completely unintentional on their part."
well, I don't think my mother or grand mother were intentionally malicious. Far from it, but there good intentions had unfortunate side effects, very unfortunate side effects.
Intentions are the paving material of the road to hell, as I'm sure you know.
Intentions don't matter - bad parenting, in all of it's different varieties, can and does cause a lot of human misery.
And the intentions of the parents really don't matter one little bit!
I agree that the best way to know what a girl (or anyone, for that matter) wants is to ask them. It seems rather weird to me that a man would need therapy to overcome the instruction not to 'pressure a girl' instilled in him by a 'feminist mother'. 'Don't pressure your partner' is good advice for everyone. The truth is that any and everyone's sexuality is potentially a threat if they don't consider the other person's feelings and agency. It seems obvious to me that if people are having difficulties communicating they ought to be more open about what they want. I am, and it solves a lot of problems, I just wish everyone else was too! I wish men would just ask, 'can I kiss you?'
Nettle Syrup,
"'Don't pressure your partner' is good advice for everyone."
Yes, of course, if pressure doesn't mean: don't show you're a sexual being at all, don't show women how you feel, they may perceive even subtle clues of interest as pressure. So, yeah, I'm all signed up for "no pressure" if pressure isn't just a way of shaming me/guys for being interested in women. And that was the case for me.
I may end up being in the minority here, but I wouldn't want a man to ask permission before kissing me. It suggests that he has no ability to read body language, or isn't trying to pick up on signs I've been sending him. That's not true in your case -- you write that "the attraction was so tangible." There's nothing "disrespectful" about kissing someone who's sending obvious signals that they're into you. (This isn't just a gender-based expectation of mine -- I've made the first move on guys, too, without asking their permission first.)
Your problem here seems to be that nerves get in the way, not that you don't know the right way to do it. I don't know how you'd overcome that; maybe it's like jumping out of an airplane, and you need to force yourself to do it a few times before your unconscious mind learns that nothing terrible is going to happen. It may also help you to remember that lots of people have this problem. You may feel like you were raised in unique circumstances and you're the only guy who feels this way, but there are a lot of guys (& women) who are absolutely terrified to flirt, ask for a phone number, or make the first move in any way.
Anyway, my two cents is that I'd prefer a guy to kiss me in an unplanned, spontaneous way, after we'd been having a really good conversation or I'd just told a funny joke or something. Kissing a woman briefly during a semi-private moment while you're out on a date would work well. That would be a low-pressure way to show interest, without cornering her on the futon or something. The first night I met my now-boyfriend, he went for a goodbye kiss on the cheek, I drunkenly thought he was trying to make out with me, so I kissed him on the mouth instead. If kissing a woman on the mouth feels like too big a leap, you could try something like that -- a peck on the cheek, leaning in to smell her hair -- that gives her the option to try for something more.
Good luck with this! Lots of people who seem confident have struggled with shyness or nerves; if you have a friend who's had similar problems, you might want to ask what worked for them.
What's wrong with people who are fluent in reading body language? What's "kiss me" in one woman's body language is "you're a good friend" in another's.
Body language can be ambiguous. Clear communication never is. Once you know someone well enough to know their body language for "kiss me," a person can rely on that. Until then, if a person is worried about going further than his or her partner wants to, there is absolutely nothing wrong with asking.
Once I got over my shyness about making the first move (I'm a female), I always asked and it never once ruined a mood. Usually the guy grins and leans on in. And like I said above, when they ask, I just puddle. Except for the one time I didn't want to kiss the guy. Then, I was glad he asked because I could say "No thanks," without getting mad that he went ahead and tried when I didn't want to kiss him.
Again, not all of us are 100% sure when it comes to body language. And I'd like to know definitively when someone wants to kiss me or not.
What's "kiss me" in one woman's body language is "you're a good friend" in another's.
Exactly. And thus the caveat with posing these blanket "how to" questions.
And if we could do a survey to gauge how many women wouldn't mind being asked vs those who would rather just have the guy (in this case) go for it vs those who'd rather make the 1st move themselves vs those who hate first kisses no matter what happens (like me :)), one would still be in a bind because he'll rarely know which person he was dealing with when the moment arises.
So with the caveats that everybody is different, I can give me take. I'll say that since I hate the awkwardness of the whole scenario, I've really appreciated in the past when men made small moves first, like taking my hand or giving a long, snuggly, extended hug before trying the kiss. I hate surprises, lol.
Also I think it's important to be 100% accepting of the idea that the other person has every right to say stop or go/yes and no, and that it doesn't necessarily reflect what you did or how you approached the situation and it's not a reflection of women in general either.
I've appreciated when men have expressed the desire to be intimate but at the same time letting me know that the situation to them isn't tied to any specific outcome of the evening. I won't lie---it's been a rare occasion that I've met with someone who could pull this off, but this is the kind of maturity that really separates the boys from the men, in my opinion.
And this goes both ways about respecting the other person no matter what the outcome. One time I met a guy at a bar and we were getting cozy and then all of the sudden he kinda flipped out on me (probably the booze too, lol), saying that I was "hanging off him" or something of this nature. And although I was hurt by his display and wished that he'd perhaps worded things nicer, he had every right to express himself and I had to respect that.
So in the end, do what is comfortable for you, try to see each woman as an individual, instead of a puzzle to be solved, and leave the door open for honest and hopefully respectful communication.
Spike the Cat,
Also I think it's important to be 100% accepting of the idea that the other person has every right to say stop or go/yes and no, and that it doesn't necessarily reflect what you did or how you approached the situation and it's not a reflection of women in general either.Well, yeah, but the thing for me is the internalised assumption that there is something inherently wrong/potentially violent with wanting to do this at all. And that's why a failed attempt would, for me, possibly be so much more than just a failed attempt to kiss, an awkward moment of realizing miscommunication or misunderstanding. I would bring back all those rationlized but existing, luckily usually dormant fears about my/male sexuality being inherently violent and me wanting something she doesn't want, and thus "inherently" pressuring her. So, well, that's fearing rejection on a different level. It would be liberating for me if I had not just the rational understanding but also the emotional feeling that wanting to kiss a woman I like is ok if I believe she wants, too, and that, even though, regrettably, occasionally, misunderstandings can happen, that's not in itself making me a bad, potentially violent, person. Does that make any sense?
"I've appreciated when men have expressed the desire to be intimate but at the same time letting me know that the situation to them isn't tied to any specific outcome of the evening."
I think that's also difficult to express. I once was in a situation (initiated by her) and she said something like "so how do we get you lucky" to which I said that I was already happy and I wasn't expecting anything, but I think she took that as a rejection, in a way. My best female friend also told me off about my attempt to be respectful and told me I should have shown a lot more enthusiasm about her suggestion, adding that she, too, would have thought it's a rejection if a guy wouldn't instantly accept such an - apparently it was - invitation.
"So in the end, do what is comfortable for you, try to see each woman as an individual, instead of a puzzle to be solved, and leave the door open for honest and hopefully respectful communication."
Every individual is a puzzle... I think it was Albert Einstein who said that that "some men try their entire lives to understand the nature of a woman. Others are content with simpler things, like the theory of relativity" ;)
'I think it was Albert Einstein who said that that "some men try their entire lives to understand the nature of a woman. Others are content with simpler things, like the theory of relativity'
Women aren't complex mysteries to be figured out anymore than men are. Everybody is different and has their own desires and expectations. You just have to try and have open communication with people.
Also, Einstein cheated on his wife, but I don't think it's too puzzling to realize that someone won't like it if you cheat on them.
Emily H.,
"There's nothing "disrespectful" about kissing someone who's sending obvious signals that they're into you"
thanks :). This is probably the kind of mantra I need to tell myself in such situations. I've only initiated kissing twice in my life, once after telling her my entire story, after which we had such a moment of intense intimity that I managed to announce to her that "I'm going to kiss you now" and actually did it, and another time when the woman complained to me that I'm always flirting with her but never kiss her, then saying she could never take the first step (well indirectly she was actually taking the first step, so after she had told me that I felt it was ok to kiss her and it was).
I'm good at reading body language. I'm good at employing body language. It's just that - as you say - my nerves (my learnt complexes) take over as soon as the flirting take a turn to the sexual (and that, for me, does include kissing on the mouth, certainly French kissing).
"If kissing a woman on the mouth feels like too big a leap, you could try something like that -- a peck on the cheek, leaning in to smell her hair -- that gives her the option to try for something more."
Yeah, maybe. I'm usually working hard on making it easy for women to take the leap and do what I can't do, but as pretty much all women I have talked to about this said, they tend to think that initiating kissing is the guy's job. So however much I may dislike that - I can't change it on my own, and so I probably really need to learn this. I'm probably going to try the verbalised version. It's not that I'm rationally uncertain about the non-verbal signals, but emotionally it just seems to much for me to do yet ("too much pressure", in the words of my mom). If she says yes, my mind would be a lot calmer.
The thing is though, how to do this in a way that comes across as BOTH sexy and respectful is probably an artform in its own right, even not taking possible rejection from women who, like you, may have liked to kiss, but would not have wanted to be asked about it and explicitly say so.
Any ideas how a verbal initiation would work for you?
But, on behalf of all guys like me, I'd like to thank you for helping us out by initiating yourself when you felt like it :)))
It isn't a case of "shyness or nerves" here - it's a case of a young man who's mother and grandmother taught him from earliest childhood that male sexual attraction to women is evil, wrong and violent.
Consequently, he has has difficulties relating to women sexually as an adult (which is perfectly understandable)
Worse yet, in our society, men are expected to make the first move when dealing with women in a romantic/sexual context.
Many women share your view that the man is supposed to - basically - be a mind reader and guess that the woman is interested.
But, to a young man who was taught from childhood an essentially Dworkinite view that ALL male sexual attraction to women was filthy and vile, it is all but impossible for him to be able to guess if a woman is attracted to him.
He's in a very difficult place and, realistically, he may never be able to have a healthy sexual relationship with a woman, thanks to the truly awful brainwashing he got from his mother and grandmother.
The only thing that might help would be THERAPY - lots and lots of therapy, to try and undo the damage his mother and grandmother did to his psyche and his sexuality.
I pretty much agree with what you're saying and I'm not trying to take from jayjay's voice about his upbringing, but since you chose to bring Dworkin it makes me wonder...
Because the gist of what Dworkin, et.al. were saying was not all that different from what many ultra-conservatives, traditionalists and fundamentalists have said implicitly or explicitly and what some historians and anthropologists/sexologists/biologist types have observed or theorized about male sexuality.
And when there is talk about prostitution and violent porn and violent media in general, it seems many, many people seem to believe that access to either or both, is something that attenuates male sexual violence and mischief. Most recently, the same meme was rehashed when Sodini went on his rampage.
Although a radical feminist view might take the same troubling approach to male sexuality, at least it rightly points out that it should not be the woman's place or responsibility to police men's sexuality; and yet this is a message that is missing from our mainstream society with grave consequences.
Again, it's unfortunate when anyone is brought up with shame about their sexuality especially because for many of us, our self worth is tied to our sexual being---very sad indeed.
I think however YOU feel like saying it in the moment is fine, depending on how it's said.
I will warn you that by putting the focus on her actions, she might hesitate. There have been situations in my own life where I *haven't* been thinking about kissing and the person I was with asked me if he could kiss me and I said, "Absolutely!". Had he turned it around and asked if I wanted to kiss HIM, I might have popped out a "no" because I wasn't thinking about it that second.
It's okay to communicate what you want. Really, women will be honest if they don't want to kiss you.