Ep 360: True Love's Kiss and the Science of Kissing
SARAH: Hey, what's up? Hello! Welcome to ‘Sounds Fake But Okay,’ a podcast where an aro-ace girl, (I'm Sarah, that's me.)
KAYLA: And a bi demisexual girl, (that's me, Kayla.)
SARAH: Talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else we just don't understand.
KAYLA: On today's episode, ‘True Love's First Kiss.’
BOTH: Sounds fake, but okay.
SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!
KAYLA: Hello from me and special guest, my cat, Miyoki, who has insisted on sitting in my lap, so.
SARAH: Hello from me and the criminal I live with.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: We'll get into this during the beef and juice section.
KAYLA: I can't wait, excellent teaser. I mean, I already know it.
SARAH: Yeah, I already told you.
KAYLA: I already know it.
SARAH: In fact, we were delayed recording because of it.
KAYLA: Yeah, this is one of our later start times.
SARAH: It is. Do we have any housekeeping?
KAYLA: Let's say no.
SARAH: Okay, Kayla, what are we talking about this week?
KAYLA: This week, I was trying to think of what to think about. And by this week, I mean today, I was trying to think about what we should talk about. And I was just trying to think of like, cultural things that felt very allonormative that we had somehow not discussed yet.
SARAH: We've discussed them all is the problem.
KAYLA: We've discussed them all, they need to start inventing new toxic things for us to talk about.
SARAH: No. Like, I don't want them to do that.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: It would make good content, but at what cost to the rest of society.
KAYLA: That's true.
SARAH: Not worth it.
KAYLA: Not worth it. Anyway. And I, for some reason, thought about the mythos of true love's first kiss and why are we doing that?
SARAH: And kissing in general.
KAYLA: And kissing in general, because yeah, then I was like, well, now I just have a lot of questions about kissing, which apparently in Episode 31, back in 2018, we did discuss in some fashion.
SARAH: But that was 2018.
KAYLA: We’ll do it again.
SARAH: That was the before times.
KAYLA: We'll do it again. Sarah, what are your thoughts on a true… okay, back it up, true love's first kiss…
SARAH: Like a tonka truck.
KAYLA: Right. True love's first kiss is something that often happens in a fairytale where the princess or the lady is cursed or something. And so then…
SARAH: I feel like the most famous one is like Snow White.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because true love's kiss literally wakes her up.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Which she didn't consent to that because she was dead asleep.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: She was also 13.
KAYLA: She was also 13. Okay, so I… and I have more to say on the Snow White situation.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: So, what are your thoughts, ground level, true love's first kiss?
SARAH: Fucking dumb. Fucking foolish.
KAYLA: I'm… okay. Why?
SARAH: Well, the fact that one kiss can change your life.
KAYLA: “One kiss is all it takes...” You know that song?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Dua Lipa
SARAH: One kiss, changing your whole life, making your whole life better, I know it's like symbolic of a relationship
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And certainly, a romantic relationship can change your life in a positive way. But the idea that inherently it will change everything about your life and it will change you and it will make you a better, prettier person with a nicer dress is foolish. And I also think that… I knew I had another thought, but I couldn't remember what it was. So, I was speaking with the hopes that I would remember it.
KAYLA: Yeah, it would just come back
SARAH: I remember, it kind of goes hand in hand with love at first sight for me
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: And I know that you can have known someone for a while before you kiss them and then it's still true love's first kiss, whatever.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But in most of the fairy tales, the mythologies, it is a stranger. Like someone who you met at the most a couple of hours ago. And so, it's giving love at first sight and I heartily dislike love at first sight because you can be attracted to someone at first sight, you could have a lust at first sight, but you don't know that bitch.
KAYLA: Yeah. I was recently… what book was it I was reading? I think it was the book I'm currently reading, which is ‘Ghostwritten’ by David Mitchell, very good.
SARAH: I was on our bookshop.org today, you need to update your book list.
KAYLA: Oh, of the stuff I'm reading? Yeah, I was thinking about that the other day
SARAH: You have mentioned so many things on the podcast that aren't on that list.
KAYLA: And I know everyone wants to look at the exact books I'm reading.
SARAH: You're so popular.
KAYLA: I’m wise in my reading. No, David Mitchell's books are great though, so I would recommend, though they're from the 90s. And this one is about communism, which I really don't know much about. So, I couldn't say much.
SARAH: You haven't read a lot of Marx.
KAYLA: I haven't. Well, it's just… it's not about communism, it's set in communist China. So, I really couldn't speak to the accuracy of something written about communist China in the 90s, but neither here nor there. There's a part in it where a character is talking to another character about like, “oh, do you believe in love at first sight?” or something like that? And the person says, how could that possibly be possible? It would require like an instant download of all of the information about this other person, because to love someone is to know them. And I was like, “Tea!”
SARAH: Speak on it.
KAYLA: My other thought while you were saying that about kind of the symbolism of a romantic relationship coming in and fixing everything and changing your life. And I think we talked about this a week or two ago, but I, unfortunately in my real life had someone talking to me about someone else and they were like the… I think the only way for this person to improve as a person is to get a partner to like whip them into shape. Like, I think that's the only way forward for… not like… maybe not the only way, but like that is the best possible path forward for this person to become better.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And I was like, “that fucking sucks.”
SARAH: Yeah, it was
KAYLA: I was like, I understood… Like, this is taking it out of a lot of contexts, I understood why that was being said, but I was like, “damn.”
SARAH: I can understand why in some contexts that might be maybe even true.
KAYLA: Maybe even true. Yeah. But it's sad if it has to be true as well. Like, that... I think it's perhaps even sadder if there is truth to it, but that was a real thing that I heard recently and I was like, “damn, that's sad.”
SARAH: Do you see her butt?
KAYLA: Lift her tail. That's really embarrassing, that's actually so embarrassing.
SARAH: It's nuts.
KAYLA: That's so embarrassing.
SARAH: Poor baby, you look stupid.
KAYLA: Bald butt.
SARAH: And it means I actually can see her asshole, which I don't like.
KAYLA: No one wants this. That's how she is, because her hair is like so thin and white that you can really see all up in there.
SARAH: Yeah. Anyway, sorry, my cat's whole ass got shaved and it looks stupid and she was just in a position where Kayla could see it.
KAYLA: Yeah, I had to have a little peek. Anyway.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: What? I'm curious your thoughts on true love's first kiss from a writer's perspective.
SARAH: It's lazy.
KAYLA: Because first of all, I just like knowing these things from your perspective as a writer. But as I was reading about true love's first kiss, I was hoping that someone had like written an entire dissertation about it, but I didn't find that. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough. But what I did find was mostly blogs and articles about the origins, which it seems like the first written origin is from Shakespeare, but it wasn't used in the like curse-breaking way. It was just someone saying like, “I'm going to give her my true love's first kiss” or something. Like, the true love's kiss or whatever, it wasn't in that context.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: But then it was going on to talk about most notably Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and they talked a little bit about The Little Mermaid, but these articles were talking…
SARAH: When I said Snow White, I think I meant Sleeping Beauty.
KAYLA: Oh, I mean, I think Snow White and Sleeping Beauty are like the two classics.
SARAH: How does it happen with Snow White?
KAYLA: She's in that like glass case and the prince just comes and kisses her and she wakes the fuck up.
SARAH: Okay. So, she also wakes up?
KAYLA: Because the apple puts her like magic to sleep.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: And here's the interesting thing, as I was reading these blogs, they were talking about the original Grimms’ Fairy Tale because Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, stuff like that are not original Disney…
SARAH: And they're #Grimm.
[00:10:00]
KAYLA: Right. So, the actual way that Snow White wakes up is that the prince takes her, like finds her, picks her up, puts her on a horse and they're like galloping to get her help. And galloping on the horse dislodges the apple from her. Like she was choking, dislodges the apple, she wakes up and she's like chilling. And Sleeping Beauty, I think I read that she woke up because she started giving birth to a child, which there's a lot of implications there, obviously.
SARAH: How long has Sleeping Beauty been sleeping?
KAYLA: Let's look it up.
SARAH: See I don't… I just watched Mary Poppins over and over again.
KAYLA: I know you did.
SARAH: So, I don't… like, I know the contours, honestly, I actually think I don't know the contours of Snow White, I just know she has seven dwarves and there's an apple.
KAYLA: A 100-year sleep.
SARAH: She's old.
KAYLA: Maybe… wait, maybe that's the movie, hold on.
SARAH: She's a cougar.
KAYLA: Little Briar Rose.
SARAH: But she's not a cougar because it wasn't consensual. I saw something horrifying yesterday, it was a TikTok where this girl who was a child thought about her parents' age difference for the first time.
KAYLA: I saw it. I saw that.
SARAH: No, but it gets worse.
KAYLA: Uh-oh
SARAH: Did you see the follow up?
KAYLA: Oh, no
SARAH: Because that video is funny because she's like… like she realizes that like her mom was 15 and her dad was 25 and she goes, “You're a victim!” “You're a victim!” She was saying that her dad was the victim.
KAYLA: Oh. Of what!?
SARAH: She was saying that her 25-year-old dad was a victim of her 15-year-old mom because her mom was the one pursuing him and she was like aggressive.
KAYLA: Um, okay
SARAH: And so, she thinks he's the victim. And it went from being funny and like go off-girl to be like, oh no. And then I've seen discourse about how like a lot of times in like abusive households, the father will like team up with the daughter against the mom.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Anyway.
KAYLA: Okay. So, looking at Sleeping Beauty, it looks like there's several versions. So, there is the Grimm version, there's also a Giambattista Basile…
SARAH: Giambattista Basile?
KAYLA: Sun, Moon, and Talia, where the Sleeping Beauty is named Talia, and that is the one where the man impregnates her and she unconsciously gives birth to twins, one of whom keeps sucking her finger. And she awakens because the twin has sucked the flax, like the thing, like the needle, I guess that got stuck in her finger, sucks it out and then she wakes right up.
SARAH: So, she didn't wake up during child… So, she was sexually assaulted, pregnant for full term with twins, went into labor, delivered two children and that didn't wake her up?
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: But her child sucking her finger did?
KAYLA: Well, it's because it sucked the thing out that did it.
SARAH: I know, but how did those things not wake her up?
KAYLA: No, I agree. I agree. So, I had read something and maybe this is an even different version of it was the childbirth that woke her up. Either way, the Disney version, obviously they did it, you know?
SARAH: Yeah, they take some liberties, they make choices.
KAYLA: Different. Which I was just thinking about it then. I was like, and I get like… maybe I don't get it, because we grew up with Disney. So, in my mind, I'm like, “oh, fairy tales, nice and comforting.” But you look at old versions of fairy tales and none of them are nice.
SARAH: They’re horrifying, yeah.
KAYLA: They're always horrifying because they're supposed to teach lessons.
SARAH: They were cautionary tales, yeah.
KAYLA: Right. So, I'm like, “what the fuck was Disney doing?” Like why… How did they get there? Who? Why?
SARAH: Go talk to the cryogenically frozen body of Walt Disney.
KAYLA: Maybe I will. I just like, obviously it was a great financial move, but it's just like, who did that?
SARAH: Did you see that that family, like the Mormon family who has the really unhinged names for their kids, they just announced the name of their most recent daughter, her name is Disney.
KAYLA: I don't know these people, but that's quite a name.
SARAH: I believe this is the same family as the ones who have… oh, what are they? ‘Disney child name.’ Oh, yeah, this is the same family where the other kids are… the other siblings are Trendy, Zaylee, Sunny, Truly, Journey and Rocky.
KAYLA: No, no. Truly is an alcoholic beverage.
SARAH: Imagine being named Trendy.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's really tough. Is it with a Y or an I?
SARAH: It's with a Y.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: All of them end in Y's except for Zaylee, which ends in an E.
KAYLA: Interesting. Anyway.
SARAH: Oh, Truly's middle name is Éclair, her name is Truly Eclair.
KAYLA: Like the dessert?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: No.
SARAH: I forgot about that. Okay. Continue.
KAYLA: Okay. Anyway. Yeah, I just...
SARAH: He just wanted to make something that would get people to the cinema.
KAYLA: I suppose. It's just like, you know?
SARAH: It's possible that nicer versions of them had been kind of passed down through like oral traditions.
KAYLA: That's fair.
SARAH: But...
KAYLA: That's fair. What would you replace true love's first kiss with as a curse-breaking strategy?
SARAH: True love's first slap.
KAYLA: So, it still has to be true love's first?
SARAH: I was just in that mindset. Wait, okay, you asked me a while ago about what I think about it as a writer
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And I said it's lazy, but then I didn't elaborate on that.
KAYLA: Yeah, please.
SARAH: I would like to do so now.
KAYLA: I would love that.
SARAH: I think as some... This was going to be my juice, but I have another juice so I can do that. As someone who recently posted a new fic and got great feedback on it
KAYLA: Okay, slay
SARAH: Which reminded me that I am not, in fact, a trash person with no talent.
KAYLA: No, it's... Yeah, that's true.
SARAH: And then people were reading my other fics and then they were leaving positive comments on those fics and I was like, “oh, my God, slay.”
KAYLA: Oh, she's famous.
SARAH: “She's not a horrible talentless piece of garbage.”
KAYLA: Jesus!
SARAH: Anyway, so I'm like a bit of an expert on this, is what I mean to say.
KAYLA: Naturally. Not that you're a published author or anything, it's the fic.
SARAH: It's nonfiction, the book. I didn't write about... I didn't write romance. Okay. Here's the thing, the interesting thing about a romance that is evolving is what happens leading up to it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's the dynamics and the like, “ooh, are you feeling this? Am I feeling this?” Blah, blah, blah. And that's part of the reason why so many rom-coms and romantic stories, they end with them getting together.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: It's not like an established relationship situation.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because I…
KAYLA: People find that far less interesting.
SARAH: Right. And so, I think true love's kiss is just lazy because it allows you to skip all of that buildup and all of that character building and all of that, the arc, the character arcs and the relationship arcs, you're just skipping over all of that and you're telling your audience; just trust me.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: They're made for each other, because I said so.
KAYLA: Because I said so, yeah.
SARAH: Not because I proved it to you, not because I showed you, not because they showed each other through their actions, just because I said so, the source is me.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: And that's lazy.
KAYLA: That makes me think of like… first that made me think of a lot of things I've seen people talk about like with tropes, especially romance that they do and don't like is people hate insta-love, they like are not… they don't want that, they're like, I want the yearning, I want everyone to be upset for a while, whatever. Which I get, but I also…
SARAH: You need conflict.
KAYLA: I have a lot of feelings in general. And so sometimes I just can't handle that conflict, it makes me sad. And so sometimes I'm like, I need them to be instantly in love and happy, and that's what I need to read right now.
SARAH: Right
KAYLA: But that's between me and my Prozac, so.
SARAH: No, but… okay, but the fic that I recently wrote, like one of them was immediately very obsessed. And like several people in the comments were like, “I'm obsessed with that.”
KAYLA: Yeah. But there's also a way to do that, but still work through conflicts and dynamics.
SARAH: Right. Like there was still stuff that happened that made it not end immediately.
KAYLA: Yeah. So, in that vein then of, they are meant to be together because I said so, just trust me, I don't have to prove it, what do you then think of like the faded, like mates or the like faded soulmates thing? Because that's very big right now.
SARAH: I have read like soulmate fics, some of them have been very good.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I think the thing that makes them… sorry, she's trying to play with a light bulb.
KAYLA: Oh, no
SARAH: I think the thing that makes a good soulmate fic good is the conflict of…
[00:20:00]
KAYLA: She's so intelligent
SARAH: She’s trying to play with the light bulb from a different angle.
KAYLA: She’s so intelligent.
SARAH: Sorry, I know none of y'all can see this, but I will be leaving that in because it's silly. I… what was I saying?
KAYLA: What makes them interesting?
SARAH: What makes what interesting?
KAYLA: Soulmate.
SARAH: Okay, right, right. What makes a good soulmate story interesting is the conflict of like knowing your soulmates, but everything not clicking and being perfect immediately.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Like those to me are the most interesting kinds. I mean, we all know that I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers. So, like, I love a soulmates where like they fucking hate each other at first, but they’re soulmates, they're like, what the fuck are you on about? I do love that. It doesn't have to be that to be good, I think there are ways to have conflict and have them overcome something together without it being like, everything is perfect immediately.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: That is in the context of fan fiction where I'm already invested in the characters. When it comes to independent fiction, like I'm picking something up and this is the first I am reading of these characters, I'm really not interested in it at all.
KAYLA: Yeah. That's fair. I think the only thing I've read that's like that is the Court of Thorns and Roses series.
SARAH: Do they have soulmates in there? Soulmates and fairy fucking?
KAYLA: They are like fated mates, like it's a fairy thing. I think it's like a fairy thing in a lot of like fairy lore, I don't know, I always hear about books that are with fairies and fated mates.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I don't know. But yeah, most of the relationship, if not all of the relationship dynamics are around people and their mates and I can't be with... like, I'm with this person, but I want to be with this person, but this person is my mate or I don't know who my mate is yet, so I don't know, whatever. I do think… they're obviously not a perfect book series. I do think it's done pretty well because it is like what you were talking about, you know that these people are supposed to be together, but they are not always happy with that and they are sometimes with other people or like they hate each other or whatever. So, it does make that dynamic interesting, but
SARAH: The other good conflict that you can do in that and like a soulmate story is, this especially works when you have like first person POV or even if it's in fanfic, fanfic should never be first person, but… and that's my hot take.
KAYLA: Tea
SARAH: But if it's from that person's mind that you're clearly reading, you're in their brain, even if it's in third person, for that person to be like, I really, really hope, I want this person to be my soulmate, but I'm afraid of finding out because what if they're not?
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: That's another take on it. You know what I far prefer to a soulmate's trope though? I fuck so hard with an arranged marriage trope because here's the thing, the thing with arranged… it's always like absurd situations. Like, how did you even…
KAYLA: He's taking over his father's family business…
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: And they'll only trust him if he gets married, which we could speak about a lot.
SARAH: Now to be fair, this setup has to work for me because if it's so stupid and obvious… like, fake dating often works a little bit better than this
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Because like there's fake date than to…
KAYLA: There’s more reasons to fake date than to actually go ahead and get all the way married.
SARAH: Right. But the thing I like about arranged marriage is it does kind of inherently give you like an enemies to lovers kind of arc, whereas fake dating, that's not necessarily true.
KAYLA: I also think that often arranged marriages tropes lean into the friendship more.
SARAH: You have to become friends before…
KAYLA: Yeah. Like a lot of times I feel like the tropes is the people are like, “well, I don't have feelings for you, but we're married now, so let's at least be besties,” and it kind of like… that dynamic is shown more.
SARAH: Right. And then it becomes like a friends to lovers thing but you're married the whole time.
KAYLA: Yeah. This has turned into nothing about kissing.
SARAH: Correct.
KAYLA: Correct.
SARAH: Would we like to go into that?
KAYLA: We can.
SARAH: Kissing.
KAYLA: Kissing. What are we doing? There is a book I kind of want to read now, I think it's just called ‘The Science of Kissing.’
SARAH: Mm hmm.
KAYLA: Yes. By Sheril Kirshenbaum, but it talks about both the science, like the chemical brain shit, but then also the like old, old cultural… things like that and it also goes into the future of what this person thinks.
SARAH: Oh, the future of kissing?
KAYLA: Right. Which when I first read that, I was like, “meh!”
SARAH: I mean, it has evolved.
KAYLA: It has evolved, A, and B, what I think that book is talking about and also some other articles I found was just talking about more virtual dating, like people are meeting online, people are dating long distance more. And so, then what does that do when kissing is typically one of the first physical barriers of entry in a relationship.
SARAH: It's like one of the first like signs of intimacy.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Yes. So, what do you do when that's not there? Which I think is actually particularly interesting thinking about intimacy is for people who are long-term, long-distance dating, say like we've met on the Internet, we've never met in real-life before and we are two allo people, it's relatively likely that you're doing something sexual.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Be that text-based, photos, video, whatever. To do that, but have never physically done something as low-barriers entry as kissing is very interesting.
SARAH: It is interesting, yeah
KAYLA: Because that is highly intimate, but not physical in a shared way at all.
SARAH: Yeah. I mean, it's like in ‘Pretty Woman,’ she won't kiss them.
KAYLA: That's true.
SARAH: Because she's a sex worker and so she won't kiss the people that she fucks for work.
KAYLA: Yeah. I love that movie.
SARAH: I was about to say, I don't think I've ever seen it in full, but I think I saw it in full with you.
KAYLA: Probably.
SARAH: I think you made me watch it.
KAYLA: It's a good one.
SARAH: You know who recently came out with a song that samples the song Pretty Woman?
KAYLA: Who?
SARAH: Two of the members of Seventeen.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Okay, hold on, just really briefly. Their names are S. Coups or Coups and Mingyu.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Okay. You know what their name is for their subunit?
KAYLA: Mm mm
SARAH: CxM. Now, what does that look like when you read it?
KAYLA: What does it look like?
SARAH: Yeah. CXM, all caps.
KAYLA: Semen?
SARAH: I'm going to text it to you.
KAYLA: See? I'm trying to picture it in my brain. A fish? No. Wrong way.
SARAH: Read it. Don't think about it, just read it if you saw that… It looks like someone is censoring the word cum.
KAYLA: Oh. I was never going to get to that, but okay.
SARAH: Yeah. Okay. So that is what... And some of...
KAYLA: Is that what it... was that the intention?
SARAH: No.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: And some of the first promo stuff that came out had it in such a way that it was not intended, but if you read it that way, it was like something, something, “CxM here.”
KAYLA: Oh, that's tough.
SARAH: And then in the music video, there was a... They made a fake Hollywood star and there were stickers around it that said, “I heart CxM.”
KAYLA: That's all in the typeface, really. That's really... That's a font issue, I think.
SARAH: And when they first came out, people were like, oh, that's a name joint. And then people were like, “why did they name them that?” And then the members were like, “we came up with it. What's wrong with it?”
KAYLA: It makes sense, it's a C collaborated with M.
SARAH: Coups’ stage name is technically S. Coups, so they could have done S, but I can understand that they wouldn't want to do S and M.
KAYLA: Yeah, you can't do that.
SARAH: And like historically, that has been the pattern that they've used for subunits, is the first initial of the older member, X, first initial of the younger member. So, it does follow that pattern.
KAYLA: Yeah. I think it's a font issue, personally.
SARAH: Anyway, that's all.
KAYLA: Okay, interesting. Back to kissing.
SARAH: They recorded that music video before... They came to the United States to record a music video before they knew if the copyright had cleared.
KAYLA: That’s crazy.
SARAH: So, if the copyright hadn't cleared, they would have done all that for nothing.
KAYLA: Damn
SARAH: It's featuring Leigh Banks, and honestly, she's kind of an icon. Continue.
KAYLA: Okay. I'm reading an article from The Knot, which is the wedding website I'm currently using, so that's funny.
SARAH: Knot
[00:30:00]
KAYLA: They're coming for me. All of my... Every time I look up wedding stuff, my TikTok just becomes like, “I'm a 2026 bride,” and it really stresses me out to look at other people's weddings. Like, I feel this way about books, too, I don't want to know your feelings on the book I'm reading, that stresses me out, I want to have my own private thoughts, just me. Unless it's someone I know, again, me and my Prozac. So anyway, me and my wedding website.
SARAH: Hehe
KAYLA: Okay, so this doctor is talking about why humans kissing and origins of kissing, and science of kissing, whatever. So, she talks about, there's a study that says, the more frequently people kiss, the more they positively experience sex with their partner, including general levels of interest and arousal orgasm and event-specific sexual satisfaction, which I think is interesting.
SARAH: I feel like people just associate kissing… I believe that there is some science behind that, but I think it is also a situation of people associate kissing with sex, and therefore, if you kiss more, your brain says sex.
KAYLA: I also wonder, like the wording of this, I wonder if it's just, they polled people on how often do you kiss and how positive is your sexual experience, and it's just a correlation and not necessarily one causes the other.
SARAH: Right.
KAYLA: But I do think it makes sense if you're already doing physical intimacy frequently through kissing that it, I think, would make sense, but…
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Apparently, the average age of a first romantic kiss is age 15, and 90% of… oh no, that's separate, and then it says, 90% of respondents recalled their first kisses with vivid detail.
SARAH: Oh
KAYLA: I was gonna ask if you’ve remembered your first kiss in vivid detail, but…
SARAH: It's in the book.
KAYLA: It's in the book, and it also wasn't like…
SARAH: I also don't remember anything in vivid detail.
KAYLA: I do or I often don't, but I do remember my first kiss in vivid detail.
SARAH: I have the memory of a goldfish.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: You know what the BBC says?
KAYLA: Yeah?
SARAH: Less than half of all societies kiss with their lips, according to a study of 168 cultures from around the world.
KAYLA: What!?
SARAH: William Jankowiak, a professor of anthropology at UNLV, found that only 46% use lip-to-lip kissing in a romantic sense, excluding things like parent-child kissing or greetings. I think part of the reason kissing has become such a big thing is because, here's my hypothesis, colonialism
KAYLA: I… okay, go ahead
SARAH: The reason we think it's so universal, also just because we live in a very like Western US-centric world to begin with, like we think that what we experience is what everyone else does.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: But I do think that even if only 46% of cultures like use lip-to-lip kissing in a romantic sense from their own culture, I feel like many of them adopt it from nearby cultures because it has become kind of a standard thing. And so, I think just the cultures that did do it sort of colonized and imperialized others into doing it.
KAYLA: Yeah. That's fair. Apparently, between 1000 and 1200 BC rubbing noses was developed in India, they developed rubbing noses.
SARAH: They developed it!?
KAYLA: So, there's this…
SARAH: No one had ever rubbed a nose ever before.
KAYLA: No. There's this anthropologist man, I think he's an anthropologist, yeah, who his theory about some of the origin of kissing was that people were like nuzzling and nose-rubbing and then like naturally-led to like, oh, our lips touched, that was nice.
SARAH: Aww
KAYLA: There was some other theories about kissing starting familially with like food transfer, the way like a bird would, which I think makes sense, and I saw some other stuff…
SARAH: BBC also says that it might be that we associate lip-touching with breastfeeding and that reflex is innate in everyone, so it would start familially and then I guess…
KAYLA: No, I do think that the familial thing makes sense because I think as much as people get grossed out by it now, I think family kissing is very common, I think especially across cultures, whether that's like on the lips or on the face or whatever.
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: So, it makes sense to me that it would transfer over. I think I also read somewhere about something like a breath exchange in some cultures was something. I know seals do that, not humans, but seals do that, they breathe in each other's noses.
SARAH: On the Trobriand Islands off the east coast of Papua New Guinea, lovers kiss by sitting face to face and nibbling at each other's eyelashes.
KAYLA: No, they don't, that's a lie.
SARAH: What is important with lip-on-lip kissing and other types of kissing is that the moment is about sharing close intimate information about each other. There's a Malay kiss that Darwin described where women would squat down on the ground and men would kind of hang over them and take a quick sniff of each other, take a sample of their partner's scent.
KAYLA: I don’t like that.
SARAH: Now, they're saying kissing by pressing our lips together is an almost uniquely human behavior. If kissing has an evolutionary purpose, why don't we see more animals kissing? Great question. Melissa Hogenboom answered that question for BBC Earth in 2015. One of the reasons we might have been compelled to get up close to the face of a partner is to give them a good sniff, scent can reveal all sorts of useful information, diet, presence of disease, mood and relatedness, to name some. Mood and relatedness? Mood. Is this, just no Oxford comma, mood and relatedness, but how would scent reveal if you're related to someone? Is that what relatedness means in this context?
KAYLA: Well, I don’t know
SARAH: It doesn’t matter. Many animals have far more sophisticated senses of smell than we do, so they don't have to be nearly as close. So, we kiss because our noses are inferior.
KAYLA: Have to put it right up in there. I did see that theory in some articles, too, about not so much smelling like a smell, but like the pheromones
SARAH: Yeah
KAYLA: Especially if you're like kissing and that is causing some like amount of arousal, then that is going to… like, there's going to be more pheromones and chemicals that you are like taking in. So, I think that makes sense.
SARAH: Mm-hmm. But many… Okay, many animals, I'm on Reddit now, so this is very...
KAYLA: So, who knows?
SARAH: No, they cited a source, it's from the britishcouncil.org.
KAYLA: Oh, all right.
SARAH: Many animals actually do engage in kissing-like behaviors to show affection, these behaviors are so diverse from dogs sniffing and licking potential mates to elephants putting their trunks in each other's mouths.
KAYLA: I'm telling you, the seals, when I was in that zoo show, I was watching that show about the zoo, the seals, they get right up in each other's noses and they breath exchange, they like breathe air between them back and forth, back and forth.
SARAH: Mm hmm.
KAYLA: They love it.
SARAH: Well, one animal kisses just like we do, and that's the bonobo ape, which is not too surprising, considering that we share 98.7% of our DNA with this hairy cousin.
KAYLA: That is so horrifying to think of.
SARAH: Bonobos kiss for comfort and to socialize. Sometimes after a fight, they even kiss and make up. We humans do it for the exact same reasons, indicating that kissing might be ingrained deep in our DNA.
KAYLA: Mh
SARAH: And then this person said, “I believe bonobos are the only species besides humans that have sex purely for pleasure, not just for reproduction only.”
KAYLA: I thought dolphins too
SARAH: “They're also pretty much all bisexual, with 60% of all bonobo sexual activity being between two or more females.” Okay, bonobo!
KAYLA: Love that
SARAH: We love this for them.
KAYLA: That's funny. Oh, here's an interesting thing, back to your comment on colonialism. Another anthropologist has theorized that kissing spread to Europe once Alexander the Great conquered India in 326 BC and observed locals kissing. So, it was almost the reverse that kissing started in India and then we took it and then we spread it.
SARAH: Hell, yeah.
KAYLA: We stole kissing from India.
SARAH: Oh, we stole it. I was just going to say them colonizing us, that's a fun thing for a change, you know
KAYLA: I mean, yeah
SARAH: I mean, us in that I'm white and therefore European
KAYLA: Which also makes it… the India thing is also interesting because then you go to like the Kama Sutra, which is like a very old like guide to kissing and sex. So, that's good for India.
SARAH: Yeah, truly. Kissing releases oxytocin, which creates feelings of bonding. But like why? Also…
KAYLA: But like why?
SARAH: It's a bonding thing, human’s lips are super sensitive and we find soft caresses of the lips to be pleasurable.
KAYLA: Eww, stop
SARAH: Sharing that with an individual we care about strengthens those bonds.
KAYLA: Apparently, the Roman Emperor Tiberius attempted to ban kissing because the spread of kissing was directly correlated to the rise of disease and they were like, stop, everyone's dying of mouth herpes or whatever. But then apparently in 2015, people who won a Nobel medicine prize found that intense kissing could involve perks like decreasing skin allergies.
[00:40:00]
SARAH: Oh, okay.
KAYLA: Well…
SARAH: There's some stuff here about…
KAYLA: Oh, sorry, this is the Ig Nobel prize, which is the comical scientific achievements, not the actual Nobel prize, Mabi!
SARAH: This person says sharing biota is a big part of it. I'm a big fan of the cytomegalovirus (potentially deadly for the fetus if you catch it during pregnancy, but if you're smooching your potential partners and get exposed to it before pregnancy, that lessens the risk during pregnancy. This would select for pre-coital kissers because they're more likely to be in remission when pregnant.)
KAYLA: What!?
SARAH: There's some disease…
KAYLA: That’s so crazy
SARAH: There are many psychological reasons to show support and trigger positive emotions, but also there is function in supporting each other's immune systems a little like how vaccines work, different studies have had vastly different conclusions about the weight of this, but that's the general idea. There's also a theory that it can be a way of detecting illness or genetic incompatibility in a potential mate though a lot of these studies were done by quacks or superseded by work that said otherwise, it's a possibility, but would require further research to confirm.
KAYLA: The immunity thing kind of makes sense to me though, when you look at… like, that's a proven thing in breast milk that like when a baby is sick, the mother's milk reduces exactly what the baby needs to like get over that sickness, like her body just knows.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: So, it's not like human bodies aren't doing that kind of thing, you know?
SARAH: Yeah. And then of course, I mean we haven't really talked about it much, but the feeding, you feed, so your little baby can't chew, you chew, you give it to them like mama bird and then it goes from a familial thing to a non-familial thing. Now, this is saying that only up to 10% of humanity do not kiss lips, according to a human ethology pioneer, Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt
KAYLA: What is the truth!?
SARAH: Formerly head of the Max Planck Society Film Archive of Human Ethology in Andechs, Germany, writing in his 1970 book Love and Hate, the National History of Behavior Patterns. Fisher published a similar figure in 1992, their findings suggest some 650 million members of the human species have not undertaken the art of oscillation, the scientific term for kissing
KAYLA: Oscillation
SARAH: That is more than the population of any nation except for India and China. You know, mentioning Germany here reminds me, you know what's really interesting?
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Why do Germans just make out in public?
KAYLA: I don't know.
SARAH: Like, culturally you would think they wouldn't.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Because they're so like, the rules, and the, this is how it is done. So why is German PDA so… what's the word I'm looking for? The word I wanted was excessive
KAYLA: Rampant?
SARAH: Yeah, like in your face. Like, when I lived in Germany, I was like, “can you fucking stop?” It was so annoying.
KAYLA: I feel like Germans have such complexity there though, because on one hand, German culture is very like strict by the rules, but then also German people are so weird and they also love to go crazy at the club. So, it's like, which is it? It's just like a ‘work hard, play hard’ vibe, I guess.
SARAH: Yeah, the Germans are interesting.
KAYLA: They're so silly.
SARAH: They're an interesting folk.
KAYLA: They're so silly.
SARAH: An interesting folk. Anyway, do we have anything else to say?
KAYLA: I thought I did, but no.
SARAH: Why do we enjoy kissing? It is because our lips have a lot of nerve endings in them and kissing is an act that simultaneously simulates a lot of them.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: Other erogenous zones also have lots of nerve endings, which is why it feels nice when people touch them. Culturally, kissing is just ingrained into people at a very young age as a sign of affection. It's also about intimacy, someone touching your mouth is very intimate and personal, the mouth is for eating and if you let someone stick something in your mouth, there's a great deal of trust there. So, letting someone kiss you is also about trusting the other person on some level and letting them touch something intimate in you.
KAYLA: Okay, that's enough.
SARAH: This person goes, “this is probably why I feel so violated at the dentist, I don't trust them.”
KAYLA: Yeah, that's interesting. That is actually, that makes me think, because people hate the dentist.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: Hmm.
SARAH: Kissing in early cultures led to the spread/mixing of bacteria and myosin guts, those bacteria are really important to us and the idea was that maybe kissing helped early hominid groups to evolve their gut fauna.
KAYLA: Gut fauna.
SARAH: Gut fauna. Germs. Germs.
KAYLA: Germs.
SARAH: Germs. All right. How would you rate kissing out of 10?
KAYLA: Ooh, a good question. Me?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: I want that to be the poll too. How would I rate kissing out of 10? Just like in general?
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: And you know how I feel about a one to 10 scale.
SARAH: Yeah, I know.
KAYLA: Eight?
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I also have been known to kiss the homies quite a bit. So, I find… and as we know… we know how I feel about platonic kissing.
SARAH: Yeah.
KAYLA: If you've been around.
SARAH: She's a homie kisser.
KAYLA: I'm a homie kisser.
SARAH: She has never homie kissed me.
KAYLA: You would hate that. I will if you want me to, don't try me.
SARAH: I think it would scare me.
KAYLA: I know. There has been much…
SARAH: I would be so alarmed
KAYLA: There has been discussion about how at my wedding, I'm going to have to line up the homies to kiss all of them at my wedding.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: I told that to my parents, they were like, “okay, stop talking to me.” I was like, “that's fair.’
SARAH: So fair. A new episode of ‘Going Seventeen’ came out today and I haven't watched it today, but I have seen many clips of the fact that Seungkwan does kiss three of them in it, so.
KAYLA: And hey…
SARAH: He said, “smooch for you, smooch for you, smooch for you.” I mean, Seventeen also contains a member DK, his name is DK and people say that that is short for ‘dude kisser.’ Anyway.
KAYLA: What would you rate kissing out of ten?
SARAH: I don't have a lot of personal experience. I think I don't mind the concept of kissing. Like I…
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: Some part of me does understand the appeal of it.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: I understand the appeal of kissing more than I understand the appeal of touching bits.
KAYLA: Sure.
SARAH: My instinct was to say like five out of ten, just because like I'm kind of neutral on it. And I feel like five out of ten is a neutral. Like I think I don't have an issue with kissing as a concept. I would prefer you not like do it directly in front of me, like on the streets of Germany or any other place.
KAYLA: Just Germany, no kissing in Germany.
SARAH: But it's not something that I really partake in, but I don't have an issue with it.
KAYLA: Yeah, that's fair.
SARAH: So. Okay, so, our poll is, ‘rate kissing one to ten.’
KAYLA: On a scale of one to ten.
SARAH: You don't have to have ever had a lip kiss to give a rating.
KAYLA: Yeah.
SARAH: You can rate, you know, one time… Okay, I don't remember anything in my life, but I do remember one time.
KAYLA: I remember one time.
SARAH: It was a real learning experience because I was at summer camp and one of my friends at summer camp, like one of the people in my cabin was a real dude kisser. Like she would just…
KAYLA: A real dude kisser.
SARAH: She would just like kiss everyone on like the cheek.
KAYLA: Sure
SARAH: And so, I was a child and I was like, “I'm going to kiss you on the cheek back,” but I didn't have any experience. And so, I didn't purse the lips enough. So, it was just kind of like a fish, you know?
KAYLA: Uh huh
SARAH: And then I was like, “I've learned today why you have to purse your lips.”
KAYLA: Why you have to purse your lips. And you use that knowledge never again.
SARAH: Exactly.
KAYLA: Exactly. And in that moment you knew.
SARAH: Mm-hmm
KAYLA: Well, that's a nice learning moment.
SARAH: Yep. Okay, that's our poll.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Kayla, what's your beef and your juice for this week?
KAYLA: My beef is, you know how a couple of weeks ago I was like, “I'm waiting for something.”
SARAH: Sorry, I got distracted by Reddit, say that again.
KAYLA: You know how a few weeks ago I was like, “I'm waiting for something.”
SARAH: “I'm waiting for something.” Yes.
KAYLA: What if I told you I was still waiting?
SARAH: Yeah. I wouldn't be super surprised because that's what the Magic 8 Ball said.
KAYLA: It is. And I asked it again this week and…
SARAH: What did it say?
KAYLA: It did say not this week.
SARAH: Ugh.
KAYLA: I have started keeping a list in my journal of things I've been asking my Magic 8 Ball.
SARAH: And if it has been accurate?
KAYLA: I have not done the accuracy.
SARAH: Okay.
KAYLA: I just think it's a genuinely interesting way to look back on what has been on my mind.
SARAH: Yeah, that’s fair
KAYLA: Because of what I'm asking it. So, far I've asked it if the thing will happen, if my friend Perry's airline curse will ever be cured, because they have really bad travel luck, it said no.
SARAH: Damn. Sorry Perry.
KAYLA: And I asked if one of my fantasy football players would get at least 10 points because that's what I needed to win and it said yes and he did.
SARAH: Oh, look at that.
KAYLA: So, anyway.
SARAH: Look at that.
KAYLA: Me and my Magic 8 ball, that's my beef. My juice is that I'm going to Austin City Limits, the festival, this weekend.
SARAH: Ooh
KAYLA: And I'll get to see some slay music.
[00:50:00]
SARAH: I saw someone refer to it as ACL the other day and I was like, “the ligament?”
KAYLA: “The ligament?” Yeah, that is what it is. The beef, it's going to be like 90 degrees and it's finally starting to get fall weather here. Like it was 80 all last week, it was miserable and it's finally cooling down here just for me to leave and boil alive.
SARAH: I'm going to somewhere that has more fall weather than where I am.
KAYLA: Must be nice.
SARAH: Although it has actually been cloudy for a couple of days in LA.
KAYLA: Huge
SARAH: And today the high was only 77, which was nice. You did both of your beef and your juice, right?
KAYLA: Very good, yeah.
SARAH: I forgot the beef already, but that's okay. My beef is that my cat keeps shitting and pissing on the carpet and I think she's doing it to spite me.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: I cleaned out her litter box, I cleaned out all of the things, I did all the things, I took her travel litter box and I filled it with litter and I put it where she had been peeing on the carpet and last night she pooped on the carpet next to the litter box. Just before this podcast, she peed on the carpet next to the litter box. I'm afraid of what I will find when I…
KAYLA: You just need to start your whole… everything is a litter box, litter everywhere.
SARAH: Everything is a litter box. It's pissing me off, I think she's just doing it to spite me.
KAYLA: I told Sarah, I think this cat needs a permanent dose of Prozac.
SARAH: We could be twins
KAYLA: Like Sarah has sometimes anxiety medicine for her, but I think she needs to become medicated because she's just so upset all the time.
SARAH: Yeah, I think she… my best guess is that she's really mad at me because I took her to the groomer on Sunday and she hates the groomer and I sedated her. But the groomer said that next time she needs to be sedated the max amount because when I sedated her, she still did a lot of screaming and fighting. And my best guess is that she's mad at me for taking her to the groomer and that's why she's shitting on the carpet, which is crazy because I didn't realize that her long-term memory was that good.
KAYLA: Yeah
SARAH: I didn't think, like, I guess the two brain cells are rubbing together and they're rubbing together just to make my life hell.
KAYLA: I think she doesn't remember why she's mad, she just knows she’s mad.
SARAH: She doesn’t. The other related beef that brings me to a juice is that I'm gonna be out of town this weekend so that might make her more angry.
KAYLA: Maybe she'll get over it, maybe some separation will be… She'll forgive you.
SARAH: Maybe. My poor friend who is gonna come by and feed her on one of the days that I'm gone. Like, maybe she'll just find poops on the ground, I don't know.
KAYLA: I’m so sorry
SARAH: We're going to the vet on Friday just to be sure, but, girl. Girl!
KAYLA: Mm-hmm.
SARAH: My juice though is that I am going to Seattle this weekend to see Seventeen with my mom.
KAYLA: Slay.
SARAH: And I've never been to Seattle, don't give me suggestions because by the time I get them I'll be home.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm.
SARAH: I only have two thirds of one day for tourism.
KAYLA: Two thirds of one day?
SARAH: Yes.
KAYLA: Be specific.
SARAH: Well, I'm arriving after midnight like Friday to Saturday. Saturday, we have the concert but we have soundcheck tickets so we have to be there early. So, like we're realistically not going to do anything in the morning on Saturday.
KAYLA: The friend that I have that lives in Seattle is currently in Luxembourg according to my ‘find my friends’ so like.
SARAH: Damn.
KAYLA: You won't be seeing her.
SARAH: So then on Sunday, the day I was born, I have two thirds of one day because then I have to go to the airport and fly home, so.
KAYLA: Everyone say, “Happy Birthday Sarah.”
SARAH: My mom was so excited because she was like, “I haven't been with you on your birthday in so long.”
KAYLA: Julieee!
SARAH: You can tell us about your beef, your juice, your thoughts on kissing on our social media @soundsfakepod. We also have a Patreon, patreon.com/soundsfakepod if you would like to give us a virtual kiss there. Our $5 patrons who we are promoting this week are Kevin, Lily, Lindsay and Mark Cornick and also Mary S. because I can't count.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: Thank you to all of you. Our $10 patrons who are promoting something this week are Johanna, the German pronunciation, Johanna. Okay, I need you to tell any Germans you know to stop PDAing in public, no one likes it.
KAYLA: Stop PDAing in public.
SARAH: You need to stop PDAing in public and you also need to stop judging people for walking across the crosswalk when the AMPELMANN is red.
KAYLA: Mm-hmm
SARAH: It's not even really jaywalking because it is a crosswalk, it's just when the light is red.
KAYLA: Okay.
SARAH: Germans will yell at you, even if there is not a car… nary a car to be seen.
KAYLA: Mm, interesting
SARAH: If you cross the crosswalk when the light is red, you will get yelled at.
KAYLA: I feel like people should just mind their own business.
SARAH: I know. Anyway, Johanna would like to promote being kind to one another and one way to be kind to one another is to not PDA in front of them.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: Kayla's dad who would like to promote JandiCreations.com. KELLLER bradley who would like to promote, I still don't know. Maff, who would like to promote the Don't Should Sweatshirt and Martin Chiesl who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone's Special and No One Is. Our other $10 patrons are Purple Hayes, Quartertone, Barefoot Backpacker, SongOStorm, Val, Alastor, Ani, Arcnes, Benjamin Ybarra, Clare Olsen, Danielle Hutchinson, Derick & Carissa, Elle Bitter, Eric and my Aunt Jeannie. Our $15 patrons are Ace who would like to promote the writer Crystal Scherer, Nathaniel White who would like to promote NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, Kayla's Aunt Nina who would like to promote katemaggartart.com and Schnell who would like to promote accepting that everyone is different and that's awesome. Our $20 patrons are Changeling & Alex who would like to promote their company controlaltaccess.com, Dr. Jacki who is back…
KAYLA: Welcome back!
SARAH: And would like to promote having a job again.
KAYLA: Let's go Dr. Jacki
SARAH: Let's go Dr. Jacki
KAYLA: That's my doctor.
SARAH: Yeah, the way you said that made it seem like you were saying that that was your primary care doctor.
KAYLA: Imagine
SARAH: But that's not true.
KAYLA: Imagine.
SARAH: And Dragonfly and my mom and River who would like to promote TSA when I go through security and they see that it's my birthday, they need to ask me, they should grant me a wish. Okay?
KAYLA: I love that.
SARAH: And that wish is going to be to always get upgraded for free to first class.
KAYLA: Mm
SARAH: And if they don't do that, they're aphobic.
KAYLA: Right.
SARAH: That's what the $20 patrons are promoting.
KAYLA: Yeah, that makes sense.
SARAH: Thanks for listening, tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears.
KAYLA: And until then, take good care of your cows.
[END OF TRANSCRIPT]