"whose mouth do you kiss in?"

26 Nov 2023

one of the most powerful things about my relationship with my partner is how our ways of being create opportunities for liberation.

to (somewhat) protect our privacy, i won’t share all the details that lead to the titular question. but suffice it to say, there was a juicy journey that lead us to the question: whose mouth are we kissing in?

the question was so poignant that i remember what restaurant we were in, in what city, and on the way to which event. it was a paradigm shifting question for me. how was it possible that this framing had never crossed my mind? was everyone else thinking about this all the time and i was just oblivious?

for a couple weeks after the question surfaced, i was asking every one of my past partners that i could get in touch with. “do you remember whose mouth we kissed in?” i was stunned to hear that my partners fell into two camps.

1. they couldn’t remember because they hadn’t thought about it much, or
2. they remembered clearly that we kissed in their mouth.

what did that mean about me? about our relationship? about our power dynamics?

i could go on and on about the insights that have come through related to this question but for now i’ll just say these few things:

1. my kissing is forever changed having grappled with this question.
2. i am starting to think you can tell a lot, but not everything, about the power dynamics in a pair by the answer to this question.
3. having this conversation as a topic between two partners has the opportunity to create transformation.

so…when you kiss, whose mouth do YOU kiss in?

ps - note: when i google the question, i don’t find any top hits that discuss this question directly. i’m sure we aren’t the first people to ask this question but it seems like not that hot of a topic… interesting!

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words / writing / post-processing
297w / 11min / 3min