There are as many types of kisses as there are days of the year… at least. Almost all of us began our journey through the world of kisses, those movie kisses that we used to say when we were little, with a shy kiss. Then many others come and some are yet to come. Passionate kisses, furtive kisses, fleeting kisses, bitter kisses, salty kisses, wet kisses, delicate kisses, fiery kisses, treacherous kisses, heartfelt kisses, frivolous kisses, kisses and more kisses that even have their day on the calendar.
Next Thursday the international day of the kiss will be celebrated, an initiative originating in the United Kingdom as a tribute to the longest kiss in history collected in the Guinness record, and which lasted a whopping 58 hours, 35 minutes and 58 seconds. The couple who achieved this milestone in 2013, the Thai couple Ekkachai and Laksana Tiranarat, had to remain on their feet the entire time without speaking. That kiss that undoubtedly ended up being an agonizing kiss is nothing more than a pretext to remember at least once a year the importance of kisses in affective relationships.
Some considerations that the scientist Sheril Kirshenbaum collects in her book The science of kissing: kisses can be addictive, because they release dopamine and serotonin; they cause dilation of the pupils, which is why we often close our eyes; the infinity of nerve endings in the lips indicate to the brain the pleasure we feel and the desire not to finish. In addition, they relax us, because they lower the blood levels of cortisol, the well-known stress hormone.
For all this and much more, kisses are not only protagonists in our lives, but also in all kinds of cultural and artistic manifestations. His first presence in literature is more than early. We have to go back 3,500 years and read Hindu Vedic texts in Sanskrit. Since then, they have not stopped appearing.
It is paradigmatic, for example, this fragment that Julio Cortázar wrote in his Hopscotch and that ‘playing cyclops’ left us in the collective imagination: “You look at me, you look at me closely, closer and closer and then we play cyclops, we look at each other closer and closer and our eyes get bigger, they get closer to each other, they overlap and the cyclops look at each other, breathing confused, their mouths meet and fight warmly, biting with their lips, barely resting their tongues on their teeth, playing in their enclosures where a heavy air comes and goes with an old perfume and a silenceâ€.
More mythical artistic kisses: the one sculpted in marble by Rodin, the one painted in oil by Klimt. That of Magritte, Canova, Hayez… But today, as half a century is celebrated since Picasso’s death, it is worth recovering the first kiss that the man from Malaga bequeathed to us on a canvas from 1925. An aggressive, violent, sexual kiss, which says a lot about the artist and the relationships he had with his wives. Because the kisses we give define us. Whether they come from our soul or from our bowels, Pessoa left us a wise verse to live them fully. “As if every kiss was goodbye.”
