This is our entry for @sexblogofsorts ‘s competition:

Don’t read clickbait, read this: **The Competition**

http://youtu.be/kXBLJ6JHdFM

This song came out in the early 80’s, before I’d kissed anyone. In it, Will Powers sings about the importance of not ruining a date by messing up the kiss:
“Will I spoil it with my overbite?
Will our noses bump in the moonlight?
When our lips meet, will they fit right? ”

In a fabulous Smack the Pony sketch which I can’t link to sadly, Sally Phillips ruins the goodnight kiss by overthinking it, stopping to ask her date which way she should turn her head and how he wants her tongue to go. Brilliant stuff, but also cringeworthy. He makes his excuses and leaves, as anyone would. A kiss should be spontaneous above all, right?

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I’m now too old to remember who was my first kiss. Can you?
I remember the names of the boys I fancied but not the one I first kissed. Or if they kissed me. Did they make the first move or did I?
Did you practice on your pillow? On your hand?
If you can remember your first kiss, can you remember your first snog?
I remember how my first sorta boyfriend kissed. It was a little too teeth and tongue. Our noses clashed.
Necking was another matter. It sounded too physical for me, too ugly.
Spin the bottle raised the game even higher. Sitting around in a circle with friends including boys waiting for the spout to point to you? Ugh, who invented that torture?
I remember once my parents going out for the night and inviting school friends over for a game. My damn brother peeped on us and told the rents – result = grounded. I should never have told them what it meant.
These exploits took away the beauty of kissing. In fact, most of my recent relationships have.
There was the fuckbuddy who didn’t kiss. We did all sorts, but our lips never touched and he never went down on me. Weird.
When I started dating again, one of the early guys I met impressed me so much I went on tiptoe to kiss him. I told him I wanted to see him again, which was a dick move. I never saw him again.
After that, one of my dear friends told me never to make the first move.
WAIT she said.
The anticipation of a kiss. Their eyes on your lips. The shy smile. The sly application of lipgloss. The clearing of the throat, the disposing of gum. The butterflies in the stomach. The shifting in your seat, the stirring in your pants. The hands, the hands reaching around your waist, sliding over your behind, touching your arm. Fingers running through your hair, at the back of your neck, holding your chin. Their smell, their lips, their breath.
A guy I dated a couple of years ago would always grab me for a kiss as we said goodbye. Once on the tube platform, a great snog as the wind from the approaching train whistled up the tunnel. The doors opened and I got on. Had I been in love with him I’d have continued to kiss, missed every damn train coming, surely?
He was later to tell me that he “couldn’t have sex with me” Yeah right.

Unexpected kisses are the greatest of all. Slow kisses. The ones where your lips are hardly touching, just brushing each other’s mouths. And then running your tongue over their lips. Breathing in, feeling the air between. The anticipation, always the anticipation.
Kissing a guy with a beard, Stubble burn, face rash, red lips. The trophy of a kissing session, the dry lips. Kissing a smoker, that ashy taste, that tinge of smoke. A lipstick smudge on his lips. Your fingers wiping it off. And then more kisses.

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There are many, many quotes about kissing. This is the best:

“With a kiss let us set out for an unknown world” Alfred de Mussett