Kissing

June 19, 2004 2:37 PM

Kissing. Did people really kiss in that closed-mouth head-shaking style so popular in 1940s movies (and Bond films) or was it one of those self-censorship things? And if they did, when did french kissing become de rigeur?
posted by bonaldi to society & culture (5 comments total)

No.

de riguer in American movies, circa 1980s. That's de rigeur...you can definitely find examples of it in films from much earlier.) de rigeur in real life; there are many articles written about this, and probably some books, but I think the general consensus is "probably since the dawn of humanity, and definitely since near the beginning of civilization."
posted by bingo at 2:48 PM on June 19, 2004

It was a self-censoring thing, part of the Hays Code.
posted by dobbs at 2:51 PM on June 19, 2004

That's true, and yet, I have seen a lot of movies from before the code, and I don't remember a lot of french kissing. Maybe it was a matter of style.
posted by bingo at 3:09 PM on June 19, 2004

My wife & I notice it all the time, and are equally puzzled by it. It doesn't seem all that pleasurable, frankly. Painful, perhaps, but not pleasurable.
posted by davidmsc at 4:29 PM on June 19, 2004

That's what I thought too. I mean, I know that sex was invented in 1963 an' all, but the kissing just doesn't look that good. I had supposed it was a Hays code thing (thanks dobbs), but then Sean Connery's Bond kisses like that, and those were made well after the end of that.

My other idea was that it was to show that these were actors and actresses *acting* -- just a simulation. Just as it's nowhere near the norm to show real sex on screen these days (or even real-looking fakes of it), perhaps the barrier was just much lower back then. Hey, perhaps in 2050 someone will be asking.metafilter if we really had sex in that under-sheets oddly gyratory way in the 1990s. Heh.
posted by bonaldi at 5:03 PM on June 19, 2004