familial

August 15, 2008 10:47 AM

Why does Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin's father Valeri Liukin keep kissing her?
posted by plexi to Human Relations (36 answers total)

In Russian culture, people kiss each other all the time. Mostly on the cheek, sometimes on the lips.
posted by prefpara at 10:51 AM on August 15, 2008

Looks creepy, but I really think those are just 2 unfortunate poses.
posted by doorsfan at 10:52 AM on August 15, 2008

In Russian culture, people kiss each other all the time. Mostly on the cheek, sometimes on the lips.

Not just Russian culture, I've seen plenty of people in the US kiss their children on the cheeks or lips. Nothing strange about that.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 10:57 AM on August 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

I had the same question. After her floor routine, he kissed her like 199 times, three or four or five kisses at a time, all over her face and forehead. To me it was the sheer quantity that was weird, not the poses. I guess it was a slightly emotional moment or something? ;)
posted by salvia at 11:00 AM on August 15, 2008

If I had to guess, it's because his daughter is a gold medalist in the Olympics! I'd kiss my kid all over their face too.
posted by The Light Fantastic at 11:02 AM on August 15, 2008 [15 favorites]

Because they love each other?
posted by agregoli at 11:07 AM on August 15, 2008 [7 favorites]

My father would kiss my sisters on the lips and so would I. what's so wrong with being affectionate with your loved ones? People who find it creepy are the weird ones imo, something seriously repressed if you think like that.

Do you think a kiss on the lips has to be sexual or something?
posted by twistedonion at 11:10 AM on August 15, 2008

Several reasons I would suspect:

He's her coach as well as her dad. He knows how hard she's worked for this and the sacrifices the family has made.

I'm sure he's recalling his own gold medal win and getting emotional knowing all that this win means to his daughter.

Plus, kissing one's loved ones isn't bad even if it makes some people uncomfortable for whatever reason.
posted by warrco ms at 11:12 AM on August 15, 2008

Love. Happiness. Joy. Respect. Admiration. And, apparently, an incomplete assimilation into the exaggerated American panic over sexual predators.
posted by googly at 11:22 AM on August 15, 2008 [32 favorites]

I'm an American guy and I kissed my father on the lips every time I saw him. He died when I was 22.

I would trade almost anything to kiss him again.
posted by unixrat at 11:30 AM on August 15, 2008 [29 favorites]

In my experience, Americans are more terrified of physicality than are some other cultures. The root of this is ... Puritanism? Protestantism? I don't know. I do enjoy cultures that are more physical. I like being able to embrace my male friends or walk arm-in-arm with them and not have it be interpreted the wrong way (I'm a man, and straight). Obviously, this has to do with perceptions of homosexuality in America vs. other cultures. Maybe my Americanism is showing here. I want to be able to express myself physically with other men, but not have it be interpreted as 'gay' because I'm 'not one of them?'

This is about repression -- repression that is reinforced/strengthened by cultural norms. We don't like to see two men walking arm-in-arm because it reminds us of a gay couple and our puritanical religion tells us that that is bad? Not a parallel, but why is it than when a father kisses his daughter on the lips we immediately jump to thoughts of incest?

Better to avoid touching altogether... people have cooties.
posted by punkbitch at 11:34 AM on August 15, 2008

I gotta go with all of the above. The question isn't why does her dad kiss her, it's why do you think that's weird? Seems to be pretty typical for a lot of people in a lot of places.
posted by Justinian at 11:35 AM on August 15, 2008

I kiss my dad on the lips every time I say hello or goodbye. I am 23. We've always done that- nothing creepy there.

Kissing my mom on the lips is rare...but my mom has never been affectionate in that way.

It is completely a cultural thing- in a college French class my professor expressed her tough adjustment with not kissing people here- because apparently that is commonplace in France when greeting someone.

I wish we did it more here- people need that physical bond and it doesn't have to be weird. We just make it that way.
posted by gracious floor at 11:47 AM on August 15, 2008

I am American, and we kiss on the lips and the cheeks in my immediate family.
posted by MS_gal at 11:55 AM on August 15, 2008

In my experience, Americans are more terrified of physicality than are some other cultures.

I don't really think it's the physicality. It's that, to many people, kissing on the lips is for romantic love, and kissing on the cheeks and hugs are familial love, and once you have that association set in your mind, crossing the two is icky.
posted by smackfu at 11:59 AM on August 15, 2008 [1 favorite]

In my experience, Americans are more terrified of physicality than are some other cultures...This is about repression -- repression that is reinforced/strengthened by cultural norms.

I do think it's a cultural norm thing, and it's obvious from the answers above that's it's not unheard of for parents to kiss their adult children on the lips even in the US--I think it's just less common to see parents kiss their adult kids on the lips (or maybe it is more widespread, but non-lip-kissing families just assume *all* adult lip-kissers are May-December romances!) As a reference point, I think my parents stopped kissing me on the mouth once I was about 10 or so, although I still get kisses on the cheek. Those pictures made me do a double-take, just because I'm not used to seeing that and my immediate read of any two adults kissing on the lips is that it's a romantic gesture. It takes a second to think, "Oh, right, okay--that's not a romantic thing, it's a family thing."

I disagree that Americans are "terrified of physicality." I think it's just that kissing in particular is seen as a very intimate gesture in the States--undergrads just back from studying abroad notwithstanding, it's pretty rare to kiss someone who isn't (a) very young (b) related or (c) your romantic partner. On the other hand, many Americans (women in particular) hug/embrace people at the drop of a hat, even people they've just met. The American propensity for hugging, which has never seemed weird to me, really really freaked out my European roommate. It's just a different type of physicality.
posted by iminurmefi at 12:00 PM on August 15, 2008 [4 favorites]

If my son/daughter worked hard enough to win a gold medal and, in addition, did so I'd be kissing the shit out of them. May be not on the mouth (I'm American, ya know).
posted by Carbolic at 12:01 PM on August 15, 2008

She's kissing him, too. It's interesting that you see it as a one-way thing.
posted by chaplinesque at 12:07 PM on August 15, 2008 [3 favorites]

Another data point: in my family, we kiss each other on the lips all the time.
posted by lunasol at 12:10 PM on August 15, 2008

Do you think a kiss on the lips has to be sexual or something?

Yep. I think that's pretty much where people who are being weirded out by this are coming from. If you've grown up where a kiss on the lips is non-sexual, then yeah, this isn't going to be a big deal.
posted by chunking express at 12:21 PM on August 15, 2008

I kiss my dad on the lips, maybe not 199 times but it's just normal family behavior where I'm from. Other male relatives too, esp older ones.
posted by jessamyn at 12:30 PM on August 15, 2008

I second punkbitch and googly. I'm an American, but my father's a Russian immigrant, and I'm having a chuckle at the thought of you being weirded out if you ever met my family...

Imagine you grew up in a tight knit family, then practiced a sport day and night with your daughter for years. Then imagine you see her reach the pinnacle of human achievement, validating both you and your faith in your enormously talented daughter. Are you going to peck her on the cheek and say "g'job, honey"?
posted by StrikeTheViol at 12:31 PM on August 15, 2008

Nthing lip kissing American family data point. Same here. Smooch smooch.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:36 PM on August 15, 2008

I guess I'm a hopelessly repressed prude. It creeps me out.
posted by daveleck at 12:41 PM on August 15, 2008

Then imagine you see her reach the pinnacle of human achievement, validating both you and your faith in your enormously talented daughter. Are you going to peck her on the cheek and say "g'job, honey"?

If you were German you might get a handshake.
If you were Scottish you would get a grudging acknowledgment that the routine was less shit than usual.
If you were Canadian you would stop complaining about the lack of government funding for athletes for a few minutes.

There are plenty of cultural groups where the sterotypical reaction to reaching the pinnacle of human achievement would be considerable less than a kiss on the lips, sure.

Having said that, it's not particularly weird. Open-mouthed, that would be crossing the line.
posted by GuyZero at 12:48 PM on August 15, 2008 [2 favorites]

Lacking any further context to your question, I'd have to say that Nastia Liukin's father keeps kissing her as a sign of love and pride.

Considering that "She is the 2008 Olympic individual all-around gold medalist, the 2005 and 2007 World Champion on the balance beam, and the 2005 World Champion on the uneven bars. With nine World Championships medals, seven of them individual, Liukin is tied with Shannon Miller as having won the most World Championship medals of any American gymnast in history" and as her coach he's partially responsible for that, is it any wonder that there's a lot of love and pride there?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:52 PM on August 15, 2008

She's kissing him, too. It's interesting that you see it as a one-way thing.

Maybe in the photos, but if you watch the video, you see her pulling away around the third or fourth kiss in a row. She just leaves to stretch or shake hands with other gymnasts, not specifically to say "get away from me," but the kissing or the standing still does appear to make her uncomfortable after a moment. And after the second or third kissing session when he again kisses her even as she pulls away, I started feeling like, "hey, maybe you should give her just a little space to bask in her own glory." The creepiness for me was a small fraction of the creepiness I feel with those parents who get all worked up about their eight-year-old daughters' beauty pageants.

Mostly though, it was just sweet to see him so overwhelmed with excitement and pride and love for her, and poignant (as always) to see a parent's love go somewhat unreturned as a teenager excitedly rushes off to independence.
posted by salvia at 1:01 PM on August 15, 2008

Response by poster: Lacking any further context to your question

Thanks for the "I kiss my parents too" juggernaut, but I should have prefaced this question with "For those that watched the gymnastic finals yesterday."
posted by plexi at 1:03 PM on August 15, 2008

Because they're Slavs, and that's what they do? He's very proud of her and her accomplishments, and wants to show her that. It's a cultural thing. Bela Karolyi kissed Nadia like that (OK, maybe not the hundred kisses) when she got her perfect 10s in 1972, and he was only her coach. I'd be weirded out if they were strangers, but in this context, it's completely normal (for them).
posted by jlkr at 1:13 PM on August 15, 2008

My youngest sister is 14 years my junior and when she was young, I was away at college. When I came home from school for holidays etc., we'd do this thing where she'd kiss me on the lips and then make a big production of going "Muahhh." She's married with two children now. We still do it.
posted by notjustfoxybrown at 1:21 PM on August 15, 2008

after the second or third kissing session when he again kisses her even as she pulls away

I think she was just anxiously looking for her score, but maybe I'm not remembering it correctly. Do you mean the kiss just after that amazing vault?
posted by chaplinesque at 1:42 PM on August 15, 2008

Then imagine you see her reach the pinnacle of human achievement, validating both you and your faith in your enormously talented daughter. Are you going to peck her on the cheek and say "g'job, honey"?

Speaking as a hillbilly: my father would likely have grabbed me by the shoulder or back of the neck, shook me a little, and said "not bad". Or even "good job, kid."
posted by dilettante at 1:42 PM on August 15, 2008

nthing the culture and family thing but i'm sure this was a huge part of it as well:

"Just to know that he was so close to (the all-around gold) and didn't quite achieve it," his daughter said. "And I hope, you know, I cleared away any of those bad little memories for him. I hope that this definitely tops it. I have a few more to go, but it is an amazing accomplishment just to be here with him, out on the floor 20 years after he competed. I think it just means so much more to both of us. I don't know, just all the hard work paying off. All the injuries, tears, blood, rips — everything."
posted by violetk at 1:49 PM on August 15, 2008

Do you mean the kiss just after that amazing vault?

I only saw the floor routine, so that's what I'm talking about, the time right after that and then when they said she won the gold.
posted by salvia at 2:36 PM on August 15, 2008

Raised in a non-kissy family, I thought at the first the idea was weird. But then, I think it's cute. He's devoted to his daughter and her success, and will support her in any way, which would include familial love. It's not like they're grabbing each other and French-kissing :P.
posted by curagea at 2:39 PM on August 15, 2008

In my experience, Americans are more terrified of physicality than are some other cultures.

I think you're missing the mark; just because kissing is seen as a romantic rather than platonic gesture by many Americans doesn't mean they're "terrified of physicality." It just means "that's not how their culture shows affection to people they aren't romantically intimate with."

There are cultures that are much more about kissing than Americans, but also some that are much less about it. To categorize these differences in terms of "fear" rather than simple cultural practice differences is neither accurate nor helpful, unless we're going to make a list of who is the most and the least "terrified of physicality." (A list that I hope it's clear is impossible to make, because what counts as physicality? Is a culture that kisses on the cheeks but never hugs more or less terrified than a culture that hugs but never kisses?)
posted by Solon and Thanks at 3:07 PM on August 15, 2008 [6 favorites]