The Joys Of Making Out Like A Couple Of Giddy Teenagers
If you haven't done this in a while, listen up ...
Kate Kultsevych / Shutterstock I’ll admit, I haven’t really spent a whole lot of time making out since … say … college.
Certainly not since the beginning of my relationship with Marilyn (which, of course, was in college.)
I remember the first time I made out with a girl — in high school, in the basement, while my parents had guests over upstairs. Guests who were well aware that my new girlfriend and I were going downstairs to make out, and who made a point to talk loudly every time they passed the basement stairs, making it as though they were going to come down. Giving us that jump to separate sides of the couch moment.
That night we “watched” two movies, but made out until our lips were sore in the dim flickering light of a 20-inch tube television.
When we grow up, we get distracted, don’t we? Especially as swingers, we tend to make out for a few minutes, but then hands are here and there, and before long tongues are in anuses.
Or is that just me? Maybe I skipped a few steps in there, but I think my theory is sound.
When you’re very likely to have sex on the first date, you tend not to devote a lot of time to the simpler niceties of foreplay that really should be given more focus and attention.
Because making out is a blast.
I’ve had a few swing partners who have really loved kissing, and since I love it too, I’ll spend more time making out with them than others, but still, nothing compared to what awaited me upon exploring polyamory and relationships.
When I first started looking around for poly girls to date, I went out one night with a former swing playmate, but on what I thought was likely a poly date.
“You’ll know it’s a poly date if you don’t have sex,” was the thought that came to me from my poly guru, Shira B. Katz.
I’ll admit, it’d been roughly twelve years since I last had dates that didn’t have expectations of sex.
Because of this long hiatus, and because of a pretty successful couple of years of swinging, I’d really forgotten how non-sex-dates go. I’d forgotten how to do the build-up — forgotten how to adjust the barometer of relationship that doesn’t stampede down the sexual brick road.
All the above being said it’s not like I’m immediately thrusting my penis inside my dates. I’m skilled at long and detailed foreplay; it just rarely involves extended making out without … other stimulation.
On multiple poly dates, I was reminded of the simple pleasures that come before the foreplay.
For the first time in twelve years, I made out until my lips hurt. What a glorious thing. To spend hours kissing and mingling tongues. To return to those moments of fevered groping outside the clothes, to experience that fleeting connection through two layers of jeans.
We forget about this. And it’s a shame.
So I’m trying to relish it across the board — with Marilyn again, with my swing partners who enjoy the art of the kiss, and with my girlfriend, who will kiss for hours ... before grabbing me by the dick and pulling me down the hall to the bedroom.
I encourage you to slow things down for a night, be high schoolers again, make out and have some heavy petting.
It’s a glorious experience that connects us to our youth, to ourselves, to our partners, and to a point in our life where we weren’t all jaded cynics. Enjoy it.
Cooper S. Beckett is the co-founder and host of Life on the Swingset: The Podcast since 2010, author of swinging & polyamory novels A Life Less Monogamous and Approaching The Swingularity, and memoir My Life on the Swingset: Adventures in Swinging & Polyamory.