Empirical Notes on Kissing | Hacker News Reader

Empirical Notes on Kissing

belkarx.github.io

247 pointsbelkarx60 comments

[OP here]

I was ~14 when I wrote this (found it recently when looking through old files) which accounts for the questionable style and lack of citations. I thought it was entertaining and still somewhat informative so I posted it here despite its shortcomings.

Remarkably erudite for a 14 year old, well done.

My pre-internet 16yr old ancient self (late bloomer) who had to read books in libraries and bookstores who lost first girlfriend by not kissing her and second girlfriend pinned me down and started sucking my face off while growing four extra hands... Kudos. There's an art to the kiss and so much more, a worthy field of study for a young gentleman. Next do the non-actual-sex parts of the Kama Sutra and the art of sensual massage. There are more appendages and nerves than one might think of....

I did also memorize erogenous zones at some point, so your advice wasn't too far off :)

growing four hands you say. you don't happen to have her number by any chance, do you? asking for a friend...

And the whole text suddenly starts making sense.

This is like the nerdiest freaking thing. Love it.

I thought this was really interesting and a fun read, like something you'd see in a sidebar in a magazine.

I like the style. It reads like something that Spock, Commander Data or the HAL 9000 would say, which IMO is a good thing.

Enjoyed that. Totally nerdy, and the sort of thing I probably wrote when I was young.

Small note: the <title> tag for the page says 'placeholder'.

> Males and females view the specifics of kissing differently. Males tend to prefer wet open-mouthed kisses while females are more conservative and enjoy less tongue use.

I find this part hilarious because it is at complete variance with my own experience. Despite being a man, I never start kissing a woman with open mouth and tongue because I had always figured it was a rookie error on par with "stampeding toward the clitoris"[0]. Instead, the women I've been with (all three of them, so a very limited sample size) were generally more aggressive. They'd kiss me open-mouthed and use their tongues.

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejaWq2TXRXE

From 'blooood filled capillaries' to closing by calling kissing a 'non-sexual intimate behavior', this was hilarious. Thanks for posting!

Delightful, thank you. Very well done for 14 years of age!

When I was a teen, I read and re-read the Wikipedia articles for stress and stress management, because I was having problems with stress and that was the only source of information I could think of. The articles talked about a form of self-therapy called autogenic training, so I got a book on it from Amazon.

The book was by a German guy named Schultz and written in the inter-war period (originally in German). I didn't know German; an English translation wasn't available: there was a French one though. I had lived two years in France by then, but my French was still bad. Only reading this book I realised that I could actually read French.

I read the book and practiced his method for around six months. I'm not sure that it helped much, but in retrospect it was an interesting experience.

This is like somebody from Love on the Spectrum tried to process their insecurity with kissing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_on_the_Spectrum

Makes me think of Young Sheldon myself.

This was the exact vibe that I got from it, but couldn’t place it. Thank you.

> Before my first kiss, I scoured The Internet (Google Scholar + tracing blog posts back to their underlying studies…

Behold, literally the nerdiest thing ever written.

I did read, and I'm being deadly serious, the Wikipedia article on foreplay before engaging in said activity for the first time. I also think I read it together with the other person? And obviously I got the idea from the comic.

I was well into my adulthood before the internet even became a thing outside of academia. So we had to awkwardly fuddle our way through all things romantic or rely on poor information from that kid who started shaving at 11.

Fun read, but these notes are exact opposite of "empirical". But considering the author was 14 when writing it, I think we can overlook that.

I think this sort of thing is valuable to at least attempt.

I started dating a little late in high school (late bloomer physically, too). My girlfriend had a lot of sexual experience and wanted to get to it. However, I knew just from the background noise of culture that young women often found young men's performance ... lacking. Desperate to do at least this one thing right, I got a lot of books on sex (from the reproductive angle, cultural, anatomical, etc.) but had a much harder time finding, well, material on technique, all while fending her off.

It's in that weird category of Things Nobody Tells You About But Is Really Important.

>Things Nobody Tells You About But Is Really Important

I've been writing an article on that as well :)

I actually learned a lot from this article.

Are there more detail guides and reviews of the subject?

While it is generally assumed that a romantic subject cannot be studied formally, there is obviously skill and knowledge involved in making process pleasurable for oneself and a partner

The Art of Kissing[1] is one I'm familiar with.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1283413.The_Art_of_Kissi...

For visual learners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH1H6xL0jes

That was hilarious!

this is a legitimately informative and obscurely hilarious post.

bravo :-)

> obscure

not for no reason, this should be protected knowledge

saving, and flagging

And clearly written by a nerd ... Stop the research and go do some practicing!

it feels like its been written by someone who thinks Sheldon or his GF Amy (from Big Bang Theory) would prepare.

I get they're caricatures, but yeah very fun read anyway.

Hey, i found your website through this post, and i would like to receive your newest posts, i think a rss feed would be a nice addition.

This is very autistic. I love it. I wrote a similar "guide" on how to have sex once I had figured it out.

Would you mind sharing it?

Are you saying you wrote the fucking manual?

> The lips, labium-superius and inferius-oris, ideally a 1:1 ratio,

Well done, especially for a 14yo!

>Continuing with a warning: it was found that approximately 60% of people have previously broken off a relationship due to a kiss, possibly due to genetic incompatibility.

Source? Need to know just in case.

I was expecting something related to the application of the KISS principle in the field. Hell, no.

This is probably scientism. (he thinks big words make him more informed) Also a bit unclear why he says “from a medical perspective it’s gross” but then every detail after that contradicts it.

> while trying to stray away from anything opinion-based.

This is just depriving yourself of information. Not be even nerdier, but there’s a thing with headphone reviews where people reject all subjective reviews and would prefer to just look at some graphs like on rtings. However the “objective measurements” aren’t actually objective - headphone behavior depends on your head shape, how loud the room is, how long your hair is, the amp, etc.

So a subjective review in a more similar environment is actually more informative. Even if it’s written by a guy who thinks gold cables are good and his headphones are “effortless” and have “speed”. And why closed headphones get a bad rap; they’re less accurate in a lab but could be more in practice if they block your fridge noise.

It's written by a kid. The style is guaranteed to be a little weird.

That said, I think this is really interesting information and would have found it even more informative back before my first kiss.

On subjective vs objective: yes, both are important, but it's typically _really_ easy to find everyone's fuzzy opinions on any particular subject, it can be much harder to find useful facts. So searching out _only_ the objective can easily come from that.

I'm trying to work out if this is serious or if the author's tongue is placed in someone else's cheek.

Got Eem hahaha

As a reminder, human pheromones have effects empirically. However despite the proven studies, there is no third party lab tested legit Pheromone seller out there that I know of. There are sellers but no idea how pure is their product..

- MHC presentations aren’t pheromones - pheromones are like “commands” transmitted through smells, but primates can’t automatically accept commands like insects do because we’ve got real brains and don’t want enemies to trick us with them.

The article says pheromones just indicate if the other party is aroused but that’s not really true. They’d actually mean “I am aroused and you must also be now”.

- You’re looking for perfume companies.

No pheromones are not necessarily direct commands. For humans they simply afr as exogenous neurotransmitters that can alter mood and attraction level but to minor extent, it is not a love filter. Some pheromones are also slightly repulsive.

Do people genuinely like the tongue? I mean there's pleasure in biting lips but tongue to tongue don't bring feelings to me?

Hah tongue is the best part. As much tongue as possible, please.

Not to get too detailed but the tongue to tongue action is a kind of simulation of what you might do with your tongue shortly after kissing, which makes it a kind of preview. For me, anyway!

Yes, as long as it’s not too fast and not too often.

There’s a lot more subtlety and feeling to the lips — very sensitive, so you’re right, it tends to feel better.

It's not pleasurable if any one of the two is dehydrated and has a dry tongue.

each person is different. there's people who don't like kissing so much, or like it with no tongue best. it's all part of the game: mutual communication about pleasure

A little bit of tip of tongue touching is genuinely nice. Full on "here's all my tongue" kissing generally isn't, should probably only be used to _briefly_ punctuate some related action or feeling.

The same happens to me. The tongue doesn’t do anything at all for me. All of my girlfriends seemed to like it though. This is contrary to what the article says, but I understand that every person is a world… which is why looking at kissing scientifically makes little sense to me. Just try things and see what works for both of you (and don’t neglect doing things that don’t work for you if they seem to work for the other person, of course)

But seriously. Don't you get aroused when you get the woman into a aroused state? I definitely get. There is nothing more satisfying when you can make the woman want for more. The game of teasing. You play, you stop. She wants more and more till it's unstoppable.

Yes, that’s true. Even if you don’t enjoy something, seeing your partner aroused by it is arousing by itself. It’s a feedback loop basically.

great analysis

Pfft. Source?

At risk of sounding too GenZ: this is cringe

Ong this mf need to touch grass.

> Speaking of arousal, most females won’t willingly have sex with someone before kissing them and use kisses to gauge commitment, while males generally view them as a way to advance to sex.

I mean how true is that? I'm pretty sure women can bypass the kissing step from time to time willingly

Women get aroused when stimulated by kissing and gentle touching various parts of her body. Kissing is definitely part of it. Straight to penetration is a bit difficult. Unless the woman aroused herself before the deed.

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