Preamble
Catania (Sicily) airport, 11:45 am. My flight has just landed and I can't wait to be outdoors. As I walk toward the exit, the automatic sliding doors open and the arrival hall is in front of me. I'm finally home, but the scene that appears before my eyes makes me uncomfortable.
I’ve been living abroad for almost ten years now, and every time I come home to my family, in Sicily, it's like a little party. My parents have the habit of always picking me up at the airport, and it is not unusual that other relatives, such as a cousin or an uncle, join them. Normally, walking through those sliding doors would have meant to find a cheering little crowd waiting for me. But today no one is there. To be precise, there is no one welcoming any of the newly arrived travellers. We are in the middle of a pandemic and COVID-19 restrictions do not allow gatherings of people, kisses, or hugs. Now, I would not like to fall into a clichéd stereotype, but if you are Sicilian this is a bit of a tragedy. Especially if you haven't seen your family for a very long time.
Of course, my parents have not forgotten about me. I turn on my phone and, immediately, I get a message from my mother saying me to reach the parking lot. When she sees me from a distance, she starts honking. Then she rolls down the window and calls me by name. I have never been so happy to see her. Yet, I can't do what I would have instinctively done in a situation like this: giving her a massive hug and shower her with kisses.
Because of the pandemic, my family situation is particularly delicate right now. My father had cancer. He has defeated the disease but, as is known, chemo weakens the immunity system. If I want to hug him without endangering his health, I have to take a test to make sure I don't have COVID-19, and stay in quarantine for a couple of weeks. I sit in the back seat like I was taking a taxi instead of getting into my mom’s car. We both agree I will spend my period of isolation in the summer house.
Are you missing human touch during the pandemic? Well, you are not the only one…
Physical contact plays a foremost role from the first moments of life. Scientific researches have shown how hugs and kisses are essential for newborns. When babies are abandoned in hospitals, doctors, nurses, and even volunteers make sure to give cuddles and caresses to them. Conditions of affective deprivation can indeed cause problems in the ability to relate to others, but also deficit in both mental and language development.
For adults, it is not so different. Hugs, caresses and any other kind of cuddles stimulate the release of oxytocin – the so-called ‘love hormone’ related to pleasure. Being deprived of physical contacts can therefore cause a real withdrawal crisis, which could even trigger anxiety and depression. So, if you are going through a period of forced isolation and feel sad and restless, do not be hard on yourself. It is perfectly normal. Experts have even coined a specific term for this emotional state: “touch starvation”.
I myself have experienced this mood during the two weeks of quarantine I had to spend in Sicily. On the other hand, I have to say that mine was a very privileged isolation. After all, I stayed in a small, cosy house facing the sea. I had very bad Wi-Fi, but some good books and a lot of spare time. There were all the best premises to get caught in a fascinating thought loop. This post is one the results of my forced isolation.
Is the romantic kiss universal?
We are social animals and the need of physical contact is inherent in our nature. Nevertheless, if this attitude is universal, its concrete, physical expressions may be rather variable. Let’s take the act of kissing, for example.
As a young woman born in Sicily and, thus, in a so-called “western country”, the kiss plays a foremost role for me. I grew up with films, books and comics which celebrate the first romantic kiss as a rite of passage into adulthood and as the first step towards sexual awareness. Indeed, a kiss may be an act of tenderness among friends and family members, but, above all, it is a way to express passion between lovers.
Yet, strange as it may seem, the romantic-sexual kiss is not a universal phenomenon. Rather, it seems that before the advent of the globalized world it occurred just within a restricted number of cultures. The anthropologist B. Malinowski tells that among the people of the Trobriand islands there was the custom of biting off each other's eyelashes at the point of orgasm. Other alternatives to the romantic-sexual kiss also include the mutual rubbing of the noses and the act of licking or smelling each other. If these types of effusions seem gross to you, keep in mind that, when Mehinku people from Amazonia observed a romantic kiss for the first time, they found it incredibly disgusting…
If the romantic-sexual kiss is not universal, where does this custom come from?
In Italian and English, it is usually called “French kiss”. But if you ask a French native speaker, the latter will reply that it is a baiser Florentin, a “Florentine kiss” and, thus, Italian. It really seems that no one wants to take responsibility for inventing such a depraved behaviour. At least in part, the French may be right. The so-called “French kiss” was certainly known by the ancient Romans. Specific terms are attested in Latin for different types of kisses: the word “osculum”, for example, indicated the tender kiss between friends or relatives, while “suavium” and “basium” referred to something inherent in passion between lovers. Yet, it was not the Romans who invented the kiss.
Kisses were certainly known both as a sign of affection and as an erotic gesture in Ancient Greece. Likewise, romantic and sexual kisses are well attested within Ancient Mesopotamia and Egyptian sources, and they even recur in the Old Testament. A verse from the Song of Songs recites: “May you kiss me with the kisses of your mouth, for your love is better than wine”. Another verse from a Ramesside love song says “When I kiss her and her lips are open, I am drunk, even without beer”.
So, did the “French kiss” originate in Ancient Egypt? Well, no… that’s not exactly the case…
The story of the sexual-romantic kiss is much more complex than that. As any good Egyptologist knows, to figure out an unilineal historical evolution in which Egypt or Mesopotamia are the origin of a “western” custom is a biased narrative that leads to oversimplified – and ethnocentric – interpretations. While in most cases it is undeniable that several ideas, inventions and practices may have originated in the ancient Near East, such an interpretative scheme entails the risk of losing some of the most interesting aspects of human history.
For example, what to say about Asia? Indeed, romantic kisses are well attested in ancient China and India; references to kisses may be recognized in the Vedas and diverse kinds of kisses are described in the Kamasutra. Some historians have even speculated that romantic kisses originated in India. The matter is becoming more and more intricate. But one has to keep in mind that the race to see who came first, will never get us too far on the journey of knowledge.
Perhaps, rather than try to identify the mythical place of origin of the romantic kiss, we should focus on other kinds of questions, such as…
Why does the romantic kiss exist? And why is it more spread within certain cultures than others?
If the romantic kiss between lovers is not universal, the parent-kid kiss certainly is. The latter is not just a manifestation of affection – it is something more complex linked to the weaning of the newborns. Before the invention of baby bottles and foods, infants were gradually introduced to the adult diet through the practice of “pre-mastication”; it means that the food was chewed by a caregiver and introduced from the mouth of the latter into the mouth of the baby. According to most scholars, both the tender and the romantic kiss may have originated from this practice. But why is the romantic kiss raised only within certain cultural contexts?
As shown by a research published in the American Journal of Anthropology, the romantic-sexual kiss – which entails the touch of the lips and eventually of the tongues – is strongly linked to the rise of complex societies and, thus, to the origin of social inequalities. According to the authors, the emergence of such a practice may coincide with “the rise of elite social classes that value self-control of affect and emotional displays”. The fact that some of the oldest attestations concerning romantic and erotic kisses came from Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia or India is thus to be connected with the fact that these are among the best documented ancient cultures demarcated by social inequalities.
It is noteworthy that in cultures where romantic-sexual kiss occurs, the action of kissing also acquires other meanings, such as marking differences in social rank or – on the contrary – emphasizing a condition of equality. Within Pharaonic Egypt, the king was often depicted flanked by deities kissing him to underlining his divine status. Kisses were indeed employed also to express subjection and the members of the royal court were used to kiss the feet of queens and kings. Ancient Egypt, obviously, is not an isolated case. In a passage from the Iliad, king Priam kisses the hand of his enemy, Achilles, to beg him to return the corpse of his beloved son back. The proskynesis, the act of kissing the arm or the feet of the sovereign, was a typical custom among the Persians. And, historians tell us that Alexander the Great was strongly criticized for trying to introduce this practice among his Greek companions. The examples are practically innumerable and can be identified up to the present day.
Are you enjoying being alone? Would you rather be left alone? Don’t feel guilty about this
The need of physical contact is certainly inherent in our nature. However, sometimes, cultural rules and social restrictions could turn this natural need into something of oppressive.
V-J Day in Times Square by A. Eisenstaedt is perhaps one of the most iconic photos of a kiss. It portrays a sailor passionately embracing a young woman during the jubilations for the end of WWII. It is considered a symbol of romantic love and freedom, but it actually portrays a sexual assault. The photographer confessed that the sailor was totally drunk and wandered around the square grabbing and kissing any woman that came within his reach. The woman immortalized in the photograph, Greta Zimmer Friedman, clearly stated that she did not know him and that the guy just came over and grabbed her. She also said: "that man was very strong. I wasn't kissing him. He was kissing me.”
A lot of people are going through a profound discomfort due to isolation and lack of social contacts. Yet, according to a recent pool, a third of the population is experiencing the so-called “lockdown relief”, claiming to be happier now than before the pandemic. This mood is not always totally positive. It is often accompanied by a sense of guilt (since they feel relief for something that is causing pain to others) and a feeling of growing anxiety at the very thought of having to go back to normal life. Such a mood has been explained with a deep need to escape a stressful life and, above all, toxic workplaces characterized by bullying and intimidations. The problem is also exacerbated by the difficulty of talking about this kind of emotional state while the whole world is grieving and complaining about social isolation.
There is also another, more serious, issue. A lot of people are currently forced to live together with toxic and potentially dangerous persons. According to the World Health Organization the lockdown is causing a dramatic increase of domestic violence, especially towards women and children. We have to keep in mind that while someone is suffering from “touch starvation”, other people are isolated and trapped in a daily life made of unwanted attention and abuses.
Epilogue
I tested negative for COVID-19 and, after two weeks of quarantine, I was finally able to hug my parents. It may be a bit clichéd, but we celebrated by eating one of the most celebrated dishes from my homeland Sicily: arancine. I wish you to pass the lockdown with those who love and respect you and be showered with kisses only if and when you really want it.
