The Case for Making Out
When you really like someone, you don’t need much motivation to make out with them. A walk in the park, a good joke, a couple of drinks, and boom—you’re glued at the lips and your tongues are doing the tango.
So why is that when we love someone—when we’re in a relationship—that we so often settle for a quick peck? A huge part of a new relationship is the sense of anticipation, and when you get to know someone and feel comfortable around them, it’s normal to feel less sexual tension. If your relationship or your sex life with someone is well-established, it can seem almost silly to make out—like, why not skip ahead and get to the good stuff?
While a hot make-out session is great foreplay, and can lead to some even greater sex, we say that passionate kissing is a worthwhile experience in itself. Lots of people (and popular songs) have likened a good kiss to fireworks, or sparks flying, and that’s because when you’re kissing, your synapses are firing like crazy. We bet you remember your best (and worst!) kisses like they were yesterday.
A makeout engages many of your senses – touch, taste, smell and sound, and sight, if you like making eye contact during a kiss. Just like an orgasm, a good makeout can release oxytocin, a hormone that helps us to feel warm, happy and more intimate with another person. Your hands are free to explore your partner's body, and you might find that neither of you are in a rush to actually have sex.
There are tons of nerve endings in our lips and mouths—in fact, our lips are many times more sensitive than our fingers, and can send way more sensory information to the brain. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of someone else’s mouth on yours, and outside of actual sex, it’s one of the most enthralling, not to mention intimate, exchanges you can have with another person.
While kissing can increase sexual tension, there is research that suggests that it can stimulate mirror neurons in the brain, which help us feel empathy and even lower our inhibitions. So while making out can make you feel—well, really horny—it can also make you feel relaxed enough to let your guard down with a partner, and less anxious overall. This is another reason why kissing is such an intensely bonding experience!
Even if you might not be able to exactly replicate the experience of kissing or touching someone for the first time, making out and letting things progress naturally can be so much fun, take you pretty close, and increase your sense of anticipation and pleasure during sex. So, if you've got a partner, make out with them tonight, and remind yourselves why you were so hot for each other in the first place ;-)
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