Girls Kissing Each Other

[moderatorII]

With not a little trepidation, we venture into a murky, confusing place, a place of cliches and contradictions, decorated with crushed Bud Light cans, lacy red teddies and a sweet, lingering scent left behind by the Swedish Bikini Team. In the name of universal understanding, we enter into the dark realm of heterosexual male fantasy to confront an issue that cannot be ignored any longer:

WHY ARE GUYS so crazy about watching girls kiss each other?
We are talking here about kisses between ultra-feminine, straight-looking girls, usually with the help of alcohol and an audience, and often as a prelude to other, more naked activities. The girl-on-girl kiss is the stuff of spring breaks and frat parties, of late-night dating shows and reality television and, most recently, of the MTV Video Music Awards, in which a predatory Madonna seized one tender, coquettish Britney Spears and -- in a brief, oddly mechanical gesture -- proceeded to rock men's worlds.

What does it mean? Some of our efforts to understand this fascinating sociological phenomenon make plain that -- like the paintings of Pollock and the poetry of Pound -- many things worth knowing are not easily parsed. We ask Mo Rocca, a roving pop culture satirist on several cable television shows, how men explain this fantasy of theirs.

"You'll hear responses of 'Oh man!' to 'Damn, that's hot,' " Rocca says. "So there's a whole range of analyses."

We try another pop culture critic, a woman named Susie Watson, who waxes a little about taboos, and then starts laughing. She says, "My husband's over here rubbing his hands together like, 'Oh, yeah.' "

We ask to speak to the guy who's rubbing his hands. His name is Henry Godbout.

"A woman is great and two women would be even better," Godbout says. "Y'know, it's just a volume thing. And then if you have three or four women, it would be a party."

A party?

"It's pretty much Porno 101," Godbout says. "Not that I ever look at it."

Oh, yeah, a "party." This is a popular theme, as we will discover later when we ask a few experts on male fantasies who happen to be drinking beer at a bar in Adams Morgan. But before we get to that, let's define our terms.

We are not talking about the mainstreaming of gays into popular culture, or the lesbian chic of the early '90s, or even gay experimentation among young women in college dorm rooms. We are talking about girls kissing girls for the sake of male titillation, with any enjoyment on the part of the participants being wholly subsidiary. We are talking less about the movie "Kissing Jessica Stein," in which a straight woman sincerely experiments with lesbianism, and more about the MTV flick "The Real Cancun," in which kissing other girls is what girls on spring break do while wearing bikinis and drinking in front of cameras.

We are talking about dating shows, in which one girl kisses another girl in hopes that the guy will think her provocative, and we're talking about all those kisses between all those braless, shirt-raising girls in the "Girls Gone Wild" videos. We're talking about the young Russian singing duo Tatu, whose greatest claim to fame is their willingness to go at each other in any public venue. We're talking about the recent rumors in the New York Post about socialite Paris Hilton, who was supposedly seen kissing a woman, and then supposedly not. According to the newspaper, her mother blamed club promoters for trying to hitch Hilton onto the Britney-Madonna kissing wagon.

Whatever the case, rumors of a lesbian dalliance make Hilton seem more -- not less -- accessible to guys. This is one of the central contradictions of the fantasy, and it requires experts to explain. So we approach three young guys, friends since their recent undergraduate years at Georgetown, at the corner of the bar in Tom Tom, and ask them if girls have ever kissed each other in front of them, for show. They say they've each seen it over and over. ("Girls kiss all the time," says Raj Mohan, 22, a neuroscience researcher.) We ask what their reaction typically is.

"You're thinking, I can jump in and get in the threesome," says Greg Goldberg, 23, now a law student at George Mason. Of course! The fantasy is so powerful, says Goldberg, that "if you ever go on spring break and see a wet T-shirt contest . . . whatever two girls go up there and do the most lesbian activities are most likely to win."

We call Goldberg back later to ask if his fantasy has ever come true.

He hesitates. Um, no.

The odd thing about the girl-on-girl kiss is, it seems to be less threatening to men than a guy-girl kiss. The way guys think about it, if the girl is essentially straight, then she isn't "taken" yet; she's just getting warmed up. And they don't have to watch another man in an erotic situation, which could make them feel somehow icky. But there's another element here, and it has to do with the male fascination with female sexuality as a mysterious terrain with fluid boundaries. "Enigmatic," is how Goldberg terms it. Maybe it's that tired old madonna-whore notion, in which women are seen alternately as prim and as so libidinous they can't help but seizing whoever's next to them, man or woman. Just maybe, if they could lose their inhibitions, wild things would happen.

"I think a wise man once told me that no woman is more than five beers away from being a lesbian," Goldberg says.

And then there's another element. Guys love the idea of the performance just for them. There's an element of submission to it, maybe. We'll call it the stripper factor.

"They want to entertain you," says Graham Brock, 23, who works in real estate. "I think that's where guys get off, is girls doing something that's actually beyond their nature to entertain them."

On this particular night, the women we ask are uniformly disgusted by the prospect of kissing another girl in public. They think it's a trashy ploy for attention. They think it's pathetic.

"Not to sound like a big bitch, but I feel like our friends are slightly more classy than that," says one young law student with a group of her girlfriends.

But somewhere, on stages lined with high-heeled legs and wet-clad chests, girls are lining up to kiss each other, and crowds of men are readying themselves to cheer. And maybe the girls are thinking about Madonna and Britney (and Christina Aguilera, who also shared a girl-kiss at the MTV awards) and thinking this could be their ticket to . . . something.

And meanwhile, Joe Francis, the creator of "Girls Gone Wild," the video series that makes bundles off the average girl's exhibitionism, is doubtless rubbing his hands.

He prefers to film girls kiss girls as opposed to kissing guys. "There's something just much more pure about it."

And it all works out, he adds, because girls just like to kiss each other.

"I know very few girls that haven't made out with one of their friends," Francis says.

His spokesman, Bill Horn, who's also on the phone, jumps in.

"You should make out with girls!" he suggests gleefully to us.

"C'mon, you've never been curious?" Francis says, like he's the wolf to our Little Red Riding Hood. "When you were 22 or 20?"

"She's interviewing you," Horn reminds Francis.

"But I'm saying, c'mon," Francis says, sounding more and more like a man whose world is a constant string of topless 20-year-olds with roving tongues. Which is what he is. Which is every man's fantasy, after all. "Girls get curious," he says.


Source: The Washington Post Company

[Marselluss]

in one way I find it also very erotic, but on the other hand I have to disagree with the article that men don't feel threatened by it.
I mean if I knew it was just for entertainment then it's ok, but my persona view is that I also see the girl as competition and even as more difficult than a guy.

[mike]

I've never understood why so many guys are crazy about it. 2 girls naked together, ok, most guys dream of joining in a making it a 3-some even if the girls are supposed to be lesbians.... but just kissing?

[Marselluss]

---but just kissing?---

it's like the "lite" version, or who sais they aren't to be naked together later? you have to start somewhere.

[hanksnow]

It's all about Marketing.

Why do guys like big boobs? Well, boobs are a good thing when you're little, a desirable thing when you get older and start dating, BAM!!!- cut to Madison Avenue- huge ones are even better! (Hugh Hefner made a fortune with that one). Now ever half-baked actress in Hollywood has a big set of new boobies.

It seems like the latest fad is all things gay. America's biggest hit show last year was Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Lesbianism is implied everywhere now in the fashion and advertising world.

Hey, I'm not complaining. I'm brainwashed too! I think a part of it is the thought that if those two hot girls would do that, kiss each other, they'll probably do it with me!

[archer]

heaps of men are crazy bout it, cos they're attracted to women and being able to c '2' women get with each other both of which maybe attractive can be a source of stimulation. men are heaps visual creatures, and most of hte time u get with a chick u dont really get to see much, that's why its such a turn on wen you see yourself making love, or making love with a mirror and add that with having 2 women putting on a show for you where u can just sit back and watch or get involved later and that's where i think why u get men going crazy over 2 girls kissing and the likelihood of where it could end up.

personally i dont c wats wrong with it, and im not bothered by it.

[Marselluss]

yeah whereas two men kissing is offensive to some...

[oberon]

I think one of the best lines I've heard on this topic is "Straight men are disgusted by the idea of two men having sex, but are incredibly turned on by two women who have figured out that a man is totally unnecessary."

[Greendale]

Aw man, it's a big time turn on when men see 2 women kiss each other.

If men seriously find 2 women kissing each other disgusting, then they have serious issues.

[Magic Mushroom]

I find it sexy when two hot women kiss delicately and sensually...This is not always the case.