Michael Mastrandrea

Valentine’s Day came early Wednesday night, as author Michael Christian brought his lecture series “The Art of Kissing” to NKU.

This romantically spirited, funny presentation gave a welcome relief from the seriousness of current international affairs, and brought the Valentine’s Day spirit to NKU.

Christian used a combination of discussion and student demonstrations to teach the audience how to impress people with 30 different kinds of kisses from his various books, including the “upside-down kiss,” which involves kissing your partner while leaning over top of them from behind; the “lip-o-suction kiss,” involving the man and woman sucking on each other’s lips; and the ever popular, self-explanatory “French kiss.”

He even offered an anthropology lesson on the way people kiss in the South Pacific Trobriand Islands, which involves biting each others lower lips, sometimes causing bleeding, pulling hair and nibbling off one another’s eyebrows.

Student volunteers provided very informative, and even more entertaining demonstrations for some of the kisses presented by Christian. These demonstrations sometimes included scenarios, such as a female barber and her male customer kissing, a male dentist and his female patient kissing, and even the taboo kiss between a male professor and his female student after class.

Christian also went over some very helpful tips including what types of people most men and women prefer to kiss, where most men and women like being kissed most, how to tell where someone likes being kissed using the “sliding kiss,” and how to tell when someone wants to be kissed, pointing out that 90 percent of men he has surveyed don’t know when a woman wants him to kiss her.

So what do NKU students like when it comes to kissing? One female in the audience said she likes for a guy to ask before he attempts to kiss her. However, judging from the reaction from the rest of the females in the crowd, not many others feel the same way.

A male audience member said that he likes when a girl kisses the side of his neck, which according to Christian is unusual, pointing out that far more women like being kissed on the neck than guys.

Christian also talked about what people don’t like in a kiss. For example, he said most people don’t like a kiss to be too “sloppy” or for there to be too much sucking on their lips.

Also, he pointed out that most women he’s surveyed don’t like to kiss a man who hasn’t shaved recently, and that about 25 percent of men he’s surveyed don’t like kissing a woman wearing lipstick because of the way it feels.

According to the Web site for his books and lecture series, www.kissing.com, Christian “has been researching this topic ‘since a very early age.'”

“That’s like asking ‘how did you get interested in food,'” Christian said. “I have a romantic streak.”

Christian said he believes this information is extremely valuable for everyone. “Kissing,” he said, “is useful no matter what stage of a relationship you’re in.”

After writing the book The Art of Kissing, Christian said college RA’s asked him to come to their schools to talk about it.

“I suggested they get some people to demonstrate,” he said. “Thus the show was born.”