Let’s be honest. “Have I kissed too many guys?” is not a question that mature, sexually active women are likely to be asking Google. They have other things to worry about, like the pay gap, thrush and whether or not to do an engagement ring selfie (my advice: don’t bother – if you stare at your own hand on a screen for long enough it starts to look like a weird autonomous fleshy claw and you will become too disturbed to upload it).
That is not to say that the problems of mature women are worse or more worthy of attention than those of their juniors. Being a young woman can be brilliant, but it can also feel hideously embarrassing.
Even without a cursory look at the search results, the anxiety and self-doubt inherent in this question reveal much about the demographic of the asker. It is clearly someone who is highly concerned with their peers’ perception of them, who is worried they are not doing this “growing up” thing quite right. In this strange, pubescent world of uncertainty, what the inquirer wants is a black-and-white answer she can rely on. Something like, “By the age of 18, you should have kissed no more than 36 boys” (figure courtesy of Yahoo! answers). Alas, this is not a service I can provide. But I do know what it is like to be overly anxious about this stuff.
It’s fairly obvious that, because of the way gender roles are assigned in our society, this question mostly pertains to teenage girls who are worrying about what constitutes an “acceptable” (read: non-slutty) number of boys to have kissed, so the remainder of this column is addressed to you, teenage girls of the world.
You’re worried you’ve swapped saliva with too many boys? I understand your concern. At my school people treated French kissing like an Olympic sport. There were actual competitions to see who could make out with the most guys in one night (you wouldn’t know it from watching her charge around hospitals delivering babies these days, but my friend Sally once won a Snickers for her record-breaking effort of 15). When there were rumours that a kiss was going to happen, audiences would congregate outside the geography block to cheer the participants. Your reputation as a good (or bad) kisser determined how tolerable your school days were. Glandular fever was a badge of honour.
Perhaps you were involved in one of these competitions, or perhaps you’ve just spent one too many afternoons behind the canteen with half of Set 4 maths. Whatever, you’re worried you’ve overdone it a bit. Perhaps people are starting to talk. You’re getting what your grandma might call “a reputation”. Everyone knows that being a teenage girl is like walking a tightrope between “frigid” and “slut”. You’re worried that you might be a slut. You are not a slut.
You know that bit in Mean Girls where Tina Fey says that girls need to stop calling each other sluts and whores because it just makes it OK for guys to call you sluts and whores? Actually, maybe you don’t because I’ve just realised that Mean Girls is over a decade old and I need to go and see about my pension. Anyway, the point stands: you must not call yourself a slut, and you must not call other girls a slut. Also, you must watch Mean Girls.
The number of guys you have kissed does not matter. I can guarantee that while half your class are worrying that they may have been too loose with their lips, the other half are worried that they haven’t kissed anyone and are about to be sent to an ugly home. That is the joy of being a teenager.
No, what actually matters is why you are kissing so many guys. Are you kissing them because it’s fun and sexy and you like it? If so, cool – keep it up. A girl has to get her kicks when shoplifting and low-level psychological bullying become boring.
However, if you are kissing them because you have low self-esteem and want to feel better about yourself, or because you feel under pressure, or because you want to make someone else jealous, then maybe it’s better for your own sake (and theirs) that you have a rethink.
Your teenage years are a strange time in your life, and while kissing someone might feel big now, by the time you get a few years down the line most kisses will barely feature on your list of formative experiences. Sex – the next big frontier – probably feels like it is (or will be) life-changing, but there will come a time where you may even forget the names of boys you’ve done that with. A person with whom you have shared your body might become but a niggling feeling, a vague, persistent nagging in your mind that you’re forgetting someone, until you wake, bolt upright, in the middle of the night six months later and say simply: “Ian.”
What I’m saying is, basically, this stuff is not as big a deal as you think it is. Engage in as much physical intimacy as you like with partners of either gender, provided you consent, provided you are safe, providing you are balanced, and providing you aren’t hurting anyone. For that you need never apologise and never feel guilty. There are people who will try to judge you for how you choose to deploy your body and who will continue to do so as you age, but in my experience 99.9% of the sad people who feel they have something vital to say about any given young woman’s sexual habits are not worth listening to.
So basically, kiss who the hell you want, with a few caveats, which I will leave you for future reference. It is generally not a good idea to kiss any of the following: ex-boyfriends; the ex-boyfriends of friends; the current boyfriends of friends; boys your friends have really liked for ages; your A-level history teacher; your friend’s dad; your friend’s older brother who is home from university for the weekend and sees you as a piece of fresh young meat; your work colleagues; your best male friend who you only view platonically – but hell, you’re drunk and feel lonely; anyone with a cold sore because, let’s be honest, that is basically herpes; your boss; your university lecturer; guys in the second year who use the term “bantz” non-ironically and think it’s funny to hump items of furniture; guys who think rape jokes are hilarious; other people’s husbands; and possibly Conservatives (on your own head be it). Everyone else is pretty much fair game.
