[Opinion. I’ve kissed dates I’ve known for fifteen minutes (maybe less!). If anything else happens to happen, I’m up for it (hehe). But a long, involved, passionate snogging session, maybe with a breast grab or cop a  feel is…wonderful! What are those comfortable seats in the movies for anyway? Dontcha know when there’s consent? Ya want a lawyer & notary?!? Pretty sad…]

I’ve been on plenty of dates – but nothing happened’: are we looking at the death of the kiss?

Call it a crisis, call it a decline, call it a recession: the long, lusty snog is in trouble, harder to experience in real life or even watch on screen. But why? And what’s it like to think you may never lock lips with another?

Elle Hunt

The Guardian: 13 Aug 2026

SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/aug/13/death-of-the-kiss-dating

Spencer’s last kiss was two years ago, on a first date. It started off promisingly: after matching on Tinder, they met for a walk, then got drinks and ice-cream, before having dinner at her place. Finally, they kissed. “I didn’t like it,” says Spencer. He still struggles to identify why. “I found her attractive. There was chemistry, but something was lacking. There was nothing behind the kiss – it felt like a mechanical thing to do.”

That wasn’t just Spencer’s most recent kiss – it was his first ever, at the age of 29. Now 31, he says a second kiss in some ways feels less possible than having sex: “The jump feels way bigger.”

We are living through a crisis of intimacy: more people are reportedly single and having less sex. But behind those headlines there is a smaller but no less significant finding: we may also be in a kissing recession. In a recent YouGov survey, commissioned by oral care brand Waken, more than a third of British adults reported kissing romantically less often than they did five years ago. Nearly one in five hadn’t been kissed in more than a year, while 27% believed kissing is becoming less common.

For gen Z in particular, self-consciousness may be a factor. The Waken survey found that those aged 18 to 24 fretted about the “right moment” for a kiss, and whether they might be bad at it. A third said they had avoided a kiss because they lacked confidence. This tallies with research consistently showing that young people today are more risk-averse than those in the past, abstaining not just from sex but also from alcohol and drugs.

Though more pronounced in gen Z, this risk aversion – linked to less time spent face-to-face with friends – goes broader. “People are not talking to strangers, or asking each other on dates,” says Sarah Stein Lubrano, a social theorist who is writing a book about this “social atrophy”. Kissing is a telling example, because it makes use of skills such as reading facial expressions, body language and subtle social cues that may be getting rusty with our dependence on tech. Its reported decline should concern us all, Lubrano says, “not because everyone needs to be in romantic relationships, but because overall it means less social connection, less commitment, less belonging”.

In these pornified times, first base scarcely registers. A 2022 study found that kissing was “significantly less prevalent” in male-female pornographic videos than in the typical experiences of American adults. Even romantic comedies might foreground sex over the “snog on the couch” leading up to it, Barclay points out. And while kissing may be glossed over publicly, privately the issue has become more fraught, with the #MeToo movement raising awareness of the importance of consent. Though a positive shift, this adds another layer of complexity and raises the stakes of misjudging the moment. “Now it can be, and is, seen as a harm,” Barclay says.

Well, looks like the feminists and Zuckerberg killed romance.

I tried to kiss my Thai gf this morning and she slapped me right in the face. It's not just the Brits.

4 minutes ago, Cameroni said:

Well, looks like the feminists and Zuckerberg killed romance.

I tried to kiss my Thai gf this morning and she slapped me right in the face. It's not just the Brits.

Did you sign the consent form first? Maybe it was foreplay.

1 minute ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Did you sign the consent form first? Maybe it was foreplay.

No, she was bitching about leaving the kitchen too messy after cooking, so I thought a paradigm break would diffuse it, grabbed her and proceeded to snog her, but she slapped me right in the face.

1 minute ago, Cameroni said:

No, she was bitching about leaving the kitchen too messy after cooking, so I thought a paradigm break would diffuse it, grabbed her and proceeded to snog her, but she slapped me right in the face.

Been eating cheese again ?

1 minute ago, Hummin said:

Been eating cheese again ?

No, I just got up. What kind of world do we live in when you can't even kiss your gf first in the morning? And she brutally slaps you in the face.

Thankfully I have such good self control.

5 minutes ago, Cameroni said:

No, I just got up. What kind of world do we live in when you can't even kiss your gf first in the morning? And she brutally slaps you in the face.

Thankfully I have such good self control.

And you complain about it here? If my girlfriend slapped me, or I slapped her, it would be over. Simple as that!

2 minutes ago, Hummin said:

And you complain about it here? If my girlfriend slapped me, or I slapped her, it would be over. Simple as that!

I kind of like her feisty nature.

6 minutes ago, Cameroni said:

I kind of like her feisty nature.

Good luck with that !

4 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Good luck with that !

Exactly. That's just the beginning. My ex was sweeping the floor in her mom's house one day, a little while before the house was built, and was mad at her mom, as she usually is. I went over to her and tried to give her a hug and she slapped me, then walked into the kitchen and got a knife and tried to come at me.

Her sister intervened and I went to the bedroom. Ten minutes later she came into the room and said I'm sorry. which was only one of two times she ever did. If it wasn't for my daughter I would have left then.

That wasn't the beginning of her violence, and not the end either. When children are beaten in childhood, they take their pent up anger out on others in adulthood, as well as their children, which she also did. She told me her dad hit them all the time, and I saw her mom's anger many times.

5 minutes ago, fredwiggy said:

Exactly. That's just the beginning. My ex was sweeping the floor in her mom's house one day, a little while before the house was built, and was mad at her mom, as she usually is. I went over to her and tried to give her a hug and she slapped me, then walked into the kitchen and got a knife and tried to come at me.

Her sister intervened and I went to the bedroom. Ten minutes later she came into the room and said I'm sorry. which was only one of two times she ever did. If it wasn't for my daughter I would have left then.

That wasn't the beginning of her violence, and not the end either. When children are beaten in childhood, they take their pent up anger out on others in adulthood, as well as their children, which she also did. She told me her dad hit them all the time, and I saw her mom's anger many times.

Time to move on, Fred. You cannot stay in the past and talk about it here every day.

2 minutes ago, Hummin said:

Time to move on, Fred. You cannot stay in the past and talk about it here every day.

I have moved on, and the final detail will be when we move away. Just commenting back on what Cameroni said, where you replied. Their violence doesn't end, and likely gets worse.

Maybe I grabbed her too roughly?

40 minutes ago, Hummin said:

And you complain about it here? If my girlfriend slapped me, or I slapped her, it would be over. Simple as that!

You should try a spinner for the next marriage. The fun never ends

1 hour ago, Hummin said:

And you complain about it here? If my girlfriend slapped me, or I slapped her, it would be over. Simple as

1 hour ago, Cameroni said:

No, I just got up. What kind of world do we live in when you can't even kiss your gf first in the morning? And she brutally slaps you in the face.

Thankfully I have such good self control.

She would be out the door in a minute! No second chances!

A man should never put up with that!

About the kissing thing,also dancing seems to be a thing of the past.

The problem is whatever you do these days there is a camera recording it.

Young people are much more aware of that danger than older people.

I like kissing but if i had to kiss a fish face like most of the girls have now,no thanks.