I’ve never really kissed a girl. Until this weekend, my roommates hadn’t either. Somehow my Friday night — aided by a lot of alcohol and a bar that reminded me of something I might encounter on Spring Break (mechanical bull and lap dance included) — turned into a contender for a “Girls Gone Wild” video, complete with girl-on-girl action. As I sat at brunch with my roommates the next morning, everyone shared their stories from the previous night (and some were reminded of stories they wish they had forgotten), and we took a quick tally of who’d kissed whom. While I had missed out on the action, most everyone else had played a serious game of tonsil hockey with one of her best friends. And I wasn’t quite sure if I was excited or devastated that I had missed out on the fun.
So what is this obsession everyone has with girls kissing girls, specifically heterosexual girls kissing other heterosexual girls? For lesbians, of course, there is a true attraction, and a kiss between women involves all that any kiss between two attracted individuals might. But what about my roommates, eight heterosexual best friends — most with boyfriends — who just decided to experiment for the sake of a fun night out?
Curiosity is a major factor. Like I said, most of these girls had never kissed another girl. Then, of course, there are television shows galore, most recently an episode of “The Real World,” where girls kiss all the time. On top of that, we were recently involved in a round of Truth or Dare where the answers to the question “which roommate would you most like to kiss?” drew significant attention.
This question would never come up with the heterosexual guys I know. For some reason, while female same-sex experimentation has become totally normal, heterosexual guys still feel it’s unacceptable to experiment, or even talk about it, for fear of what it might imply. But the fact that in our game the “who in the house would you kiss?” question came up multiple times means that it is clearly something girls think about.
Eventually curiosity is going to get the better of us …
However, curiosity alone is not usually enough to get the girls I know to kiss each other. On a night of sober boredom, no one has ever said, “I have no plans tonight, and I’ve been wondering what it would be like to kiss a girl. Wanna make out?” No, it happens when inhibitions are low and guys will be around to witness the event.
As one of my roommates said about another, “She tried to get me to kiss her in a dark corner, but what’s the point of that? The whole point is for people to see.” Half the reason that girls, especially when drunk, think it would be fun to kiss is the shock factor. It’s unexpected and, according to most guys, pretty hot. I assume that’s because while one girl is hot, two girls are hotter.
And of course, we’re all best friends, and we love each other. What better way to show that then with a big fat smooch?
Medill senior and PLAY sex columnist Rachel Bertsche went to an all-girls summer camp. She can be reached at [email protected].