Shut up and Kiss me!

(Warning:  Mild Adult Themes Below)

Lady Peter shared this article with me: (Link).  It's about kissing and specifically how it has apparently graduated from a delightful pasttime to a "nominal gateway gesture to sex".  Lady Peter lamented on whether or not this was perhaps true for fanfic as well and thought that it would be a good discussion topic for this blog and perhaps a worthy challenge for us writers.

I'll start off the discussion by saying the reason that I have such a hard time ironing out in my mind what exactly happened on the trip to Bespin is because I just can't imagine that two consenting adults could be holed up in a small space whilst doing a whole lotta kissing without it going further to its inevitable end.  Lady Peter's thought-provoking comments had me wondering if I had become overtly easy (and perhaps slutty) in my old age...

Looking back I can recall countless hours of enjoyable kissing that I partook in (is partook a word?) back in the day and it did not lead to SEX.  If it had, I think I would've been a slut.  I can remember that it was enjoyable and how the faint hint of what it was a prelude to unfurled deliciously inside of you the more you dabbled in its practice.  I mean, your body does start to warm up and prepare itself for what it knows should be following this act even before you might entirely grasp the purpose of each muscle movement, body shudder or liquid heat might mean exactly. 

But you can stop, it can be done - I've done it.  But I find a hard time writing it.  I can't say I had thought much of it before Lady Peter brought this to my attention, but it's true.  I don't usually write a whole lotta kissing until I know there's a bed, or a wall, or a counter nearby that's going to meet my characters in a very intimate way.  Is my poor Leia just a big slut?  By the gods, I don't think of her that way!  [Crosses her arms and furrows her brow.]  What have I done to my favorite character without even realizing I was doing it?

So that got me thinking about AGE.  You see, I haven't dated in a very, very long time.  And all that kissing that I did that ended up nowhere, well we also had nowhere to go unless you were to resort to backseats and such, so there was a logistics factor there among everything else.  I have no concept of what happens when adults date, when you have actual apartments or homes or hotel rooms that are easily available to you.  When you have already experienced all that intimacy and already look forward to the encore performance (just a new season with different players).  I have to assume that everything is perhaps...accelerated?  But two dating adults should be able to end an evening groping on a sofa without falling into bed, right?

This led me to the issue or topic of time and friendship.  My Han and Leia (and most everyone else's) have usually been friends for years before their first deep kiss turns into: "Oops, I can't find my panties" the next morning.  I mean the UST buildup/storyline is the largest staple of fanfic around, right?  Is it wrong that by the time they finally find their tongues in each other's mouths they aren't content in stopping there with the bodily insertions?  [She shrugs her shoulders.]  Nope, nothing wrong with that.  And that's why my Han and Leia can't have groped around the curved banquette of the Falcon's lounge for three months on the way to Bespin and NOT have slept together.  Right or wrong, that's where I sit.  So either the trip was short or they back pedaled from that kiss in the circuitry bay.  Either way, that's that.  No huggy, no kissy, 'til you take me to bed...  :-)

So, discussion and CHALLENGE time.  What do you guys think about kissing and the role it plays in relationships and in particular fanfic stories?  Can we write some steamy, sloppy, tongue-battling make out sessions and end them (believably) without going the distance?  I know there is always the C-3PO interruption and I won't not consider that as a fair submission, but what about with no interruptions?  I imagine something like that happening on Bespin and I might try to write it for this challenge. (Feel free to do the same)  I could see them (i.e., that cut scene) making out a little there but not going all the way (assuming they hadn't gone all the way on the way to Bespin - which [see comments above] I do assume).

Thoughts???