Tongue

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Tongue

The tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body for its size. It is used in open-mouthed kissing, in which one person places the tongue in the mouth of another. The level of penetration indicates the level of sexual intensity of the kiss. Tongue kissing is also called deep kissing or French kissing. Some cultures, such as those of the South Pacific, consider kissing in general and deep kissing in particular to be European practices.

When sex researcher Alfred Kinsey (1894–1956) surveyed male sexual behavior in the United States in the 1940s, he noted that French kissing was more common among upper-class men than among men of the lower-classes, and that it was not uncommon for upper-class men to have French-kissed many women but not necessarily have had sex with them; while lower-class men might have had sex with many women but kissed relatively few of them. Kinsey attributed this to a fear of germs and disease among lower-class men. French kissing and the use of the tongue in sexual behavior was more widespread after the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and in the early twenty-first century intimate encounters commonly include French kissing. Prostitutes, however, often refuse to kiss customers during transactional sex, reserving French kissing for the emotional intimacy of other and more genuine relationships.

Other kinds of tongue kissing include French-kissing the ear, and licking and biting the throat and shoulders. If the ear becomes too wet from saliva, people often find the kiss to be annoying rather than erotic, and sometimes refer to it as a wet willy.

People also kiss and lick other parts of the bodies of their sex partners. Kinsey found that it was common for men to kiss and lick female breasts; conversely he found that women seldom kissed or licked male breasts. As with French kissing, he found the highest incidence of tongue contact with breasts to be among men from the upper social, educational, and economic levels of U. S. society. In the early twenty-first century women do not kiss the male breast with anything approaching the frequency of male attention to the female breast and nipple, although this behavior is increasing as more couples explore a wider range of sexual activity.

Gay men lick and suck their partners' nipples with much greater frequency than women do their male partners; lesbians also engage in this practice. Body piercing, especially nipple and genital piercing, visually accentuates these regions and makes them more sensitive to biting, licking, and tugging, and encourages oral activity. Tongue jewelry gives the wearer the ability to massage larger areas of the body, creating a more pleasurable sensation for both men and women during oral sex and promoting more licking and kissing behaviors.

The tongue is vital during oral sex, where people caress and stimulate the genitals of their partners. During fellatio, stimulating the penis by licking the shaft, head, and scrotum is considered as important as sucking or stroking. During cunnilingus, the tongue stimulates the clitoris and labia, and may also penetrate the vagina. The tongue is central to the practice of rimming, in which one person uses the tongue to lick and penetrate the anus of another.

Indeed the tongue is so central to kissing and to all types of sexual behavior that many people consider it to be a symbol of lasciviousness more generally. In Ladies Almanack (1928) by Djuna Barnes, a renowned lesbian named Dame Musset dies and is cremated, but her tongue remains both present and active, signifying that her sexual prowess is immortal. In the 1960s Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones often stuck his tongue out and simulated the rapid movements of cunnilingus during concerts—an act considered shocking at the time. In 1971 the Rolling Stones used the cartoon logo of a pair of lips and protruding tongue on their Sticky Fingers album to suggest the sex part of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and the tongue image has been associated with the band ever since. Gene Simmons of Kiss—a 1970s rock band—was famous for the bizarre impression he created by sticking his unusually long tongue out of his mouth and waggling it suggestively at audience members while wearing full kabuki-style face makeup. In the early twenty-first century, wagging one's tongue, or sticking it out of the mouth and moving it quickly back and forth, is generally understood to signify cunnilingus, and is therefore considered a lewd and comic gesture.

see also Kiss, Modern; Oral Sex.