The next morning my lips felt slightly swollen. It was quite pleasant in a sub-Angelina, cheaper-than-collagen way. As I sauntered in the door at eleven o’clock, my friend Sarah narrowed her eyes and gave me the once-over.

“What’s wrong with your chin?”
Oh oh! With a sinking feeling I looked in the mirror. My chin was sporting a lovely red patch about the size of a euro and as subtle as a traffic light. Hello, beard rash, my old friend.
Sarah observed my chin, the fact that I was still wearing last night’s outfit and the sheepish look on my face; bright girl that she is, she put two and two together. “Good night, was it?” she smirked.
God I love kissing, I really do, but frankly, I’m probably a bit old (ahem, I mean mature) for territorial markings on my phisóg. Kissing is better than booze, drugs and on occasion even better than rock ‘n roll. Few things in life come close to it for sheer pleasure – the taste of another person, the smell of their hair, their breath on your neck, it’s a little adventure all on it’s own.
I have to confess that I rather miss the kissing marathons of my teenage years – sneaking out to sit in the park, watching the nights turn into day, and getting a bit spaced on hormones, lack of oxygen and, in the end, sheer exhaustion. Adults don’t do that – we just don’t have the time.
Spending hours in a lip lock with an attractive member of the opposite sex is not a very efficient way of getting your kicks. We have responsibilities and jobs and bills, and therefore most of us do the grown up thing – go home, have sex, and get to sleep at a reasonable hour. Thus, kissing becomes relegated to a mere amuse-bouche, a prelude to the main event, and one that we rarely take enough time to enjoy. Well, now that we all have more time on our hands – what’s the big rush?
We live in a world that prizes instant gratification. We want everything and we want it now, if not sooner. I’m as bad as the rest in this regard – getting impatient in queues, opening multiple tabs on the internet, getting annoyed with tardy friends and seething with barely concealed fury when my bus is late yet again. Not only that, but we’re always scheming to get something that we think we lack – a better job, true love, a slimmer waist, more money or more sex. We always want something, so it’s no wonder we spend a lot of time being unhappy.
The spiritual teacher Eckart Tolle talks about living in the now – being aware of each moment and enjoying it fully. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have plans or dreams for the future, but since you can only exist in the present you should really damn well live there, not in some mythical tomorrow where you think you’ll have it all.
So here’s the good news: impatience is generally a bad idea when it comes to sex. I’m not dissing quickies – quickies are lovely – but I am suggesting that we start to take enough time to enjoy what’s happening while it happens instead of always planning our next move.
As a nation Irish people are particularly prone to this. If you talk to someone you’re flirting with them; if you flirt with someone, you want to kiss them; if you kiss someone, you have to have sex with them; if you have sex with them more than once, you’re dating them; if you’re dating them, you have to get serious; and if you get serious, you have to bloody well marry them. Hey! Calm the fuck down, everyone!
A while ago I broke up with someone I’d been seeing for a few months. As we were having the big break-up talk he turned to me and said, “Well, it’s okay. I don’t want to marry you.” Hell, I didn’t want to marry him either, or anyone else for that matter, but the idea that he’d spent the last six months checking out my wifely potential really freaked me out. I thought it was a fling – sex, fun and conversation – not some sort of romantic obstacle course.
I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’ve noticed that men go through a weird phase somewhere between the ages of 27 and 37. Societal pressure begins to get to them. Either they start to worry about the future and begin trawling for a suitable woman with which to mingle hormones or they presume every woman around the same age is out to bag a husband.
Sexual relationships with these men are almost always reduced to two possible outcomes – a one-night stand or marriage. I’ve nothing against either of these things, but I prefer something somewhere in between, thanks all the same.
In my experience, in most other countries you can have varying levels of sexual or romantic involvement with people. Here, everyone seems to be over-analysing what their sexual partners want, what they want themselves – and whether or not the two are compatible. It’s bloody exhausting.
I don’t mean to carp – I like it when people want to have sex with me, I like it a lot, but I hate feeling hustled. One minute you’re talking to someone, the next minute they’re trying to drag you into a cab before even exchanging names. I don’t think this means I’m irresistible – sadly I’m not – the impression instead is that they’re desperate, and that’s a deeply unsexy quality in anyone. Perversely enough it’s the men who don’t try and shag me straight away that I want. Women! There’s just no pleasing us.
By the same token I don’t want to be hustled into relationships either. I have always thought that sex and relationships should happen in a kind of organic way. They should happen because that’s what two people want, not because you’re trying to make someone else fit your bill of needs and desires.
I think 2009 should be the year of the Slow Sex Movement. Back in the late ‘80s the Slow Food Movement was created to counteract fast food culture. At the time nobody seemed to care about the quality of their food anymore, or where it came from. It was all gobble, gobble, belch with extra fries please – a joyless, meaningless encounter under the golden arches.
The Slow Sex Movement would not be a return to the prim Catholic past. Definitely not that! Instead it would be a sex-positive movement with the rationale that you should savour sexual and romantic encounters, whatever their nature. Instead of rushing to the finish post, we should take time to enjoy the journey.
Whether you’re flirting, having sex, falling in love, slathering yourself in liquid latex or just spending the whole night kissing, we should enjoy each sexual encounter for what it is. Because you know what, they’re all pretty wonderful – even if you do end up with beard rash.