Decoder Ring: A Brief History of Making Out

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4 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 July 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kissing—the romantic, sexual, steamy kind—is so ingrained in us that it just seems like a fact of life. Like breathing or eating, we just do it. But what if it’s not like that at all? In this episode, we’re going to look at passionate kissing, well, dispassionately, not as something instinctual and innate but as a cultural practice. We’re going to backtrack through history in search of the origins of the kiss, with some surprises along the way. This episode was written by Willa Paskin, who produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd. This episode was edited by Andrea Bruce and Joel Meyer. Derek John is Slate’s executive producer of narrative podcasts. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director. Thank you to Marcel Danesi. If you’re interested in the papers we mentioned, you can read about Justin Garcia and William Jankowiak’s research, Troels Pank Arbøll and Sophie Lund Rasmussen’s essay, Sabrina Imbler’s When Was the First Sexy Kiss? and the herpes study. (Here’s that bronze-age statue, too!) If you haven’t yet, please subscribe and rate our feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And even better, tell your friends. If you’re a fan of the show and want to support us, consider signing up for Slate Plus. As a member, you’ll get to listen to Decoder Ring without any ads—and your support is crucial to our work. Go to slate.com/decoderplus to join Slate Plus today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Whether it's a balmy day on the beach or a vibrant night in the city, elevate your indulges with the new Magnum Sonlover.
0:11.0	With thick white chocolate and velvety coconut ice cream for the day and the new Magnum Star Chaser.
0:20.0	With cracking chocolate and popcorn flavor for the night.
0:26.0	Pleasure is always on. Magnum, true to pleasure.
0:36.0	When Shayna Roth was in 10th grade, she set her mind to something.
0:40.0	I was like very determined to get kissed soon.
0:43.0	This was in Michigan in the mid-2000s, but the thing driving Shayna's determination was 1980s teen movies.
0:50.0	I wanted that like John Hughes, you know, nerdy girl gets good kind of a romance.
0:57.0	Maybe I saw 16 candles too often.
1:00.0	16 candles was written and directed by John Hughes and it ends with Molly Ringwald's character Samantha.
1:06.0	Sitting cross-legged in front of her birthday cake, across from her crush, the dreamy Jake Ryan.
1:13.0	Happy birthday, Samantha.
1:16.0	As the music swells.
1:18.0	Good question.
1:20.0	We leaned towards one another.
1:22.0	And I already came true.
1:25.0	The candles illuminating them from the teeth and the kiss for the very first time.
1:32.0	I just was constantly thinking of how to make something worthy of a scene in a movie in my life.
1:41.0	So when Ben, a smart boy in her class with a lot of floppy brown hair, asked her out, it was game on.
1:47.0	This guy's going to kiss me. He doesn't know it yet, but this is going to happen for me.
1:50.0	For the date, Ben's dad dropped them off at the mall to see Miracle, a movie about the unexpected triumph of the 1980 US men's Olympic hockey team.
1:59.0	What are you playing for?
	...

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