I don’t know about you, but locking lips is one of my favorite activities. In and of itself, kissing is a hella lotta fun. It doesn’t hurt that it’s gateway sex either. Before, during, after, in the morning, noon, and night, I can spend hours kissing the right guy. On the other hand, finding some hot stud who makes you drip only to discover he kisses like a lesbian totally sucks. And you can only hope he will be better at that. If you let it get that far. For me a guy who doesn’t know how to kiss is a deal breaker. And that can be problematic when you spend lots of your time hitting on the boys in Thailand. Kissing, for Thais, is a foreign language. And most are about as proficient at it as they are at speaking English.

It’s not like kissing is some unheard of accomplishment or difficult to do right. Hell, bonobos run through the jungle kissing every ape in sight. They do it to make up after a fight, to comfort each other, to develop social bonds, and sometimes for no reason at all. Since they are below us on the evolutionary ladder, how is it that our simian cousins manage to get it right while Thais, many of whom make their living puckering up, can’t seem to master this basic skill?

The good news is even Thai bar boys are trainable. You can teach them to kiss and to kiss well. The bad news is the hottie you scored at the bar may have already been instructed on how to kiss. If so, you are going to miss out on one of the sweetest kisses you’d have ever had the opportunity to experience.

Kissing – the meeting of lips, tongues, and possibly a bit of nibbling – according to some philematologists is a learned behavior. Going back to the days of our early human ancestors, mothers chewed food and passed it from their mouths into those of their toothless infants. Even after babies cut their teeth, mothers would continue to press their lips against their toddlers’ cheeks to comfort them. And while that is a good argument it fails to account for how and when we learned that while spit is good, tonguing a load of masticated food into your lover’s mouth is not generally considered good form. Or very romantic.

Other scientists who make a living out of studying kissing claim it’s an instinctive behavior, and cite many animal species’ well documented kissing-like behaviors. They often point to the randy bonobo as well as other less sex-addicted primates as proof. And that too is a good argument except it fails to explain why then we don’t also pick off and eat the lice from our loved one’s bodies. Though to some that might sound romantic.

While the two camps don’t seem able to agree on whether kissing is a learned or instinctive behavior, they do agree on the reason why we kiss. Or at least the biology behind the act. And it all has to do with smells: pheromones to be exact. With our faces are close together, we can sniff out a quality mate. Women, for example, subconsciously prefer the scent of men whose genes for certain immune system proteins are different from their own. This kind of match could yield offspring with stronger immune systems, and better chances for survival. Not very romantic, but then breeders seldom are.

Regardless, the fact is kissing is a biological form of communication. We use our sense of smell to zero in on those who best match our biological needs. Personally, I would have gone with taste – it’d be a lot more fun – but then the gods didn’t bother to consult me on that one. From a biological standpoint, Westerners veered off course with their form of kissing – possibly feeling as I that taste sounded better than smell – and a large segment of the Asian world got it right. It’s not about the lips and tongue, it’s about the nose. In Thailand it’s called haawm kaem, or the sniff kiss.

Sniff Kissing is the norm in Thailand as well as in much of Asia. It’s also practiced by the Maori in New Zealand, and still to some degree in Hawaii where it is known as honi. The Eskimos are into sniffing too and do not, as is popularily believed, rub noses but actually sniff cheeks. Hollywood would have us believe that the world locks lips when the love bug strikes but it may be that more people show affection by sniff kissing than they do with a meeting of lips.

As with the Westerner form of kissing, there are a million variations on the sniff kiss. But basically it is leaning into your loved one, putting your nose close to their head, hair, neck, or shoulder, and then taking a whiff. Some take one big long sniff, others a series of small, gentle sniffs. Of course if you have not been paying attention to your personal hygiene routine it’s doubtful anyone will ever sniff kiss you. They got your scent when you walked into the room.

As simple as it is, the sniff kiss is one of the most erotic gestures known to man. It’s an intimate act that speaks volumes of your partner’s desires. One little sniff kiss can make your knees go weak, your body tremble, your mind go blank, and your sense soar. And I have to wonder how many farang have been the recipient of a sniff kiss and not even realized it. TAT is really falling down on their job.

I was introduced to thee sniff kiss by a hottie in Hawaii decades ago. It was a routine part of his repetoir, but knowing how dense haoles can be he took the time to explain. I didn’t know Thais sniff kissed until a bar boy did it one night just after we’d hopped into bed and begun enjoying ourselves. And that small inhalation had a greater impact on me and on our continued relationship over the next several years than if he’d planted a big wet one on me instead. But then he was still new to the business, still new to the way of farang, and was only doing what he knew best.

Years later, after he’d mastered the art of kissing with his mouth and had abandoned the kissing he’d known in his youth, I returned the favor one night. He giggled and his face broke out into an infectious grin that worked its way from one ear to the other. He’d become adept at kissing with his mouth, but that was work, that was what his farang customers wanted, and that wasn’t what his soul considered an intimate act. Having a farang sniff kiss him was unheard of, and it transported us to a higher level of intimacy.

Being on the receiving end of a sniff kiss and what it implies is pure heaven. Deeply inhaling the tantalizing smell and pheromones of the one who is the object of your desire ain’t bad either. The delight it will stir within your boy du jour is a happy bonus. And if you are lucky enough to find you’ve just been sniff kissed one night, things will probably never be the same again.

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