Elevator Kisses Analysis

I must say I *wasn’t* suprised by the amount of comments from friends and bloggers generated by the post Elevator Kisses.

Barenaked said, “Was caught before making out, kakahiya sobra, gusto kong maglaho sa planet earth!”
Heidee said, “I can’t believe you’d dare write about this!”
Kay said, “Ever thought of the elevator camera?”
Even my boyfriend made a reply in his own blog.

Oh, I knew there would be a stir. Positive, negative, neutral reactions. And maybe even hopeful ones.

Like me, liberal-minded people probably read that post, had a laugh, and later on forgot. If you think about it, elevator kissing isn’t controversial at all compared to the many local abortions, unwanted pregnancies, unprotected sex or sex scandals that we hear about (or is it gossip about?) everyday. An elevator kiss is just a stolen kiss, and most people, by the age of 20, have already experienced one.

The Philippines, however, isn’t quite the liberal country yet. Most of us are still personally traditional, brought up by our parents to be conservative, sexually or otherwise. We may be open to watching bikini-clad men on television and we may tolerate the increasing amount of access to magazines like FHM, but most of us (not including me!) still get uneasy (or worse, irritated) when we see a couple acting very sweetly (read: minor PDA) around us. In turn, we also feel ashamed of bodily expressing our feelings to our significant others.

For example, a friend of mine confided how she was so scared to be kissing her then-boyfriend in a semi-private cubicle in school that she kissed him with her eyes wide open, just in case. Nobody ever did catch them, but if somebody did, I am sure my friend would have felt humiliated. But what would the person catching them feel, I wonder? If it were me, I would say indifferent. But then again, I am one of the liberated few.

It irks me when people react so negatively and high-uppity when they hear of others kissing in public, or engaging in homosexual activities, or having been devirginized before marriage, or being a single parent, or having fetishes. For goodness’ sake, these things happen everyday, to normal people. It is so hypocritical to gossip about such things, especially when they are actually happening to your acquaintances, your friends, or even you. Furthermore, I believe that if such actions do not result in harm to others or law breaking, then they should be accepted quietly, and must not be a highlight of one’s amusement.

In these people’s defense, though, perhaps gossiping about sexual controversies is merely a defense mechanism, not actually an action intended to hurt. Perhaps all those years of repression have made people wary of others who can actually express their feelings. Perhaps talking about others’ experiences is a way of releasing their own pent-up emotions. In a way, they should receive my sympathies. It’s probably very stressful, having had a mindblowing orgasm, and not having anybody to share it with.

Fortunately though, the Philippines is slowly changing. People are beginning to be able to talk openly about sex and relationships, instead of clamming up and vehemently denying that they have wants and desires. A few years ago, I had only one friend who could talk to me about his sexcapades. Now, I have had more friends open up to me about their state of devirginity. I think that’s progress. And that’s healthy. No more stressful repressions.

Thus, I view the comments above as hopeful, in the sense that the people who posted them are open to communicating about such “racy” topics as elevator kisses. Perhaps they are just waiting for somebody to open up first, testing the waters, you may say, wanting to believe that it’s okay to want to kiss in an elevator, to want to talk about kissing in an elevator, to want to explore other scenarios, or to just plain want.

Or perhaps they just want to know they’re not alone.

I doubt that others will be so forward as to follow my lead in actually posting an image of a kiss instead of merely an account, but I’m an open-minded inidvidual, and I always will be, and I’m proud of it.

Kissy faces 2

Related Images:

You might be interested in …

6 Comments

  1. …I’m an open-minded inidvidual, and I always will be, and I’m proud of it.

    good for you! there’s a shortage of that class of people in the philippines. i can attest to that.

  2. was blog-hopping and saw yours… giving you major props! i grew up in the province (Bacolod) and went to an all-girls Catholic school so you might imagine the degree of conservativeness (is that a word?) i went through…

    this is my experience though… as soon as all of my friends, and myself, went to college, started having families, we stopped being the prudes that we were. prudes are usually people who haven’t had great sex yet.

    one of the things that i was glad about moving to Hong Kong, was seeing how the kids are liberated here. kissing, no matter where, is natural… i get to kiss my hubby going up, or down, the escalator in a crowded mall, and nobody minds.

  3. my my my, the controversial self-absorbed female…!

    Sobra naman sila. PDA lang naman yon, patago pa. Buti nga kayo, ako ang ka-PDA ko lang yung iPaq 2210 ko. But I digress…

  4. i guess liberal-mindedness comes with the environment & with age. some of my peers in kpmg would talk about sex as no big deal. someone even said that to be a virgin by 22 years old is embarassing. that’s why i’ve changed my former ultra-conservative views. though i’m not saying i would engage in pms, but if someone says she has done it, i don’t get shocked or look down on her or anything anymore.

  5. yeah! go, love! hehehe. i used to be a conservative too. that is, until you corrupted me. JOKE!!! kidding aside, i have always considered myself a liberal (though others would say otherwise). for me, its all just part of being human. love you! šŸ™‚

  6. nawww, im not controversial at all, punzi. in reality im just a quiet, agreeable do-gooder. wouldn’t you say, lilac? hehehe.

    just so happens im a debater, that’s all. i so miss my ateneo debate union days. šŸ˜‰

    hoy gim, u corrupted me first! hehe. i should write about our first kiss… hehehe. but that’s more comedy than drama… no mas ya!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.