If one wished to say something specific about a kiss, the joining of two mouths, about the moment when the direct sensation of two sense organs turns into direct bodily sensation, it might be best to step into the open mouth, between the vertically grooved, tender skin of the barely touching lips.
If this were at all possible without the aid of a scalpel, the peculiarities of the living organism would force one to choose among several alternatives: should we follow the facial muscles rippling toward the interior of the mouth, or the intricate network of neurons, or the crisscrossing veins perhaps? in the first case we'd have to cut through the cluster of salivary glands in the lips and cheeks, traverse some connective tissue to reach the mucous membrane; in the second instance, it would be like being absorbed by the tiniest capillary roots of a tree and from there to reach the trunk and travel on to the nerve center of the crown; in the third case, depending on whether we took the red or the blue trail of blood vessels, we'd reach either the ventricle or the auricle of the heart.
Fortunately, it's only in fairy tales that out of three possible paths we have to choose the one that will lead us to safety; but since we don't need to be rescued and are merely yielding to simple, most likely superficial curiosity, we shall choose yet a fourth option and slip through the grooves of the barely touching lips; it won't be a smooth glide, though, because at this moment the surface is almost completely dry; the glands are producing saliva in abundance, but the insecurely hovering tongue is not wetting the surface; consequently, the longer it takes for the lips to meet, the more parched they become; sometimes they look like cracked soil in a protracted dry spell, even though in the hollow behind the lower teeth, under the tongue, a proper little lake of saliva has formed.
If we proceed along the craggy ridge of the lower teeth and, avoiding the little lake of saliva, clamber up the slippery back of the tongue to take a look at the distance covered, the sight greeting us there promises to be quite remarkable.
The undertaking is not without dangers: if we don't cling fast to the taste buds, we might easily slide down into the gullet, but it's all worth it, and where we are is actually a well-protected cave: over us stretches the palate's lovely arch, and looming before us, in the form of an obtuse-angled triangle, is the great orifice of the mouth itself; if we hadn't purposely invaded this spot to catch this breathtaking sight, we might cry out in astonishment, because from this vantage point the anatomical view of the orifice bears a striking resemblance to the conventional representation of the eye of God.
And while looking out through this opening, and seeing everything suddenly turn dark — for prompted by simultaneous pushing and pulling, yielding and receiving, another triangle clings not quite symmetrically but somewhat aslant to the triangular opening of our hiding place, in sum, a kiss is happening — we get the feeling that in the darkness of the two interlocking caverns, God's one eye is looking into the other eye of God.
We tend to dampen the joy of this discovery with pangs of doubt, asking even at this exalted moment whether the joining of two pairs of lips is really an event of such significance, during which God's single eye looks into God's other single eye?
When grappling with doubt, we try to dig up useful knowledge and experiences with which to deny or confirm our doubt, but to unearth evidence in this instance, we must first explore the body — anyway, we are in it already! — and take a look at those organs that play a role in one's love life.
A close inspection of these organs and their properties will lead us to the curious and for some people no doubt scandalous conclusion that sexual pleasure, though a prerequisite of our instinct for self-preservation, may be induced in any individual, male or female, through the manipulation of the sexual organs and, by means of self-stimulation, orgasm may be achieved without the presence of another individual.
Isolation and self-gratification, touching oneself while fantasizing about touching another, is something we all know from personal experience.
Neurotic, inhibited, or bashful individuals do not even have to touch their private parts to be aroused, it's enough if the palm of a hand grazes their naked thigh or belly or pelvic region; there the friction between the body and its own skin produces, accidentally as it were, the mutuality needed for sexual excitement; in the case of women we might include touching the breasts, the nipples, and the dark areolae, which may be followed, or accompanied, by stroke-like pressure applied to the mons veneris; without intending it, the stroking will grow more rhythmic, and that will increase the blood pressure, quicken the rate of breathing; this pressure corresponds, in the male, to the gentle groping men begin at the root of their thighs, and then transfer to the testicles and bulb of the penis; women can touch the tiny body of the clitoris, though not its supersensitive head, which at times can be painful; similarly, men can also take hold, with a slightly rougher grasp, of their hollowed member and, rhythmically pulling back the foreskin, free and then re-cover the bulb of the penis, the motion causing the excitement that releases the tiny valves through which arterial blood rushes in to fill the hollows of the shaft.
And since this is an individual activity to suit personal needs, and promises private satisfaction, the activity's form and the methods used may vary greatly.
The variety of ways used to induce physical pleasure cannot obscure the fact that, from a strictly somatological point of view, the same process takes place in every instance and in every individual; at most its intensity, efficacy, and, above all, results differ, for the process itself always creates a physically predetermined and closed organic unity, and it seems irrelevant whether the act takes place between two individuals of different sexes or the same sex, whether some external stimulus or mere fantasizing is at work, or if the same result is achieved by fantasy-induced self-stimulation.
Yet, however closed this unity created by the factors responsible for inducing, maintaining, and gratifying physical pleasure, certain effects appear even when the process seems entirely self-generated — in the case of masturbation or in nocturnal seminal emission — and these effects disrupt the apparently closed and from a physiological point of view perfectly self-sufficient system.
It is as if nature opposed a system that completely isolated the individual from others; during masturbation imagination steps in, and during nocturnal emission a dream is at work; imagination and dream connect the individual, and the ostensibly self-sufficient act, to another individual, or at the very least presuppose the presence of one.
This is the most, and also the least, that can be said of an individual's dependent relationships.
We might add, though, that an impulse is also at work in all of us that manages to create simultaneously feelings of isolation and self-absorption and of openness and dependence on others; isolation hampers while openness fosters the establishment of relationships, and the two feelings function in an inseparable tension that makes up the whole of the impulse.
If two individuals unite those of their organs which, though meant for another, can also function in isolation, if, in other words, two individuals wish to relieve or overcome their own isolation not by relying on imagination or dreams but in the possible openness of the other, then the resulting meeting is that of two closed units, each consisting of identical elements maintained in the tension of openness and closeness.