John : a 50 year old sex therapist. Observant and funny.
Magda: a 40 year old prostitute. She speaks with a strong Polish accent.
Concetta: a 26 year old Italian woman. PhD student. She is English born with Italian parents.
Duncan: a 24 year old English man. Softly spoken people pleaser, works for a Charity
1.PARKBENCH
John talks to camera
When I was 17 it was illegal to be gay in my hometown. I was in my first year of university and the local gay and lesbian activist group organised a Kiss-In. The Kiss-In was to happen at the gates of the university carpark blocking students and teachers from driving in or out. We had instructions to gather at the gates, find a partner and when our leader Gai Lemon waved her Queer Workers in Solidarity Socialist flag and blew her rape whistle it was time to begin kissing. We were kissing for equal rights, our freedom and our lives. A peaceful protest that was about being visible and legitimising same sex love. If we blocked the university carpark we might get media attention which is ideally what we wanted. I arrived by myself and watched as everyone paired off. I was hoping to find a boy my own age who I could kiss for way too long and fall in love. The paring was quick and most paired off. I looked around, there seemed to be no one left to kiss. Emerging from a sea of student activists came a lesbian punk with pink hair and a very high green fringe. Gai Lemon waved her flag and blew her whistle. The lesbian punk and I spontaneously grabbed each other and began kissing. Our leader Gai Lemon pointed at us and yelled into her rusty megaphone. ‘Right here queers, solidarity in action and the very definition of irony’. This is how I came to understand the meaning of irony and the value of strident political action.
2.BEDROOM / BED
Duncan and Concetta lie in bed post-coital
Do you remember your first kiss?
You have to be careful asking that question. Not everyone’s first kiss was consenting you know.
Oh god, why do feminists have to ruin everything nice about the world
I’ve met your Uncle
My Uncle, what has he got to do with anything?
Can you imagine your Uncle shoving his tongue down your throat when you were 5? What if that was your first kiss?
Well I wouldn’t consider it my first kiss. I’d remember a good kiss, a kiss, not a kiss from a pervy uncle. Not that my Uncle is pervy.
What if you enjoyed it but later thought you’d done something bad?
I don’t know. Did your Uncle kiss you like that?
No (laughs)
Do you like the way I kiss?
Duncan turns his eyes toward her.
More tongue maybe
Uncle style? Oh god, what am I saying?
They both laugh. Duncan jumps on top of the Concetta
So when was your first kiss?
I was 16 he was 15, so somewhere in between him fumbling to take my shirt off and him prematurely ejaculating. Somewhere in there I guess. It wasn’t memorable. I assume he kissed me.
Do you remember our first kiss?
Yes. The only kiss worth remembering is the one that blossoms into love.
Oh god, that’s nice
See feminists don’t ruin everything nice
Can I kiss you?
They kiss
3. PARKBENCH
John talks to camera
The kiss after a rigorous debate can be hot, if both people feel like they gained some power in the debate, otherwise the one that got the upper hand presses harder and the one that lost some ground holds back. If it’s two men one man can just give up his arse to level the playing field. If it’s two women one can submit to the other to redress the balance. What does a heterosexual woman do if she feels powerless?
4. GYM
John’s voice is taken over by Concetta now working out in the gym doing squats, she finishes her set and talks to the mirror
All heterosexual sex is rape. Andrea Dworkin never said this in her 1987 book Intercourse. She said actually that “violation is a synonym for intercourse.” She also said later that sex must not put women in a subordinate position. It must be reciprocal and not an act of aggression from a man looking only to satisfy himself. There I go again ruining everything nice about the world. Kissing after a healthy debate is hot. Kissing after an argument is something else. It’s salvaging. ‘I love you even though we disagree’ For the French thinker Michael Foucault, power and knowledge are not seen as independent entities but are inextricably linked – knowledge is always an exercise of power and power always a function of knowledge. If the woman thinks he has demonstrated greater knowledge in the debate she’ll probably kiss him anyway. What does the man do if he feels like the woman demonstrated greater knowledge than him in the debate, does he still kiss her? Or does he wonder what he has left to offer her, if he doesn’t have intellectual superiority? Who is he? Does his dick go limp. Do you need to feel superior to someone to get an erection. Can a man feel powerless and still dominate a woman. Maybe that’s the point. All sexual dominance is a physical manifestation of powerlessness? Sex levels-out an uneven playing field.
5. PARK / POND
Duncan standing beside a lake eating a ham roll
I’m not sure what if feels like to be powerless? I don’t think I need to be passed around at a gay orgy to understand powerlessness?
He throws a bit of bread at a duck. It lands nowhere near it. The duck slowly swims toward the bread that’s absorbing water and sinking. It dives down to eat it exposing it’s bum. Close on duck bum.
We hear a voice of the Park Ranger off camera.
I hope that’s not bread?
Duncan quickly puts the remainder of the ham roll in his pocket.
Bread has no nutritional value for ducks
Duncan walks off. Close on duck bum.
6. PARKBENCH
Magda talks to camera
I kiss. Sure. Easier to kiss a man I hate rather than let him fuck me. But that’s just me. Other girls will tell you something different. Maybe because they can’t fake a kiss. Kissing is the most intimate act in the world, I’m not disagreeing but it’s also the easiest thing to do when your trying to make up the hour.
Close on her gentle kissing the air quivering with passion
The mouth only has to open once or twice, the vagina doesn’t have this option.
She picks up a leaf and a forked twig
French men just push the tongue in and leave it there (pushes leaf into twig and lets it hover to make her point)
Italians stop and start and tease your mouth (uses leaf to caress the twig)
Greeks are wet and curious (uses the leaf to slowly slap the twig)
Spanish bite your lips (she closes the forked twig on the leaf, it snaps)
Chinese peck and poke excitedly (uses leaf to poke the twig back and forth)
African’s tickle your lips with theirs (uses the leaf to tickle the twig) before allowing the tongue to descend into your mouth (shoves leaf deep between the twig)
American’s assert the bottom lip and slide the tongue in fast when you least expect it (uses leaf to repeatedly nudge the twig and then pushes it in)
The British open their mouth very slightly and the tongue pops out like a turtle head popping out of it’s shell (she pushes the leaf through the twig tentatively looks left to right)
The German’s clean your mouth with their tongue (rubs it all over the twig) like a toothbrush
But kissing is subjective. I might not like the way you kiss but someone else might like it. So very happy we are all different. Very happy.
7. PARKBENCH
John talks to camera
My first boyfriend taught me how to kiss. He told me to go slow, act a bit shy even and gradually build up to the tongue. He always kissed with his eyes closed. He gave everything. He was a desperate kisser like I was giving him life saving oxygen through my mouth. When we had our first threesome I discovered he kissed everyone like that. Turned out our kissing wasn’t special. But it felt special to me. When I was young I believed I could tell by the kiss if he was the one. Since then I’ve felt fucking fireworks kissing some men and they’ve turned out to be right fizzlers in a relationship. Why do we think that the kiss holds all the answers when it tells us nothing about the future?
8. GYM/SHOWERS
Concetta is in the shower soaping herself down after her workout
After the Last Supper Judas identifies Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane with a kiss and this leads to the arrest of Jesus by the police force of the Sanhedrin.
So a Judas kiss has come to mean an act appearing to be an act of friendship, which is in fact harmful to the person receiving the kiss. The mafia made Il bacio della morte, the kiss of death famous.
She puts her shower-cap on a bottle of shampoo and it becomes Fredo Corleone, she’s Michael Corleone and she kisses him on the lips
I know it was you Fredo, you broke my heart, you broke my heart
So male to ruin something nice. Like a kiss.
9. BUSTOP
Duncan is sitting at a bus stop near the park in a line of old ladies. He eats his ham roll.
Michael thought he did the right thing by killing Fredo. I’m not sure it was the right thing to do for the Corleone family.
10. GYM/SHOWER
Concetta strokes the soap and suds up her
A man can kiss another man as long as he counterbalances the inexcusable intimacy by killing him. I guess I also use the kiss to work out whether a man is going to kill me. The first few pecks are testing the waters. When two bodies come that close there can be only two outcomes, pleasure or pain. Never ambivalence.
11. BUS (CROWDED)
Duncan stands on a crowded bus, wedged between two large women and two large men. Every one is frozen as the bus moves at a snail’s pace. Close on the young man’s ambivalent face.
12. GYM/CHANGING ROOM
Concetta pulls her pants up.
A kiss states intention but it can’t predict the future. Nothing can. Kissing is about hope.
13. PARKBENCH
Magda talks to camera
The kiss from an 18 year-old boy who wants to lose his virginity to a prostitute is like a persistent tap on the shoulder. His tongue speaks on behalf of his penis. It just keeps poking the roof of your mouth until your legs open. He is ejaculating into a woman for the first time. I take this seriously. Virgins always make terrible conversation after sex.
Occasionally there is chemistry. The kiss is loving. The bottom lip becomes a cup ready to catch the secrets of your inner world that might fall out your mouth and in another reality where I’m not a prostitute and his not paying, we could be in love. Sometimes the lips collapse on yours exhausted by the strip bar, the job, the kids. The kiss that spooks is the one that heaves with loneliness, you can feel gusts of yearning rushing up the throat from stomach. I’ve never felt hate in a kiss. Fear but never hate.
14. PARKBENCH
John talks to camera
I got married once, to a man and you know I’d never seen myself kiss another man even though I’d been kissing men since I was 16. When we received the wedding photos I was repulsed at the sight of me kissing my husband not because I hated being gay but because from the side I looked exactly like my Uncle Don. It looked like my Uncle Don was kissing my husband. That was super weird.
15. STREET
Duncan walks along the street talking to camera
Why can’t a kiss be about being happy to see someone? Why can’t a kiss be an expression of happiness?
16. STREET
Concetta walks along the street talking to camera
Of course a kiss can be a simple gesture of hello or goodbye. If you’re a dog. But it’s also full of intention, anticipation, hope and power.
17. STREET
Duncan walks along the street talking to camera
I just kiss. I lay my lips on her lips and we kiss. I don’t expect to get sex. I just want to kiss for kissing’s sake.
Concetta walks along the street toward him
He continues to talk to camera
To feel her lips. To feel her breath. To know she is alive. To know she still loves me. TO KNOW SOMEBODY LOVES ME.
Duncan and Concetta come face to face.
18. PARK
John talks to camera
Kissing can be a sign of weakness because it’s associated with feeling something and feelings are dangerous because they don’t win wars. I remember the days when it wasn’t uncommon to have sex with a man who refused to kiss because kissing meant he was gay, not sucking cock. This was ok when I was young, kissing was important but so were all the other sexual acts. Now at 50, kissing is the only sexual act I insist on, the rest I’m grateful for. In every gay male story the gay man is battling with his sexuality, struggling to understand what it means to be man. He finally meets someone that forces his lips upon his lips and he does all he can to wrench these lips away because lips on lips means feelings. And feelings are evil.
Magda talks to camera
The thing we fear the most is the thing that is most true. We can’t face it because it contradicts the lies we’ve told ourselves to survive. Black people of the land are the original people so to live on the land without guilt we must destroy the black people. The vagina is Our Creator not the God so the vagina is a reminder of the lies we tell ourselves to survive, so we must destroy the vagina. Everybody hates women, even women. Because woman gave us life and therefore death
John talk to camera
My first kiss with a girl was when I was 10 and she smiled when we kissed. I kissed her teeth. It was beautiful. The smell of her breath. It was the first time I smelt another person’s breath and it made me feel alive. My first kiss with a boy was when I was 14 and I thought I’d swallowed an ocean of saltwater, froth pouring from my cock. It was the strongest I felt about anything in my short life up until that point. I could see my future. I wanted more of this, all of that, one after another.
But the best kiss I ever had was a political one with a lesbian punk. A kiss where there was a complete absence of desire on both sides. That’s the kiss I remember. Even her prickly chin against my smooth chin. The one that meant more than just the love between two people. It was the ‘fuck you’ kiss. The kiss that fought for all those kisses to come, kissing without fear in the full light of day.
How can two men kissing each other hold such power?
I remember seeing a film once and when the two male protagonists kissed, a teenage girl beside me let out a bloodcurdling scream and hid her face under her boyfriend’s armpit. It was as if she was watching a horror film. It was just two men kissing. That’s all. Two men kissing.