The Kiss 1901-4 Auguste Rodin 1840-1917 Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund and public contributions 1953 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N06228

by Constance Garcia-Barrio

A cordon bleu dinner can’t top an adulterous embrace in deliciousness, judging from the lovers in Auguste Rodin’s sculpture, “The Kiss.” A plaster version of the work shown in 1887 at an exhibition in Brussels shocked viewers because of the erotic subject matter, even though the man has a blur instead of genitals.

One of Rodin’s patrons paid for a copy of “The Kiss,” but on the condition that “the organ of the man must be complete.” When that sculpture was placed in the town hall of Lewes, England, where the patron lived, it lit another firestorm of controversy.

Philadelphia’s copy of “The Kiss,” reinstalled in the Rodin Museum, 22nd and the Parkway, for the centenary of Rodin’s death (1840 to 1917) is unlikely to outrage us, but one hopes that it will remind us of the magic of a desired kiss.

An informal survey, not to mention 70 years of life, have shown me that kisses come in a startling variety, though the romantic kind come first to mind. I was 19, and my hoped-for boyfriend would soon turn 25. I had wanted him to kiss me for what seemed like forever, but in my youth girls were told not to take the initiative.

When he finally gave me a lingering kiss in the vestibule before I let him out the door of my parents’ home, it spun my head, buckled my knees, and lit up points in between. Fifty years later, I still savor it.

Sean Williams, co-owner of the Frosted Fox Cake Shop in Mt. Airy, recalled first kissing Jennie, the girl of his dreams. “It was a little weird because Jennie had a boyfriend, but I kissed her anyway.” A good move, it turns out, since Sean and Jennie have been married six years now. “That kiss inspired our sweetheart cake,” Sean said. “It has devil’s food, raspberry jam filling, and vanilla butter-cream icing.”

When I hopped up to a woman at a bus stop, I got a different story about her first kiss. “It was like he was trying to inhale my face,” she said. “It was awful!”

My friend Frank remembered playing spin-the-bottle at age 12, a game that gave him his first chance to kiss a girl. “I was so excited!” he said. “I loved it.”

Frank also recalled kisses of another kind. “I used to kiss my little brother on the cheek,” he said. “My family didn’t show much physical affection, so I liked that warm connection. And in second grade there was a girl we called ‘the kissing girl’ because she always tried to kiss the rest of us.”

Peck-on-the-cheek kisses can mean anything from “Thank you” to “I love you, my dear old friend.” I once gave a SEPTA bus driver a quick kiss for waiting for me an extra moment to reach the bus and board it with my box of groceries. He just smiled. Nowadays, people tend to chalk up my more impulsive acts to old age, so why not take full advantage?

Kisses given freely by the very young may come with lollipop juice, yet they usually have a special purity in spite of the stickiness. Kisses from the very old often have an aching sweetness to them because elders sometimes enfold a blessing or a goodbye when they press dry lips to one’s hand or cheek. At least my mother, when she no longer talked, would signal for me to bend down to her bed so she could kiss me.

Crazed creature that I am, I wonder which caveman or cavewoman first gave a kiss to a companion. And today I ponder the possibilities of emoticons. Will some cyber-genius find a way to give the feeling of a kiss to the recipient of a message? After all, kissing can boost your metabolic rate, lift your mood, reduce tension and, as one psychologist put it, “provide an excursion into the sensual.”

It’s said that even the dead can bestow kisses of help and reassurance to the living through dreams. I don’t doubt it. However, if kisses are the coins of the realm of love, I aim to spend all of mine while I’m alive, throw myself into each kiss I give, surprise the unsuspecting with them, plant them on lips, cheeks and foreheads as if each one might be the last.

Constance Garcia-Barrio, of Mt. Airy, is an author and retired teacher of Romance languages at the university level. She can be reached at Cgarcia-barrio@wcupa.edu