AND ANOTHER THING
When the kissing had to start
PAUL JOHNSON
e of the ways in which the Western
Style of life is being imposed on the entire World is in the far from minor matter of kissing. The outstanding example is Japan, the ultra-modern-archaic society par excel- lence. Some peoples, of course, do not kiss at all, preferring to rub noses or make Other points of intimate contact. The Japanese do kiss, but until comparatively recently it was always in private. Looking through the magnificent three-volume Milanese Prints and Drawings from the Vever Collection by Jack Hillier and distributed by Sotheby's, I can find only one example of lovers actually kissing, though occasionally they are doing what are to us rather more indelicate things. The failure of the Japanese to kiss in Public angered the Americans when they took over in 1945. Hollywood had made an art form out of the kiss, since in those days the Hays Office permitted little else, and all over the world GIs were imitating Clark Gable's prolonged close-up osculations. So 1(1. saing was democratic, almost by defini- ' ..Km, and the Japanese, by refusing to do it, Were demonstrating their obstinate attach- ment to authoritarianism. This could not be tolerated. Word went down, not perhaps fr°111 General MacArthur himself, who was ,fint a great one for kissing, but certainly lrom senior aides, that the kissing had to start. Kyoko Hirano, who has made a study nf one aspect of the American cultural 'pact, Japanese Cinema under the Ameri- call. Occupation 1945-52, published by the ,Ituthsonian in Washington, says that JaPanese film-makers were positively or to include kissing scenes in their Lim:1'1es. As their subject matter tended to e ferocious hand-to-hand combat, kissing looked a bit incongruous; and some of the east declined to be filmed doing it, rather as a few actresses in the West still hold out against nude scenes. But in general the dik- tat Was observed. .. ft. is not clear what is the present line on kissing in the White House. Bill Clinton aPears to be a great kisser, not always in Public either. But it may be, now he has °actuallthey won, he will renege on this, as on r election promises or hints, on the P.Ounds that compulsory kissing is political- 7 incorrect. All the same, the march of °I elnocracy and kissing continues relentless- Y. Certainly, there is much more of what used to be called bussing. When I was a You man, in the second half of the For- ties, very few men and women greeted each other by kissing cheeks. That was a custom practised by royalty, along with their trades union habit of calling each other 'cousin'. Debs also kissed each other when they met (not their partners). Others kissed only as a mark of specific affection rather than social gesture. It is true that if a French politician or general awarded you a medal, he gave you not just a buss but a positive smacker on each cheek: a fairly disgusting experi- ence, we thought, from which you would emerge reeking of garlic and possibly cov- ered in lipstick. But then the French were very forward in kissing. On an early visit to Paris I remember being shocked by the flamboyant way in which young lovers embraced in the metro, other Parisians paying not the slightest attention. But was not that just another example of French decadence, also then symbolised by the Olympia Press? Years before, a pious nun had told me that all indelicate words and indecent jokes were ultimately manufac- tured by the Devil in the viewc quartier of Marseilles.
Today, men and women greet each other with a kiss all the time. It is one of the few post-war examples of an upper-class habit filtering downwards (the use of goo' is another). As a rule it is the other way round: even Tory grandees now refer to voters as 'punters', and to judge by their behaviour half the Cabinet is composed of yobbos. But cheek-kissing, or what I call the double-buss greeting, which should be accompanied, on the male's part, by an appreciative mmmmm noise, as though one were enjoying a juicy steak, has spread steadily to encompass most of the middle class and is even (thanks to television) pen- etrating further. I would be very interested if someone could tell me when the decisive moment came. I first became conscious that the habit was established in the mid- dle-Sixties, that decade of momentous innovation, when George Brown, then a 'It's probably just a bug . . .' senior minister, was criticised for kissing a female member of the royal family on both cheeks, at some government gathering, and then adding, 'And one in the middle too.' The fact that George, who boasted of hav- ing been born in Peabody Buildings, was taking advantage of the new custom was a sign of how far things had gone.
They have gone much further since, but it is still not quite clear what the rules are. When you come across a woman you vaguely know at a party, do you shake hands or buss? Mistakes are bound to occur. I sometimes have been kissed by a woman I have never set eyes on before; or, in my own confusion, find myself embrac- ing a haughty matron I do not know. Not to kiss, in error or inadvertence, can cause offence, especially to ladies. 'Don't you like me any more then?' I received this ticking off from Edna O'Brien, whom I had failed to kiss at a crowded gathering last year. The room was dark, she had changed her hairstyle and, to be honest, I hesitated; and he who hesitates in bussing is lost. Shaken by this faux pas, I became a little disorient- ed, or buss-happy. The next morning, at a lunch, I kissed Margaret Thatcher, some- thing I had not done all the years she was in power. I believe strongly that one should not kiss a prime minister, even if she is a woman, or perhaps especially if she is a woman: the dignity of the office must be considered. But a former prime minister is, I suppose, a different matter. Anyway, the deed was done and she did not seem to mind.
But there is a point about bussing which has received insufficient attention. Who ought to do the actual kissing, the man or the woman? Or does it depend on the way the two people feel about each other? The French, who naturally have thought deeply on such matters, have an old saying which applies more widely than to the embrace itself: 'II y a toujours un qui baise et un qui tend la joue.' Very true. Drusilla Beyfus, our leading authority on manners, tells me: 'There are no clear rules whether the man or the woman kisses, or whether it's first on the left cheek, then on the right, or vice versa, or only one, or both.' She thinks that, where there is special affection, one in the middle is quite OK too, though it doesn't exonerate the late Lord George Brown. She believes that the element of uncertain- ty 'adds to the fun'. So, come to think of it, do I.
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