The trouble with kissing
Posted by CM under Writing on Thu 22 Mar 2007
o you want to write a kiss. If you’ve ever tried to spend more than about two sentences on the scene, you’re probably familiar with my quandary. There just aren’t enough good synonyms for “mouth” and “lips.” He moves his mouth. She opens her lips. And then . . . we can add tongue in. But pretty soon, he’s putting his tongue (in her mouth) and she’s sighing against (his lips) and he’s taking her upper lip between his lips and there are lips all over the place! (Which is fine in a sex scene, but we’re still just kissing here.) Isn’t there another word I can use?
Yes, says thesaurus.com. I can use: aperture, beak, box, buss, cavity, chops*, clam, crevice, delta, door, embouchement, entrance, estuary, firth, fly trap, funnel, gate, gills, gob, harbor, inlet, jaws, kisser*, lips, mush*, orifice, portal, rim, trap*, yap*
Thank you, thesaurus.com. “He ran his tongue over the seam of her aperture. She opened her trap, and he slid inside the orifice. The warmth of his breath against her chops excited her.”
Very hot. Anyone have any better ideas? ![]()









March 22nd, 2007 at 8:04 pm
Lips and mouth and tongue. . . I think that’ll do it for me. Instead of focusing on the mechanics of it. . . how about telling us how the participants feel while they are being kissed. Is their heart pounding in anticipation of more, are their hands wandering while they kiss, etc.
Just wait ’till you write a sex scene. . . gets pretty monotonous with all those “parts”. . . but then, parts is parts, right?
March 22nd, 2007 at 10:17 pm
Chops–hee! I love thesaurus.com. Sorry, no suggestions. Seems like lots of people are blogging about this difficulty. Over at The Spiced Teaparty blog, one published author said she attempted to use the word “tickler” (I’m sure you can guess the context) and her editor cut it. So I think finding new euphemisms is going to be an uphill battle.
March 23rd, 2007 at 6:15 am
Orifice? LOL.
I’m with Ericka - I think the whole reason they tell you to use the five senses is so you have something to break up the use of lips, mouth, tongue!
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:00 am
Or just think of lips and mouth the same way your think about “the” for the length of the scene.
Alice
March 23rd, 2007 at 8:31 am
“Firth” is a synonym for lips??
Oh, of course it would be. Mmmmm.
Seriously, I think the nouns aren’t as noticeable in a kiss as the verbs. And there are so many fun verbs … “ravaged,” “teased,” “tasted,” “delved,” “nibbled,” etc. I think writing kisses is more fun than writing sex.
And when you’ve written too much about what’s going on from the neck up, time to describe what’s happening further down!
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
Does anyone else think Tessa needs to start compiling a list of verbs for distribution???
I’ll add “sucked,” “nipped,” and “licked” to the list…
March 23rd, 2007 at 10:50 am
These are all excellent ideas, everyone.
Query: If “firth” is a synonym for lips, what’s “armitage” a synonym for?
March 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
In dunno, but if you put the two together, you’ve got some pretty hot slash.
March 27th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
I have nothing to add other than to laugh hysterically at your thesaurusized paragraph, CM.