Overseas Briefing Locking lips with the French City of Light is more like City of Passionate Kisses

Author: Justine Katzenbach

PARIS - If you've ever visited Paris, you couldn't help but have noticed it before. It all begins with a little peck on the cheek, a simple "hello." Instantaneously, that peck takes a turn for the dark side. Kisses grow ever more impassioned with each moment of lip-on-lip contact until, suddenly, voila - a full-blown, make-out session before your very eyes.

Welcome to Paris, make-out capital of Europe and beyond!

The open-aired affection at first seemed to have gotten, shall I say, a little out of control. I soon realized that it was impossible to go anywhere without seeing lip-locked lovers. The kissing craze I witnessed on a daily basis seemed to have taken on an epidemic level of smooch.

Sitting in my favorite cafÈ, two star-struck sixteen-year-olds sat down at the table next to me, arms tied in a pretzel and lips glued together. Walking a few blocks away from my apartment through the Parc Monceau, I fell upon an elderly couple going at it like teenagers on a bench. The Louvre, the Seine, McDonald's, you name it. Kissing happens just about anywhere and by just about anyone.

I felt a real foreigner to the whole "PDA" (Public Displays of Affection) culture. It wasn't that it offended me, it was more that it didn't make much sense. How could someone want another person to see them doing something so intimate? Didn't these overtly-passionate people feel uncomfortable being surrounded by a gawking audience?

The phenomenon puzzled me until I finally decided I'd had enough. I could fight the system no longer. So, as any good cultural explorer might do, I joined in on the game.

It didn't come naturally, of course. At first, I found myself feeling horribly awkward, gazing nervously around to see who smirked and smiled at me. To my surprise, I noticed that no one ever looked twice. No one even cared. It didn't take long for me to become a true Parisian make-out artist, strolling through Place des Vosges, thinking of Victor Hugo or Louis XIII, only to be interrupted by a bombardment of bisous.

Without going into any details of my own escapades into the world of PDA, I will say that the public make-out stands as an emblem of why I love Paris. It is unforgiving, unrelenting, stubborn and blissfully romantic. France has a culture that knows what it is and is rather unwilling to change. The logic is sort of a "Let there be cake" philosophy - i.e. let me do what I want when I want to do it, merci beaucoup!

It's hard for me to imagine my life pre-PDA. I was a victim to cultural prudishness. In the U.S., we shun any sort of public touching that shows more affection than a mere hug. Instead, we go to McCullough dance parties, drink a lot of alcohol and bump up and grind with one another. Sexually repressed society? I think so.

So, come on America, get with the program and embrace your inner French libertine. Go out there and give someone a wet one!