I'm afraid that young people aren't kissing as much as they used to, especially during sex. Last weekend I watched Rules of Attraction, a 2002 cult film based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis. Though it's seven years old, its portrayal of sex-based relationships on college campuses is still accurate porn grabbz. There is plenty of sexual attraction, but not much emotional connection. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised then, when I realized about halfway through the movie that there wasn't any kissing in the sex scenes. I thought it strange; when I was growing up in the 70s, making out was an essential precursor to even the most casual sex.

In thinking about what's changed in the last 30 years, I quickly hypothesized that the ready availability of porn might have something to do with this. Technology has made it possible for many young men to view explicit porn every day. It is a popular male bonding activity among college guys. In recent years, porn has showcased behaviors that have quickly become part of the mainstream young heterosexual scene, including Brazilian waxing and girl-on-girl kissing. Now it appears that the practice of anal sex is increasing dramatically among young people, thanks to its popularity in porn. Today, there is evidence that girls feel pressured to participate in threesomes, and to allow their partners to ejaculate onto their faces, the quintessential porn flick money shot. 

I decided to do a little, ahem, research, and checked out a few porn sites to see for myself. Bingo. Lots of banging, very little kissing. And that was true even on the amateur sites, where regular folks upload videos of themselves having sex to share the love with the viewing public. Though I wasn't a big consumer of porn thirty years ago, I suspect there wasn't much kissing in those movies either. What different today is that porn is now the primary form of sex ed for young men, and they're mimicking those behaviors in their own lives. What kissing I did find online was strange, almost reptilian. I learned that this is called porngrabbz: To kiss someone with tongue but no lips, as in adult movies (https://porngrabbz.com/). (As an interesting aside, I found far more passionate kissing on the gay [male] porn sites. It wasn't the norm, but plenty of videos were named to imply that the actors were in love, so it was clearly a draw for some viewers.)