Hey everybody. Today's Ask Cristen question is about first kisses so I'm going to tell
you about my first kiss which is either a reason for you to stick around or a reason
for you to uh hit stop and go find a paper bag to dry heave into.
Last week on Ask Cristen I advised an eighteen year old who was a little bit concerned that
she had not had penis and vagina sex yet. And in the comments a lot of folks were saying
hey, not only have I not had sex but I've never been kissed. That leads me to this week's
Ask Cristen question from Imaginative Lunatic. 'I'm still a virgin. I am 19 and this year
I will be 20. I've also never been kissed. On average which age is the most common to
have your first kiss? Also at what age is the most common that someone commits to their
first romanitcal relationship?' So to answer Imaginative Lunatic's questions about averages,
according to the studies and data that I looked at, the average age of a first kiss is fifteen.
That's a couple years before the average age of first vaginal intercourse, bloop, which
is around age seventeen. And then when it comes to the first serious romantical relationship,
for the studies that I could find it was usually around age eighteen. Personally I am very
much for you developing your own bases. By that I mean your personal boundaries and your
levels of consent which should not be dictated by averages in terms of what everybody else
around you is doing. When it comes to my first kiss, I didn't realize that I am right on
the average. I always thought that, and I still think that I was a bit of a late bloomer.
First of all I was home-schooled so I didn't have lots of opportunity for smooching other
dudes. I was fifteen and I think I only kissed this guy one time and I had had mad crush
on him for so long and we kissed, there was not tongue involved. It was, it was very proper
and very, very emotional. He was wearing a shirt with a zebra head on it. I want to say
there was like a little bit of glitz, a little, little sequin and glitz going on because I
remember him first coming to pick me up and me thinking, well that is, that's a, that's
a razzle-dazzle t-shirt he's got on. Doesn't matter, still want to kiss his face. But now
that I've gone way out on an anecdotal tangent let's bring it back to research because I
did find one study examining people's affective states, their emotions, thoughts and feelings
about their very first kiss before, during and after the first kiss. It talked to both
men and women and I think all of them were straight, again, god, can we just, heteronormativity.
And it found that prior to the first kiss, people's feelings were mostly negative. They
were anxious, they wanted also to kind of get it over with. During and after there was
a gender split of the guys feeling far more positive and relieved and happy about the
experience compared to the girls who were far likelier to report unsatisfactory and
even uncomfortable first kiss experiences which the researchers attribute to perhaps
as I've talked about a lot of times on Stuff Mom Never Told You the sociocultural expectations
of men being more interested in sex than women are, it all ties back to the sexual double
standard of men often being afforded more sexual liberties. When girls explore their
sexualities they are deviant and even to the point of being labeled as sluts. It was surprising
to me though that that kind of gendered pattern emerged as early as the very first kiss. Going
back though to the folks watching who have never been kissed and importantly want to
be kissed at some point, remember that averages are just, they're just averages. They're just
numbers. The important thing is you and what you're comfortable with.The anxiety that you
might have around this whole first kiss thing, that's also really understandable and natural
too. Also worth bearing in mind at least in my experience sometimes first kisses are awful
but that doesn't mean that a second kiss can't be phenomenal. With that, if anyone has any
first kissing advice let me know in the comments below and if you're someone who has never
been kissed and is a little bit nervous about it or never been kissed and is totally fine
with it, want to hear from you as well, comment, comment, comment. Be sure to ask me your questions
so I can give you some answers and advice about kissing. Here's my advice. Easy on the
tongue. Now for a couple comments on last week's Ask Cristen video 'Still a Virgin'.
This is coming from Sofi who says, 'I'm 25 and still a virgin. I don't want to do it
with a random guy. I want to trust the person I'm doing it with and I haven't found him
yet so I'll wait. And if all else fails I can make the female version of "The 40 Year
Old Virgin". John Salter said, 'I'm 30 and I've never had so much as a girlfriend. While
I feel no shame in admitting my virginity it can be painful to watch everyone you know
get hooked up and start having normal sex lives. By this time it's not the lack of sex
that's the problem but the lack of intimacy that goes with it and everything that leads
up to it.' This weeks tweet of the week goes to WanderingWyatt, 'Avoiding homework watching
Cristen Conger #feminism.' Homework is still important kids. As is feminism.