A Kiss is just a Kiss, except when it's not

I've always found kissing to be one of the most intimate things that two people can do together. In fact, I've read there are prostitutes who won't kiss their clients, because it's deemed too intimate, something they want to share with the man or woman in their life, not a stranger.

A good kiss can make you weak in the knees, a bad kiss can make you want to wash you mouth out with soap. If a man is a bad kisser, it kind of doesn't make you want to find out what else he might be bad at. Of course, it's entirely possible that a guy can suck at kissing and be good at sex, but it kind of ruins the mood.

Ross, on Friends, once said that kissing was like the band that opened up for Aerosmith. Something that you have to sit through until you get to the main event. Is it just me or is that not the most depressing thing that you've ever heard?

When I was acting, I always made it clear to my partners that there would be no tongue when we kissed on stage. Most actors were okay with that, except for one actor I worked with on a show, who tried to give me a tonsillectomy when we kissed. Needless to say, I complained to the director!

I've also always had or tried to have clear boundaries with my male friends as well. Fine to kiss them on the cheek, or on both cheeks but no kissing on the lips. It just confuses things. The only time that I've kissed a male friend on the lips, he was someone that I once dated, and it was New Year's Eve. And things were looking like they were about to progress to boyfriend/girlfriend territory again.

But I know that not everyone thinks that way. There are men, and probably women out there, who think it's fine to kiss their friends of the opposite sex on the lips. But when does it cross the line? What if one person knows that they have a significant other, which for some reason they haven't revealed, and they've been kissing you on the lips. Have they transgressed?

Questions of the day: How important is it that someone be a good kisser? Have you ever dated anyone that wasn't? And is it ever okay to kiss your friends of the opposite sex on the lips?

EKM