Kissing.

Lips to lips. Maybe some tongue. Maybe even more tongue.

Ah, kissing.

What a wonderful thing (though I only vaguely remember it these days…).

Still, people have been getting just UP IN ARMS about rampant kissing. (Personally, I think you can NEVER Kiss or Hug people enough.)

But on this show called The Bachelor, folks are just crazy about it. The word that they use to describe our Bachelor Ben, who has been doing a LOT of kissing, and it’s only Episode 3 of this season is “Slut.” (They do this nonsense on The Bachelorette, too, though girls don’t usually do the rampant kissing until much later in the season.)

I have a lot of opinions about this, mostly along the lines of “Oh America, you are so prudish, get over your damn selves,” variety. Mostly they are these, though.

First of all, both The Bachelor and The Bachelorette are silly shows. Totally silly. They were classy and fun at the beginning, but now they are just silly. Example: on tonight’s show (which I watch, live blog and actually pick up followers on Twitter when I do. Sigh.) they had these girls IN BIKINIS skiiing down a hill in San Francisco. (Don’t ask.)

It used to be a show about discovering each other, and who you like and maybe falling in love, and now it’s all obstacle courses and nonsense. Still, I watch.

So, for the record, I am vehemently and absolutely against all the crap that wouldn’t happen on a normal date. Like skiing in San Francisco. *eyeroll* In BIKINIS. *double eyeroll* Or, the other Bachelor de rigueur item, for whatever reason (can I PLEASE shoot the producer who thought up this pathetic crap?), they take whoever it is over some ridiculously high place, and have them “conquer their fears” together. Tonight (it was a stupidity double-feature on this episode), they had the two prospective lovers climbing up the San Francisco bridge.

NONSENSE. Stuff and nonsense and stupidity.

But I, who am spoiled on Survivor, where you actually have REAL moments and unscripted TV in a reality show, live for the REAL moments. So yeah, it was kinda cool when poor Emily is scared out of her bloody wits, and can’t walk up this stupid bridge one step further, and Ben kisses her. That was kinda cool.

Which brings me again to my point.

Kissing.

Kissing smooths out many a rough spot on the rocky road to a relationship. Furthermore, if I were faced (God help me) with a choice of roughly 30 hot hunks to choose from, hopefully to pick my husband from among them (OK, that would never happen, and if it did, I’d make the producers go back to square one about 80 times when they keep bringing in these model and actor types, instead of real men. So, OK, I could never actually be on this show.)…but let’s just say hypothetically…

I’m on the show. I must pick from these assembled 30 guys. There is only so much surface judgment one can do. Everyone looks good at the beginning, especially the way they are all trussed up like prize pigs in front of you. So how do you decide?

On Disney-owned ABC, during prime time? The only thing YOU CAN do is kiss them. You can tell a lot about a person’s kiss. Both in the doing and giving of it, and the watching. Like Ben’s favorite, Courtney. She’s favored because she’s a model and is “so beautiful.” (Men are so stupid sometimes…) So is he not noticing that when he kisses her, in front of a dramatic San Francisco skyline, she’s making sure that the camera has her best side? (Instead of, you know, KISSING HIM?)

I’m actually of the opinion that you can tell the whole relationship in a kiss. You can certainly tell if this person is going to be sexually compatible with you. Yes, yes you can.

So, I say, Ben, kiss away! Kiss freely and with abandon. Kiss every one of these girls on every show. Kiss until you want to kiss no more.

Kissing, after all, is still in the chaste category, for those who throw the “slut” term around too readily. One could kiss for days and never get pregnant.

They had a wonderful thing on this horrible episode of The Bachelor, too. Just after Ben and Emily kissed, fireworks lit up the sky above them. I’m sure it was planned and stage managed, cause that shot was perfect, but man, it was nice. I wish The Bachelor would do more stuff like that. Back to the ROMANCE of it. That is, after all, why people watch.

And if all these lame writers/producers of The Bachelor can come up with for creating romance is to have someone climb up really high above some city, then they need to get out more. Romance is all about intimacy and being real with someone.

They could, actually, take a few lessons from Survivor. Survivor’s out there battling good and evil in very real ways, just from the people they choose to have on the show. You’re telling me that no one in Hollywood knows what ROMANCE is about anymore?

Come over here, I’ll whisper it in your ear.

It’s about KISSING.