Freudian Kiss

In what J. Hillis Miller calls a “somewhat puritanical passage” from the Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis , Freud targets kissing as the “first perversion” of sex:

“There is something else that I must add in order to complete our view of sexual perversions. However infamous they may be, however sharply they may be contrasted with normal sexual activity, quiet consideration will show that some perverse trait or other is seldom absent from the sexual life of normal people. Even a kiss can claim to be described as a perverse act, since it consists in the bringing together of two oral erotogenic zones instead of the two genitals. Yet no one rejects it as perverse; on the contrary, it is permitted in theatrical performances as a softened hint at the sexual act. But precisely kissing can easily turn into a complete perversion—if, that is to say, it becomes so intense that a genital discharge and orgasm follow upon it directly, an event that is far from rare . . . .

“We shall recognize more and more clearly that the essence of the perversions lies not in the extension of the sexual aim, not in the replacement of the genitals, not even always in the variant choice of the object, but solely in the exclusiveness with which these deviations are carried out and as a result of which the sexual act serving the purpose of reproduction is put on one side. In so far as the perverse actions are inserted in the performance of the normal sexual act as preparatory or intensifying contributions, they are in reality not perversions at all. The gulf between normal and perverse sexuality is of course very much narrowed by facts of this kind. It is an easy conclusion that normal sexuality has emerged out of something that was in existence before it, by weeding out certain features of that material as unserviceable and collecting together the rest in order to subordinate them to a new aim, that of reproduction . . . . Indeed, Gentlemen, I have no objection at all to organ-pleasure.”

Elsewhere, he comments on the non-sexual function of the lips: “Moreover, the kiss, one particular contact of this kind [the kind accompanied by pleasure ‘which should persist until the ?nal sexual aim is attained’], between the mucous membrane of the lips of the two people concerned, is held in high sexual esteem among many nations (including the most highly civilized ones), in spite of the fact that the parts of the body involved do not form part of the sexual apparatus but constitute the entrance to the digestive tract.” Miller wonders, “Am I wrong to detect a faint disgust in Freud’s phrasing? Who, when kissing one’s beloved, would want to remember that her lips are no more than the entrance to her stomach and intestines?”

No, I don’t think Miller is wrong. Lots of disgust there in Sigmund, but Hillis shows signs of disgust too at the thought. Perhaps, though, “digestion” is the point? Perhaps kissing is precisely a sign of mutual consumption?