Spencer’s last kiss was two years ago, on a first date. It started off promisingly: after matching on Tinder, they met for a walk, then got drinks and ice-cream, before having dinner at her place. Finally, they kissed. “I didn’t like it,” says Spencer. He still struggles to identify why. “I found her attractive. There was chemistry, but something was lacking. There was nothing behind the kiss – it felt like a mechanical thing to do.”
That wasn’t just Spencer’s most recent kiss – it was his first ever, at the age of 29. Now 31, he says a second kiss in some ways feels less possible than having sex: “The jump feels way bigger.”
We are living through a crisis of intimacy: more people are reportedly single and having less sex. But behind those headlines there is a smaller but no less significant finding: we may also be in a kissing recession. In a recent YouGov survey, commissioned by oral care brand Waken, more than a third of British adults reported kissing romantically less often than they did five years ago. Nearly one in five hadn’t been kissed in more than a year, while 27% believed kissing is becoming less common.
For gen Z in particular, self-consciousness may be a factor. The Waken survey found that those aged 18 to 24 fretted about the “right moment” for a kiss, and whether they might be bad at it. A third said they had avoided a kiss because they lacked confidence. This tallies with research consistently showing that young people today are more risk-averse than those in the past, abstaining not just from sex but also from alcohol and drugs.
Blair, who is 24 and non-binary, has only had three kisses in total since their teens, despite a six-year long-distance relationship. “Even though we had been together for years, I felt quite self-conscious, insecure and daunted by having so little experience,” they say. Now, “the thought of kissing someone I don’t know to the same degree makes me want to shrink away like a turtle”. They say they’ve always lacked confidence, but it worsened through the Covid-19 pandemic. Today, like many in their generation, they prefer the homebody lifestyle. “I have never been to a bar or club, I have never tried dating … I barely go anywhere that isn’t work or the cinema – which is to say, I never find or put myself in situations where kissing someone is even a possibility,” they say. “Even if I did, I don’t think I could find the nerve.”
Though more pronounced in gen Z, this risk aversion – linked to less time spent face-to-face with friends – goes broader. “People are not talking to strangers, or asking each other on dates,” says Sarah Stein Lubrano, a social theorist who is writing a book about this “social atrophy”. Kissing is a telling example, because it makes use of skills such as reading facial expressions, body language and subtle social cues that may be getting rusty with our dependence on tech. Its reported decline should concern us all, Lubrano says, “not because everyone needs to be in romantic relationships, but because overall it means less social connection, less commitment, less belonging”.
Compared with the challenges of finding a partner or having sex, kisses may seem trivial, especially to older generations who exchanged them freely. But the reported kissing recession is part of a broader breakdown in connection, attributed to the rise in digital communication, the decline of shared spaces and nightlife, shifting gender relations and even fears of surveillance. When two people were filmed kissing in New York’s Central Park last month, the clip went viral, attracting 4 million views on TikTok and many mocking comments.
Kissing has always been a mirror of its times, says Katie Barclay, a professor at Macquarie University, Sydney. In her new book The Kiss: A History of Passion and Power, she traces its evolution since medieval times and concludes that we really are kissing less today. Through the 19th century the kiss became the main symbol of romantic and physical intimacy, but as culture has become more visual and explicit, romantic kissing has receded in prominence and meaning. “It’s not as interesting – it doesn’t have the same erotic capacity as it used to, which is maybe why people are kissing less in general,” Barclay says.
In these pornified times, first base scarcely registers. A 2022 study found that kissing was “significantly less prevalent” in male-female pornographic videos than in the typical experiences of American adults. Even romantic comedies might foreground sex over the “snog on the couch” leading up to it, Barclay points out. And while kissing may be glossed over publicly, privately the issue has become more fraught, with the #MeToo movement raising awareness of the importance of consent. Though a positive shift, this adds another layer of complexity and raises the stakes of misjudging the moment. “Now it can be, and is, seen as a harm,” Barclay says.
That seriousness has complicated a youthful rite of passage. “I’m definitely very self-conscious about romantic intimacy – but it’s not for lack of trying,” says Carrie, 23. Her final two-and-a-half years of secondary school were conducted online due to the pandemic: “I do feel like I missed out.” Carrie has been on “plenty” of dates since, “but nothing has happened – it’s frustrating”. She feels scared and too inexperienced to make a move; her dates may have felt the same, she adds. “I’m not sure how to take charge in those situations. I don’t want to look like an idiot.”
Carrie nonetheless remains hopeful. Older people who have missed out on the milestone fear their moment has passed. “I put myself out there, but no one is interested,” says Joseph, 36. He uses dating apps, has gone to singles events and feels confident approaching women, but says it has never led to an opportunity to kiss. “In the past, you had places to connect locally and strike up relationships, whether platonic or not. It allowed you to build up social skills. Nowadays, people are glued to their phones and stay at home.”
Even if it didn’t lead to more, Joseph says a kiss would give him confidence and hope, “the sense of being wanted – the experience of it”. He worries that there is something wrong with him, and that he will for ever be unloved and alone. Therapy hasn’t helped. “I’ve learned not to hope any more because it just brings about a lot of pain.”
Joseph emphasises that he doesn’t hold women responsible for his situation, but he fears his inexperience will become more of a disadvantage as he gets older. “Let’s face it: a guy that hasn’t had a kiss in his mid-30s is seen as a major red flag to some women, consciously or unconsciously.”
Rodrigo, 31, conceals his lack of experience from friends, afraid of ridicule and being judged as a misogynistic “incel”. “Unfortunately, we all get grouped in that negative category,” he says. He has no time for men who blame their lack of sexual success on women, instead of looking inward. “Some of those guys have become really blind to what’s wrong with them.”
Rodrigo believes his barrier is dating apps: in 12 years, he’s never landed a date. “I think people like myself, who are below-average attractiveness, feel we have no chance at all.” Social media, circulating dating horror stories, has stoked his fear of rejection. He tries to stay positive, take breaks from dating and busies himself with work, but periodically feels “depressed and sad and angry at myself”. He still desires a relationship, and the validation of a kiss, but even that increasingly feels impossible. “I think, deep down, I’ve given up hope.”
Dolly, 35, has not had a kiss since early 2020. Before the pandemic, she says: “I was the kind of person who could just kiss someone on a night out, and it would be fun and silly – then something changed.” She puts this down to intimacy issues stemming from past traumas, which have felt more pronounced with age, and clarity about the connection she is looking for. As a lesbian, she feels grateful to be spared the increasingly fraught heterosexual dating scene, but says kissing has come to feel more weighty and consequential. “Now, if I’m going to kiss someone, they have to be someone I really, really trust,” she says.
Dolly admits she misses how easy kissing used to feel, when she was younger “and things didn’t really matter”, but she doesn’t feel any urgency. “I have my friends, who I adore. I don’t feel like something is missing.” She has noticed her straight teenage sister is also unbothered by dating, focusing instead on her social life and studies. “Apparently her and her friends just don’t care. When I was at school it was all about who you fancied.” It reflects a broader reported trend of women giving less priority to romance and love, often citing a lack of desirable partners and stubbornly unequal dynamics, with kissing the casualty – or sacrifice.
For Catriona, 55, the eight-year gap since her last kiss reflects her flourishing, not failing. She says she has “opted out” of dating because of the lack of emotionally intelligent men ready for a mature, equal relationship, and that many gen X women are doing the same: “I want to date a partner, not a project.” That precludes kissing, with Catriona preferring her own company to being intimate “for intimacy’s sake. Long, lingering kisses are wonderful, and something I miss from time to time, but I am no longer willing to just kiss anyone.” She “wouldn’t be concerned about kissing someone after all these years,” she adds, “but only after hours of conversation, and after I’d looked for green flags.”
Catriona is grateful for the experiences of her youth. “My God, I am glad I did all my kissing practice before the modern internet,” she says – mostly in nightclubs, “with random boys”. She has sympathy for younger generations, who don’t feel so “free to goof around and make mistakes”. Factoring in the UK’s declining nightlife sector, rising costs and dangers such as drink-spiking, “it’s far harder to meet someone to kiss than it was in the 1990s”, she says.
If kissing really is in decline, that is a societal problem, down to the absence of social infrastructure for young adults in particular, Lubrano says. “We need places where people can hang out for extended periods and maybe eventually get to a position where they would want to kiss.” But that doesn’t mean, in the meantime, that individuals are powerless.
Kissing’s challenges and complications might be being overstated relative to the rewards, Lubrano says. The most likely negative consequence of attempting a kiss is rejection and embarrassment, she says – which, though painful, brings valuable experience, proving it’s possible to venture beyond your comfort zone. That’s why kissing matters, separate from love, sex and relationships: “If people don’t take even the risk of kissing, we’re really not going to take bigger, more important risks.”
For Spencer, the desire at least is there. The challenge is in staying open, and alive to opportunity. “I don’t care about kissing, or sex at this point,” he says. “I just want connection.”
Names of all case studies have been changed
• The Kiss by Katie Barclay is out now (Reaktion Books, £20). To support the Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply
