I Made Out With A Tomato!

First Kiss stories from the Loose Lips crew
& FIRST KISS zine release party

By Dani Aronson

I recently went to a lovely event at the 92nd Street Y Tribeca called FIRST KISS. It was to celebrate the release of a zine by the same name. The two awesome women behind FIRST KISS are Marisa Meltzer and Elizabeth Spiridakis. Marisa and Elizabeth are friends that share a longtime love of zines, a love that goes way back to their adolescence. I attended the event with an old friend from my Jew camp days— this was all too fitting considering many of the stories occurred at summer camp, and in one case, at a bar mitzvah.

Hearing all these first kiss tales brought me back to my own awkward and hormone filled days. The references of ska music, no doubt concert shirts, braces, boy/girl parties, truth or dare, answering machines, slap bracelets and the words ‘can I kiss you’… made my insides go warm and fuzzy. I feel like years of dating in a big city can make us cynical and heavyhearted… but the innocence of the first kiss, it makes even the most tough-as-nails chick smile. There were mentions of a follow up zine called ‘Bar Mitzvah Finger Bang’… Hanukkah gifts SORTED.

The stand out stories to me were Marisa Meltzer and Leon Neyfakh and Doree Shafrir. Marisa’s first kiss happened with an acne-faced dork at the Rocky Horror Picture Show (YES). When she walked back to her friends, the bitch of the group stated ‘that guy ate your face’. We were all friends with this girl at 14- am I right? Leon’s story took place at camp during a game of Truth or Dare. He lost his virginity to the same girl 4 years later. All the girls (and a few boys) in the room were seriously creaming their liberal blog reading panties over Leon. HE. IS. LUSH. Doree was set up by the queen bitch pimpess of her Jew camp. It happened on the tennis court on the last night of camp. If you went to summer camp- you will love this one. These are just the 3 tales that I most connected with—but the whole zine is filled with great stories that will have you laughing so hard you cry… and maybe like I did—emailing your friends to hear their first kiss stories.

First Kiss zine – BUY IT!

So, without further delay… Loose Lips first kiss stories… All anonymous to preserve what is left of our innocence:

1) B’s house. Aged 13. Our friends + her brother’s older friends. Too much beer/Hooch (anyone remember that early alcopop?). His name was Kevin. Massive tonguing session. Pretty gross. Then I vomited all over B’s sisters bed and passed out. Classic!

2) Me and a tomato, aged 11! I used to subscribe to a Swedish kids’ mag called Kamratposten and they were notorius for having a agony aunt/teenage sex column. Well, one of the tips they had was to bite a chunk out of a tomato, stick you tongue in there and twirl it around. They claimed the feeling of a slippery (room temperature!) tomato was as close you could get to the real thing and that it was an excellent way of perfecting ones technique.

All I can say is that I sucked licked and tongue raped that poor tomato and the ‘training’ sesh did not help me in any way when my first kiss with a human happened a few months later. Silly Swedes, huh?

3) My first lesbian kiss. It was my 22nd birthday. I had many many cocktails. We went to a drag club. At one point, I was up on stage putting a five-dollar bill down the drag queen’s panties. It was very high class.

It was about 4am and my friends and I ended up at a diner for post-clubbing pancakes and Bacon. I went to the loo with my friend. I am not sure what had happened, but next thing I know we were making out in the ladies toilet. After the makeout sesh we went back up to join our crew and enjoyed a massive Bacon feast.

4) I had just turned 14. I was about to start high school. I had already smoked weed. I had purchased my first illegal beer. I hadn’t had my first ‘real’ kiss though. I had been to 2 ‘make-out’ parties hosted by older friends and been once propositioned by a much older guy to make out, but was a scared child, and let my 2 slutty catholic school friends go down on him instead (I was 13 – they were too).

At the time one of my best friends was Alison from summer camp. She lived in NJ. She had made out with a few boys already. This seemed like the case for most girls I met from NJ. She was having a ‘boy / girl’ party and sleepover I was going to in her parents cool basement. It’s still summer- high school hasn’t started yet. She called me and said ‘my friend Brandon saw a picture of you from camp and he thinks you’re HOT and a cool dresser. You should make out with him at the party’. I asked what Brandon looked like. She said ‘hot’. It was before facebook so I had to take her word for it.

I got to the party. Brandon and I were introduced. It was obvious what was supposed to go down. Luckily for me Brandon was VERY cute and very nice. We talked on the couch while Alison sucked face with her boyfriend. After 2 hours or so, Alison said ‘you guys should go to the dark room down the hall- to be alone’. Alison was a good friend. Brandon and I went to the dark room and sat on the couch. It was dark. I could not see ANYTHING at first. He asked ‘have you ever done this before, it’s my first time’. I said ‘well, I have kissed 2 boys’ (this was true, but I had NOT french kissed them! little did I know that’s what was coming…). He asked ‘can I kiss you’. I said ‘yes’. We leaned in and our noses collided before we met mouth to mouth. It wasn’t good or bad, I just remember thinking {oh, so this is what REAL kissing is like… okay… he tastes like asparagus…. is this good or gross? am I moving my tongue right?}. This went on for a while. Then we went back to the party. Alison was very excited on what had gone down. Brandon and I made out the rest of the night. He was also my first ‘boyfriend’. We ‘dated’ for 2 12/ months. He dumped me over AIM. The year was 1996.

Years later I found out he had a boyfriend and is 100% into dick. Oh well. He was a good first kiss. I guess that explains why a 14-year-old boy from NJ would even give a shit about how I dressed.