January is Makeout Month at Autostraddle.com

I believe in making out — often, as passionately as you can, and in whatever circumstances make you feel the most comfortable. I believe in kissing the people you want to kiss when you want to kiss them no matter the time or the place. I believe in kissing people you really like or love, and I believe in kissing people you might not want to date or have sex with. I believe in making out at the club, at the dance party, in the backseat of your car, in the corridor to the stairwell of your building, in the movie theater, at concerts, on the beach, at sports events, and at the brewery where making out isn’t really the vibe but you’re so hot for it you do it anyways.

I came flying out of the closet when I was 14-years-old and started making out with girls so immediately that I didn’t really have a lot of time to contemplate the shame I had of being queer. I followed my most base, natural instincts and covered the emotionality of my coming out with sexual experiences. Over the years, I’ve had to investigate a lot of the maladaptive behaviors I developed around sex so early in my life. But through some of those behaviors, I also gained a lot of personal freedom around sexual expression from learning to own my body and the actions I take with it. From the moment I discovered how to kiss someone else, I’ve been enchanted with the unique impact kissing has on my mind and my body. I’ve had kisses that were either so clarifying or wholly confusing or, sometimes, a little bit of both. I’ve experienced the kinds of kisses that changed the dynamics of my relationships to others or solidified us into the dynamics we’ve always had. Kissing has made me feel confident, lightheaded, and optimistic, but it’s also made me feel amateurish, scared of the future ahead, and washed in a way that’s difficult to explain. It’s amazing how if you’re not used to kissing someone, it’s always a little bit of a risk — it could be the most magical experience of your life or it could be the most awkward moment you’ve had in a while. It’s shocking how much of it is inside and outside of your control at the same time.

More than that, I believe making out when and where we want to can be liberatory, especially to those of us who are queer and trans and have other intersections that make our sexuality and the sensuality we share with other people like us less appealing and less acceptable to the rest of society. These kinds of kisses — the ones stolen in public spaces and in mixed crowds of people — taught me I didn’t need to hide myself or push my impulses away just because some people who don’t know me believe I shouldn’t be allowed to act on them. They’re some of the experiences that helped free me from the indignity of subjugation and encouraged me to fight for our collective ability to act on our desires. For almost my entire adult life, I’ve wondered: Even if it didn’t take anything away from us, we’ll never be able to hide ourselves enough for the people who think we shouldn’t exist, so why should we even try?

Between the ways dating has shifted over the past decade, the lasting impacts of the Covid pandemic, and the fear many have about moving further into another era of repressive tactics against queer and trans people, I don’t expect we’ll soon be in a place where we’re kissing as openly as we used to. Regardless of whether or not we get it back though, I want to sing an ode to this type of resistance in the best way I know how.

Franz Ferdinand – “Take Me Out” x Daft Punk – “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”

The all-ages dance party at the grimey club in Ft. Lauderdale where my friends and I would always go to watch our favorite punk bands didn’t last long, but we were at every one. Waltzing in without the stress of having to show our horribly rendered fake IDs made those nights feel a little lighter than any other time we went out, even when the air was drenched in smoke and sweat because, I swear, they never set the air conditioning properly for the amount of people who showed up. We’d dance for hours in there, clothes and hair soaked so completely it looked like we’d just gone for a swim. After a while, I’d need a second outside to collect myself away from the almost 200 young bodies emitting heat all around me, even if the weather outside was just as sticky.

That’s how I meet the girl from North Carolina for the first time.

We start talking almost immediately after spotting one another taking our respective breathers after a couple hours dancing with our friends. Her accent is so thick — or maybe I’m just too high and teenage horny to focus on anything else — that I can’t help staring at her lips as she asks me what feels like a thousand questions about who I am and what I’m about. When we go back inside, we spend the rest of the party dancing together, hands reaching all over each other’s bodies, yet neither of us take a chance on a kiss. I forget to ask for her number, too distracted as we all disperse into the night. So, for the almost four weeks leading up to the next party, I keep hoping I’ll see her again.

As my friends and I make our way through the crowd of the next month’s party, I look around for a little while and don’t see her. I’m not sure how long we’re dancing before I finally spot some of her friends in the crowd and approach them to see if she’s there.

The DJ starts playing this Franz Ferdinand and Daft Punk mash-up as I walk up to her and ask her to dance. She grabs my hand and says, “Yeah, but we should kiss this time,” and we do, and we barely stop to catch our breath.

As the mash-up comes to an end and we finally start gasping for air, I can feel the syrupy goo of her lip gloss around the corners of my mouth. I gesture to use my sleeve to wipe it away, and she laughs and pulls me into another kiss, into another space where it’s just the two of us in that room, hands fumbling and figuring out where to go, tongues writhing together without an end in sight.

Scissor Sisters – “Comfortably Numb”

On the night the older girl I shouldn’t have been with takes me to my first queer club night in the part of Wynwood that will soon become a destination for tourists from around the world, I know I’m way too young to be there. I can feel it and see it as soon as we walk through the door. Everyone is at least five years older than her, which means they’re at least a decade older than me. To be honest, I didn’t even think we’d get in, but the older girl is such a smooth talker, such a master at creating digressions that the bouncer didn’t even notice the picture on my ID doesn’t match my face in the slightest. I feel so anxious we’re going to get caught that I chug a Dos Equis within 10 minutes of being there. The older girl is rubbing the back of my neck as I drink another beer and smoke a cigarette as I try to tamp down the anxiety so she doesn’t realize what a pussy I am or leave me to go dance with someone else much older and much cooler.

When I’m feeling more like myself, we make our way to the dancefloor and move like we do in the living room of her apartment when all of her roommates are at work. The lights are so dim at times that I can’t see anyone besides her, but I know they’re there, doing what we are, only maybe they’re not as sure as I am that I’ll end up in my dance partner’s bed at the end of this night. My hands aren’t clumsy on her body because she taught me better. I know where I’m going, where she likes to be touched, and where my hips should fall in unison with hers.

After a while, I take the deepest breath I’ve taken in hours and forget everything that made me so uneasy when we got there — my age, her age, the illegal lengths we went through to get into the club, and the fact that it’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been this surrounded by people just like me, like us.

The first few chords of “Comfortably Numb” drop, and I know the older girl is about to lose her mind over it. She’s been obsessed with this album since before we met, but she’s especially consumed by this song, a more uptempo cover of the same Pink Floyd song her dad used to play for her before bed when she was little. I watch as she throws her hands in the air and starts moving her body in ways she’s never done inside the walls of her apartment. She’s losing herself in the music, so I become her audience, patiently waiting to see what she’ll do, what she wants me to do.

The chorus comes around again, and she screams “There is no pain, you are receding” before sliding her mouth onto mine. It’s not until I’m finally recounting this story to my friends at school days later that I notice, in the back of my mind, I’m praying my queerness will always feel just like this.

Girl Talk – “Bounce That”

We’re only together for a couple months when we decide to go to the music festival they organized at the state park right on the edge of the Everglades. When we wake up that morning to go, it’s unusually hot for March, so I brace myself for a long, damp, dirty day. I was never a fan of outdoor music festivals, and being in sweltering South Florida doesn’t make the prospect of going to one more appealing, but I know the girl I’m going with is excited and I try to match her enthusiasm.

The day turns out exactly as I expect: We have a blast seeing a lot of bands we love, doing drugs, and hanging out with our friends, but at what cost? My shoes are totally destroyed from walking around the park grounds; my clothes are heavy with the stench of dried sweat, barbequed food, and the shit weed we’ve been smoking all day; and we’ve been standing for so long, I’m starting to lose all the feeling in the muscles of my legs.

As 8 p.m. rolls around, I’m trying to manifest a quick exit for us, and the girl I came with tells me we can’t leave without seeing Girl Talk. There is nothing I want to do less than dance to a Girl Talk set right now, but I follow her to the tent where he’s playing anyways. I’m trying as hard as I can, but I can’t catch the spirit of the whole endeavor until I see another queer couple about our age grinding against one another. Their bodies turn towards us, and I notice they’re fingering each other on the dancefloor. I’m so impressed and turned on by their uninhibitedness that I burst out laughing and ride a jolt of energy straight into the arms of the girl I came with.

We dance to the next six songs uninterrupted, sweat slinging off our bodies as we move around, dirt and grass kicking up from our feet to the slickest parts of our legs. The Breeders bassline drops in the middle of “Bounce That,” and I notice the sweat of her neck reflecting the lights from the DJ booth back to me, and I can’t resist kissing her there. Our faces are as moist as the swamp we’re standing in, and I can taste every bit of the day on her as we kiss through the rest of the set.

Dirty Projectors – “Stillness is the Move”

On one of the first dates the girl from Houston and I go on, I tell her about seeing Dirty Projectors for free at the McCarren Park Pool Party years ago and that I still think “Stillness is the Move” is an incredibly romantic song.

We’re still dating when the band comes to play at one of the clubs I grew up going to during one of their tours, and she buys us a pair of tickets as a surprise. In the card, she writes, “Now you have to kiss me if they play ‘Stillness is the Move’” and on the night of the show, the band doesn’t allow me to disappoint her.

The first few percussive notes of the song drop, and I grab her by the small of her back. She tightly holds my face in her hands and kisses me back so fervently that I melt further into her as I think about how we’ve never kissed in public before, how she’s been so afraid to even hold hands when we’re out together. I’m so entranced by this public display of sensuality that I don’t stop to think about the stares we’re getting from other audience members until the next morning when we’re talking about the show in her bed.

Far East Movement feat. The Cataracs and DEV – “Like a G6”

After we valet the car for much more money than we should be spending, I try to remember why we all decided going to one of the clubs flanking the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood would be a good idea for New Year’s Eve. But then, the other half of our group comes running up to us along with the girl who lives in Gainesville that I keep spending all my free time with but shouldn’t be crushing on because she’s never expressed any romantic interest in anyone other than men before, and I resituate myself into the mood of the evening. We choose the club that has the shortest line for entry and start talking shit about everyone there because, in this moment of our lives, we’re being ironic dicks who just thought coming here would be a funny story.

Somehow, though, our attitudes begin to shift when we finally get into the club. They’re playing all the artists people in South Florida love to hear no matter what year it is: Pitbull, Sean Paul, Daddy Yankee, and the Black-Eyed Peas. And despite the very noticeable absence of other queer people in this whole joint, the molly J’s friend gave us is starting to hit us all at once and we’re dancing our asses off. I feel lighter than I’ve felt in months, and I can’t believe how thoroughly euphoric I feel here, at this straight ass club on New Year’s Eve dancing to fucking “I Gotta Feeling” with my friends.

It’s getting later and later, and we’re all starting to splinter into couples on the dancefloor. I end up with the girl I keep spending all my free time with but shouldn’t be crushing on because I’m pretty sure she’s straight, and we dance as if I don’t know I’m never going to be man enough to win her over.

At midnight, “Like a G6” is blaring in the background behind the countdown, and we don’t kiss. Instead, she asks me what I want in the New Year and, in a moment of intoxicated nerve, I say cheekily, “I want to be your boyfriend.”

She seems completely unfazed by the comment, and we keep dancing until our feet are too tired to go on any longer. We walk outside together looking for somewhere to rest in the crowded outdoor mall where the clubs and bars are. When we finally find a ledge to sit on, she asks me what the perfect ending to the night would be, and I’m too blotto to lie so I tell her I want to kiss her until I can’t feel my face anymore. I’m sure my assertiveness will hook her, but she doesn’t go for it. She kisses me on the cheek and asks me to walk her to her car.

Four weeks go by before we spend the first day of a long weekend in Gainesville together that changes everything between us when we end up frantically and breathlessly making out in the bathroom of the bar where I meet her local friends for the first time. She asks me to take her home and stay with her for the rest of the weekend, and we drive back to her place jokingly blasting “Like a G6” on repeat and holding hands the entire way.

Hercules & Love Affair ft. Rouge Mary – “Rejoice (Remix)”

I learned about this late-night, queer dance party in a warehouse in Little Haiti from someone I’ve been enamored with for months, but I’m a coward, so I don’t ask them to go with me the first time I check it out. After looking up the party’s Instagram account, I choose the more callous option and send a text inviting this person who’s been trying to get me out on a date with them for about the same amount of time I’ve been into the person who told me about the warehouse dance party. I’m not sure I like the person I invite in the way I like the person I don’t, but I do think they’re extremely hot and, at this time, that is the only excuse I need to hook up with someone.

We meet about an hour into the party starting, and they buy me a drink though I protest a lot when they insist on paying. I’m still not sure what I’m doing here with them, so I suggest we go outside on the patio to talk a little while we finish our drinks. Our conversation flows so naturally and our humor bounces perfectly back and forth between us that I feel like such an asshole for rebuffing their attempts to hang out with me for so long.

We grab a second drink, then another, then one more before we finally make it out onto the dancefloor. Their skirt is so tight on their hips, I can tell they’re not wearing any underwear, but I try to stay focused on dancing with them because it’s still a little early in Miami time and we’re not leaving just yet. We share another drink and then a cigarette, and then we can’t keep our hands off each other on the dancefloor anymore.

I know they want me to kiss them, and I think it’s kind of cute how they’re too afraid to make a move. They drag me outside for some air and to cool off in the uncharacteristically chilly fall night, and I ask them if they want to go home, but they clearly don’t want to. We continue dancing to this song outside, bodies firmly pressed together and swaying just enough to stay on beat. After a few seconds, they retract their head from mine a bit and tell me I’m handsome. I kiss them without hesitation, and my entire body warms to the sensation, cementing the feeling towards them that’s been growing inside me all night.

When we finally stop making out, we notice everyone on the patio has been doing the exact same thing.

Davido ft. Stefflon Don – “FIA”

This is my second time in Atlanta to see the girl I’ve been talking to non-stop for the last two months. She’s so hard to read sometimes, but she never fails to text me every morning and keep me updated on what’s going on as she goes about her days. For my first trip here, we mostly stayed in the apartment watching movies, making food, and having sex, so this time, we vowed to get out more. I want to see the city, check out some of the places she likes to go, and get to know her better from those experiences, and in return, she wants to show me those things.

On my first night in town, we go to a hip little bar and restaurant in Old Fourth Ward where a former colleague of hers works. We order food and cocktails, and her friend doesn’t miss an opportunity to add more liquor in our drinks where it doesn’t really go. We spend our time there eating and drinking, having short halfhearted conversations with him, touching each other’s thighs under the bar, and nuzzling into each other until she wants a change of scenery. We don’t kiss, because something about the atmosphere fails to make either of us feel like it’s a good idea to try. It takes a while, but we finally settle our tab and she tells me there’s another bar not too far, one that’s a little more rough around the edges, so we walk in that direction.

In this dive bar, we’re the only queer people from what I can tell, but it feels comfortable in a way the other bar did not. As we’re waiting for the bartender to bring our drinks over, she walks over to the TouchTunes jukebox, and this song she chose starts playing immediately. With my back to the bar, she throws her arms around my neck and starts quietly singing the song to me. At the end of the first chorus, we kiss until her lip stain tints mine just like hers. When I turn around to grab our drinks, the bartender jokes that it’s my “color.”

Carly Rae Jepsen – “Want You In My Room”

We’ve been friends for a few months now, but we’ve only been officially dating for a couple of weeks when I ask you if you want to come see Carly Rae Jepsen with me. I know you’re not a big fan, but lately, I just want to share everything with you, including this very earnest connection I have to a Canadian pop star many people don’t take seriously enough. You say “yes” more enthusiastically than I imagined you would, and I instantly grow more trusting of you and more validated in my inclination to include you in the things that I love.

You’ve been spending most nights at my apartment, and so we spend most of the day of the concert in bed together before we finally get up to get ready. Every time I look at you, I think it’s insane that someone so beautiful wants to spend the day in bed with me, but I don’t tell you that for a while because I feel like we haven’t been together long enough for those kinds of feelings to be revealed.

As we drive to the venue on Miami Beach, we listen to Carly’s songs, and you genuinely ask me what I like so much about them. I tell you I guess it’s because they’re so ardent and vulnerable in a way that I admire, that a lot of the art I love has this quality even if it’s darker or more serious. You seem to actually understand where I’m coming from, and you explain how you feel the same way though your tastes are somewhat dictated by what you grew up with in the country where you’re from.

At the concert, you’re such a good sport even though I know you’re struggling to see the value in these songs. You’re dancing along with me, you’re watching me sing along and smiling, and you’re taking lots of photos and videos so I don’t have to. Midway through, you notice we’re surrounded mostly by gay men and other queer people, and you say something like “Damn, the gays really eat this up,” which makes me laugh because of course we do.

We are definitely getting flirtier and flirtier as the show goes on, and I tell myself I’m going to kiss you when it feels right. We’ve only been on a few real dates and we always end up back at my apartment, so we haven’t had the opportunity to kiss anywhere but there.

Carly and her band take a few moments to breathe and introduce themselves before launching into this song, and I don’t mean to be cliche and kiss you during the song about making out, but I do. I can feel your lipstick and make up transferring directly onto my face while we kiss as deeply as we do in my apartment, and when we finally stop, you laugh and try to wipe the remnants of the kiss away from my face while saying “This is why we can’t kiss out here.”

But that’s all I want to do, so I kiss you again and again and a few more times before the show is over and I feel certain I could do this with you forever if you’d let me.

Before you go! Autostraddle runs on the reader support of our AF+ Members. If this article meant something to you today — if it informed you or made you smile or feel seen, will you consider joining AF and supporting the people who make this queer media site possible?

Join AF+!