Saturday, March 04, 2006

Oral Paradox

Found while reading a romance novel today:

He put his tongue into her mouth and whispered, "This is like what will happen when we really, you know, do it."*

This line is from a straight romance, too, not the tale of a paranormal shape-shifter with a triple-jointed pseudopod lurking behind his pearly whites. Which brings me to my post topic: can you have your tongue in someone's mouth and whisper at the same time?

I've never tried, personally, but I'm thinking no here. Unless you're Gene Simmons, you usually don't have a lot of available lip movement space when you're giving a French kiss. You could trying grunting the words, I suppose, but still, wouldn't it come out sounding like "Ih ih ah ih ah-eh eh ee ee-ee, oo oh, oo ih"?

Whispering while tongue-kissing also has kind of a creepy cell-phone-usage-while-driving feel to it, too. Can't he wait until they break for gasps of air? Or is this like the new PC thing to do when a hero kisses a virginal heroine? Here's my tongue, darling, and it's just like this other thing I'm going to insert in you.

And excuse me, but no, having someone's tongue in your mouth is not like what happens when you, you know, really do it. Two completely different organs, two very different sensations. Well, unless your hero is having some problems down south. Then it might feel more like a tongue. Or look more like it, anyway.

Maybe this guy was tired. Not like it's a picnic, being the hero of a romance novel. If the poor guy isn't chasing the heroine, he's preserving her honor, battling her enemies, or whisking her off to some romantic setting where they can be alone for exactly eight hours before the next plot crisis or his bitch of a scheming mother/ex-girlfriend/business partner/distant cousin and heir to his estate arrives, whichever will cause the darkest moment. Making sparks fly is damn hard work.

Sure, you laugh now, but stuff like this is important for writers to know. Next time your hero has his tongue in your heroine's mouth and has to whisper something to her, you'll thank me for this post.

*Line has been slightly reworded to protect the author.

22 comments:

  1. That's too funny! I was reading one the other day where the hero suddenly sprouted a mysterious third hand...

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  2. Anonymous3:31 AM

    Or the ones where they're three feet apart and "she felt the bulge of his shaft against her belly." Wow. Is that a penis or a yardstick? Nice to know there are other readers/writers who are all about the logistics. Gotta admit I've gotten some good laughs because of that.

    I've been doing some posts about writing, so, I'm going to link to this one of yours.

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  3. Anonymous3:32 AM

    I suspect it would go like this:

    "Thith ith lie whah wiw happeh wheh we weewee, u o, oo ih."

    Maybe he meant using his tongue when they "weewee, uo oo ih," btw. Ya gotta consider that...

    I'm going to regret having posted this. I just know it.

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  4. Anonymous7:23 AM

    I'm rotfl. Seriously, maybe the poor fella had no genitalia and meant to use his tongue *snort*

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  5. Note to self: Don't read Sheila's blog while drinking tea. About died choking/laughing there. :P

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  6. Anonymous9:02 AM

    Maybe he's thinking of a different version of doing it.

    Did the heroine slap him away and tell him to grow up? That's not a sexy line, it's weird. And creepy.

    Yet funny. :)

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  7. LMAO! Thank you for this early morning giggle. Some of the comments were pretty hysterical too.

    'Or the ones where they're three feet apart and "she felt the bulge of his shaft against her belly." Wow. Is that a penis or a yardstick?'

    'Maybe he has a detachable tongue?'


    All of it, sad but true.

    Staring deeply into the other's eyes as they french kiss is another example.

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  8. How old was this guy? Sounds like something I'd hear back in high school. "Let's, uh, do it."

    uh? UH? And it? What is it? Hunting? Mousercizing? Are we sticking our tongues into round holes? Let's test him and put him next to a light socket.

    Sorry, can't get into a guy who can't say sex. SEX. Three letters. Not hard. I could use a naughtier word too but I'm too lady like. ;)

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  9. Anonymous10:34 AM

    I'm with Tambo. I'm a little weirded out by that line. It's very high schoolish and, uh, makes me giggle.

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  10. LOL! You really need to post a disclaimer on posts like these:

    WARNING--do not attempt to drink coffee or any other beverage while reading this blog entry. If you choose to do so, any resulting injury or property damage will not be the responsibility of the blog author.

    :)

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  11. Anonymous12:31 PM

    I can only assume that the poor author forgot to write the part where he pulled his tongue out of her mouth and THEN said, well, what he said. I really hope that if I accidentally wrote something physically ridiculous, a critique partner, editor or someone would catch it. :)

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  12. Thank you.
    Laughed myself sick.
    Was on my way to writing something almost as bad the other day - had him kissing her mouth while pressing her behind against his crotch - but several friends caught me in time.

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  13. If you find a lover who can enunciate while tongue kissing - you might want to keep them around for a while.

    I'm looking for a woman who can sing the Star Spangled Banner while counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.

    Hilarious post, Sheila.

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  14. Staring deeply into the other's eyes as they french kiss is another example.

    Psst. Next time you are french kissing, open your eyes. You might just find your partner staring back ;)

    CindyS

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  15. 'had him kissing her mouth while pressing her behind against his crotch'

    Bernita, what you describe isn't totally out of the realm of possibility. Check out this pic--

    http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7866/598/1600/dracula.jpg

    --where Gary Oldman's Dracula is kissing Winona Ryder's Elizabetta.

    Cindy, I have. ;-) You end up cross-eyed, and your partner looks like a blurry cyclops. Far from the moment of 'drowning intensity' that authors like to describe it as. heh.

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  16. Awww. Don't you just love it when guys are coy. And contortionists. *vbg*

    BTW, thanks for the very good advice yesterday and apologies for asking difficult questions. I really appreciate that you take the time to answer them. *blushingly leaves*

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  17. LOLOL!! Everyone else said all the good stuff before I got here. :)

    Linda

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  18. When I read lines like that in romance novels, I get depressed. I hate that it got past the author, the editor, the copy editor, et al and nobody realized how bad it sounded.

    *le sigh*

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  19. Thanks for the good laugh, and the good thought. It's true that sometimes when we're too close to our work, it's easy to miss really obvious incongruencies like this one. I'm a bit surprised, however, that it made it through editing to the press without a question!

    I think I'm going to go try to tongue and whisper at the same time, just to see if there's something I'm missing! :D

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  20. >>It just makes me wonder how something like this gets an editor's approval.

    In the editors defense, he/she is human too as is teh copy editor. The writer......I'm not so sure of.

    My BIG BIG pet peeve is picking up details from across a crowded room. Really irks me...

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  21. Jayne, won't work I'm afraid.
    My hero is a just a normal ordinary guy - you know, six feet tall, muscular, devastingly sexy...

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  22. For some reason this reminds me of the scene in Dumb and Dumber where the guy has his tongue frozen to the pole of the ski lift. He sees some kids and says, "Hey kiths, ya wooden haffen to haf any hot watha wouldja?" As he says this a huge line of drool drops out of the side of his mouth.

    Definitely not sexy.

    -Jaye, who admits to loving Dumb and Dumber

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