Kissing

This brief paper provides general context in the emerging mobile game type, affection games. Affection games require players to flirt, hug, or kiss to meet their goals in the game. To date, the largest subset of these games is kissing games. The paper provides a general analysis of the 10 most widely distributed kissing games in 2013 and 2014, which account for more than 3,000,0000 mobile game installations. To add detail to the overview, two case studies are provided which exemplify physical device kissing and virtual in-game kissing. The download activity, player comments, and history of the games are used to provide a simple overview of affection game characteristics as they relate to human-computer interaction and play. Such analysis provides a peek into the mildly taboo space of affection games and the ways in which mobile developers are effecting the genre.

Extract from a book to be published in the new year by Miryamdevi & Minanath. The authors kindly allowed me to publish this uncorrected extract on a topic not much discussed in this field; that is the Kiss in Neo-Tantric lore. The complete book, "Naked Tantra", will be available early in 2020 in various formats, publisher as yet undecided, provisional slated as "The Morgan Witches" (no relation)

Sexual harassment legal liability has been one of the momentous legal outcomes of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This seminal civil rights law in Title VII governing employment expressly prohibits discrimination based on sex (that is, gender). Two areas the courts have defined as sexual harassment have been quid pro quo (meaning “this for that”) and hostile working environment. Quid pro quo claims take the form of “broken promises”, “favors”, or “threats” promised by male superiors to female subordinates in exchange for sexual favors or relationships. Hostile environment means any hostile, offensive, or intimidating action or environmental factor that would lead to the inability of the employee to work in a non-threatening atmosphere. This article examines the second type of sexual harassment cases – hostile environment. This article specifically focuses on certain physical aspects of perceived sexual harassment conduct, such as kissing, hugging, and touching, which in some cultures can be deemed as culturally and ethically appropriate but nonetheless can be perceived as hostile, offensive, abusive, intimidating, and threatening under the law. The authors present examples of socially acceptable behaviors around the world, analyze the legal ramifications, ethical implications, and cultural nuances, and then provide appropriate recommendations for business managers.

How can we become sensitized to the other? One way—Levinas’ example—is with a kiss, with the ambiguity of a kiss that exposes us to another kind of sensibility, makes us susceptible to the proximity of the other, vulnerable to the trace of an absence qua absent, the approach qua approach. And this is a praxis that resists the history of philosophy’s attempt to disambiguate the kiss, and that steps back from the desensitized violence of translating the saying of an infinite alterity into a finite said. For the ambiguity signifies that which metaphysics as onto-henology cannot think, namely, the other of being, and the kiss that is otherwise than being. But if we are to become sensitized to such an otherness, it is by kissing in such a way that we—taking a clue from what Levinas finds in language—think the verbality of the verb, that is, the diachronic tense and incomplete aspect of the kiss. We sensitize ourselves thereby, to a way of kissing otherwise, a praxis that allows the ambiguity of a kiss to signify, not merely the presence, but far more the absence of the other—and verbalize thereby, the otherness of the other. Or does it? For the ambiguity of the kiss could also imply another way of verbalizing, one in which the verb is neither present nor absent, but implied—and this sensitizes us to a way of kissing that suspends the presence and absence of the one who is supposed to be kissed, and suspends the act of kissing itself, even suspends any possibility of sensitization whatsoever. We are then left with the problem of kissing, and that which is implied by the ambiguity of the kiss.

Tolerance of same-sex relations in the earlier Platonic dialogues is called into question in Plato's *Laws.* Jennings offers insightful historical and political motivations as to why this Platonic anomaly may have come about. The colloquial image of the gay-friendly Plato is all the more dangerous because it is so tacitly presupposed ~ so uncritically accepted ~ that it seems almost genetically to pass down through the educated classes. To out Plato ~ he who very well may have invented the closet ~ as, himself, a closeted proto-homophobe is utterly scandalous and utterly necessary and...deserves our attention and applause.

"The gendered body takes a phenomenological turn in Brower’s cosmopolitan essay on oral sexuality within philosophical, feminist, and lesbian traditions..."
  ("Editorial" by Michelle Iwen)

Abstract:
The 'traditional philosophical prestige' of seeing and touching, as analyzed by Emmanuel Levinas, comes to dominate the qualities of the other three senses. An investigation of the roles of these prestigious senses, along with the resultant privileged sense-organs of the hand and the eye, within phenomenology, psychoanalysis, and gender- or queer-theory suggests that the part of the prestige of touch will have been related to its function in the phenomenality of feeling. Yet the sense of taste seems to be as applicable, if not more so, to the phenomenal experience of selfhood based on feeling as theorized by Edmund Husserl and Jean-Luc Marion. The tongue, rather than the hand, is reconsidered as a sense-organ of touch in order to salvage the all but lost tang of the tangible. As such, the tongue and taste not only illuminate the shortcomings of binary gender theories based on either inner feeling or outer surface anatomy (or, either interior orifices or exterior appendages), but further discover a remarkable phenomenology of the body to be found in the writings of Hélène Cixous and Monique Wittig that moves beyond certain masculine tendencies lurking about the hand and observation (as described by Freud and Butler). The phenomenal experience of the other that yields either empathy (for Husserl), love/eros (for Marion), or hearing and heeding 'Thou shall not kill' (for Levinas) has much to learn from the orality of women's writing. The third body, as written by Cixous, can experience the self as selftaste (as considered by Derrida) and experiences the other as the taste of the other. It is, thereby, opened to a love or a justice (or an erotic justice) beyond the proclamation of Levinas that 'ethics is an optics' as well as any ethics as a mere haptics to be found in Husserl or Marion, where feeling seems always determined by the hand.

Öpme ve öpüşme, insanların içinden gelen bir içgüdü olmakla birlikte insanların aralarındaki yakınlığı sembolize etmesi açısından bir gösterge olma özelliği kazanmaktadır. Öpme tek başına bir sevgi anlamı taşıyan bir gösterge olmakla birlikte farklı kültürlerde ve toplumlarda farklı anlamlar da içermektedir. El, ayak, yüz, göz, dudak, baş, boyun, alın ve diz öpmek gibi insanlar arasında farklı anlamlar içeren öpme göstergeleri vardır. Ayrıca insanların, canlı veya cansız nesneleri de öptükleri görülmektedir. Örneğin evcil hayvan, ekmek, kutsal kitap, etek, bayrak, toprak veya eşik öpmek gibi. Göstergebilim açısından ele alındığında öpme ve öpüşmenin sevgi, yakınlık, cinsellik gibi anlamları yanısıra, değer verme, özlem, veda, minnet, kutsallık ve saygı ifadeleri de içerdiği görülmektedir.Öpme, Giotto, Hayez, Rodin, Picasso, Klimt, Lautrec, Brancusi, Chagall, Magritte ve Lichtenstein gibi sanatçıların eserleri yanı sıra fotoğraf, reklam ve sinema sanat alanlarında da önemli bir gösterge olarak yorumlanabilir. Bu çalışmada farklı dönemlere ve farklı kültürlere ait öpme ritüeli taşıyan resimler, göstergebilim açısından ele alınacak ve incelenecektir. Abstracts Kissing which is a natural behaviour and instinct of human has been interpreted as indicator of love and intimacy among people. Although kissing symbolizes universally sincerity, it gained various meanings in different communities and cultures. There are several kissing semiotics having distinct meanings such as kiss of hand, foot, face, eye, head, lip, neck, for ahead and knee. Besides, people kiss live or inanimate objects rather than human like pets, bread, holy books, flag, earth, hand and skirt. As regard to semiology, it can be observed that kissing symbolizes several meaning such as love, intimacy, longing, sexuality, valuing, farewell, gratefulness, holiness and respect. Kissing culture growing since first humans caused development of social codes as earned social meanings. Sanctity rituals were included to kissing by effects of religions. Kissing can be interpreted as significant semiotics in photography, cinema, advertisement and masterpieces of famous artist like Giotto, Hayez, Rodin, Picasso, Klimt, Lautrec, Brancusi, Chagall, Magritte and Lichtenstein. Different kissing rituals belonging to various cultures and distinct times are interpreted and analysed as regard to semiology in this study.

I was first to propose that kissing transfers human pheromones and that emotional tears were involved in pheromone recognition. Pheromone pathology was here first proposed (Physical Child Abuse, sexual perversions, criminal behavior).  This paper was read at the biannual meeting of the Animal Behaviour Society at Bucknell University, Bucknell, PA on June 12, 1983.

Affection exchange theory and previous research suggest that affectionate behavior has stress-ameliorating effects. On this basis, we hypothesized that increasing affectionate behavior would effect improvements in physical and psychological conditions known to be exacerbated by stress. This study tested this proposition by examining the effects of increased romantic kissing on blood lipids, perceived stress, depression, and relationship satisfaction. Fifty-two healthy adults who were in marital or cohabiting romantic relationships provided self-report data for psychological outcomes and blood samples for hematological tests, and were then randomly assigned to experimental and control groups for a 6-week trial. Those in the experimental group were instructed to increase the frequency of romantic kissing in their relationships; those in the control group received no such instructions. After 6 weeks, psychological and hematological tests were repeated. Relative to the control group, the experimental group experienced improvements in perceived stress, relationship satisfaction, and total serum cholesterol.

While much attention has been focused on digital games and violence, little research exists on digital affection games. Affection games require players to flirt, hug, kiss or make love to meet their objectives. This paper takes the several hundred affection games offered online and in mobile marketplaces as a case study. Understanding play as instructive, practice, release or escape inspires engaging questions about affection games. This paper explores four perspectives of affection games as escapist fantasy, as technological affordance, as quantifiable experience, and as the product of mutual benefit, demonstrating how these games reflect and encode philosophies about affection and gender.

FR

À partir d’un corpus iconographique de cent vingt-sept miniatures issues de quatre-vingt-un manuscrits copiés et enluminés en France aux XIVe et XVe siècles, ce travail de thèse examine la construction de la figure de « la dame » à travers les textes, mais aussi par et dans l’image.  Entre imaginaire et réalité historique, il s’agit d’étudier la manière dont les représentations de cette figure idéalisée, louée par les troubadours et les auteurs du Moyen Âge tardif, influence la vision des rapports sociaux élaborés autour de la femme noble médiévale. En cela, il apparaît nécessaire de distinguer ces entités féminines, l’une réelle, l’autre idéelle, toutes deux partageant néanmoins certaines similitudes au travers des images. Notre approche iconographique repose sur deux principaux axes : les rituels sociaux et l’identité. Pour mener à bien ce travail, nous utilisons une méthodologie d’analyse sérielle, telle que la conçoit Jérôme Baschet, attentive aux répétitions et aux modulations de formules, ainsi qu’à la singularité des œuvres étudiées. Cette démarche conduit à une mise en réseau des images, révélatrice de certains caractères formels permettant de mieux définir le statut d’objet, agent ou sujet, octroyé à la dame au sein des représentations. La thèse explore ainsi la place de la dame dans l’imaginaire et la société chevaleresque, l’approche « courtoise » des rites vassaliques et la question de l’identité du féminin désiré, entre allégorie, genre et transgression.

EN

With a corpus of one hundred and twenty-seven illuminations, from eighty-one manuscripts painted in France in the 14th and 15th centuries, my thesis examines the construction of the lady’s character, through the texts and the imagery.
Between imagination and historical reality, we studying how the representations of this idealized figure, praised by troubadours and authors of the late Middle Ages, influence social relationship about the medieval noble woman. It is necessary to distinguish these feminine entities, one real, the other ideal, both sharing some similarities through the images.
Our iconographic study is based on two main axes: social rituals and identity. This work uses the serial method of medieval imagery, developped by Jérôme Baschet. It considering recurrences and iconographic modulations, as well as the singularity of the illuminations. This method requires a connection between the images, revealing certain gestures and manners to define the lady’s identity as an object or a subject in the representations.
The thesis then explores the role of the lady in the imaginary and the chivalrous society, the "courtly" culture of vassalic rites and the identity of this loved character, between allegory, gender and transgression.

While much attention has been focused on digital games and violence, little research exists on digital affection games. Affection games require players to flirt, hug, kiss or make love to meet their objectives. This paper takes the several hundred affection games offered online and in mobile marketplaces as a case study.
Understanding play as instructive, practice, release or escape inspires engaging questions about affection games. This article explores four perspectives of affection games as escapist fantasy, as technological affordance, as quantifiable experience, and as the product of mutual benefit, demonstrating how these games reflect and encode philosophies about affection and gender.

"Brower offers a deconstructive reading of what it means to taste (the coming of, the justice of) the messiah in Luther and Derrida, among others..."
  ("Editorial" by Jay Twomey, p. 130)

Abstract:
This article exploits a core defect in the phenomenology of sensation and self. Although phenomenology has made great strides in redeeming the body from cognitive solipisisms that often follow short-sighted readings of Descartes and Kant, it has not grappled with the specific kind of self-reflexivity that emerges in the sense of taste with the thoroughness it deserves. This path is illuminated by the works of Martin Luther, Jean-Luc Marion, and Jacques Derrida as they attempt to think through the specific phenomena accessible through the lips, tongue, and mouth. Their attempts are, in turn, supplemented with detours through Walter Benjamin, Hélène Cixous, and Friedrich Nietzsche. The paper draws attention to the German distinction between Geschmack and Kosten as well as the role taste may play in relation to faith, the call to love, justice, and messianism. The messiah of love and justice will have been that one who proclaims: taste the flesh

This brief paper provides general context in the emerging mobile game type, affection games. Affection games require players to flirt, hug, or kiss to meet their goals in the game. To date, the largest subset of these games is kissing games. The paper provides a general analysis of the 10 most widely distributed kissing games in 2013 and 2014, which account for more than 3,000,0000 mobile game installations. To add detail to the overview, two case studies are provided which exemplify physical device kissing and virtual in-game kissing. The download activity, player comments, and history of the games are used to provide a simple overview of affection game characteristics as they relate to human-computer interaction and play. Such analysis provides a peek into the mildly taboo space of affection games and the ways in which mobile developers are effecting the genre.

Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis (1593) is well-known for both its intense eroticism and acute literary self-consciousness. Flirting with Ovid, Lodge, and Marlowe (as well as Petrarch and his acolytes), the poem’s unstable conjunction of affection, admiration and aggression towards its literary peers and predecessors finds a fitting expression in the central erotic gesture of the poem itself – the kiss. “The kiss shall be thine own as well as mine,” Venus insists to her reluctant lover; but the way that she pecks at him only a few stanzas earlier, like an “empty eagle, sharp by fast”, belies this promise of reciprocity and mutual gain. As this paper will show, kisses present highly charged moments of corporeal and erotic connectedness, where the boundaries between gentle caresses and voracious bites become suggestively and dangerously blurred. I will argue that kisses in Venus and Adonis are vehicles for exploring the vexed questions of literary agency and ownership that arise from processes of imitation, while suggesting the rich potential of the erotic as a framework for approaching questions of artistic influence more broadly.