By Nicole McGovern

It’s every college girl’s fantasy. She’s in class with that one dreamy professor. Little does she know, he feels the same way about her. It’s the end of class. Everyone leaves, but she stayed after to talk to him. As he stands behind her with his hand on her shoulder, he leans in closer to look at her notes until she feels his breath on her. Then suddenly, they’re kissing.

This was the scene in the West Addition Curry Student Center (CSC) Monday night for an event called the “Art of Kissing.”

Bringing kissing into the limelight was author and self-proclaimed kissing expert Michael Christian. Christian spoke to a crowd of about 50 students Monday night in the CSC. The event, hosted by the Resident Student Association (RSA), was a part of Sex Week 2006, intended as a fun way to promote safe sex to college students.

Christian ran around the stage shouting erotic instructions to everyone from the audience to the four participating couples.

His mission was to help them to become more exciting and romantic kissers.

Better kissing, he said, would lead them to excel at other activities in the bedroom. The former Boston College teacher said he wrote the book, “The Art of Kissing” under the pen name William Cane to better his sex life.

He jokingly added that now, after a first kiss with a woman, he’s usually met with something like, “That’s the best you can do?”

Though he was serious enough to write a book about the subject, Christian often joked about the situations where it happens. After meticulously setting up the aforementioned scene with the teacher and student using volunteers from the audience, he ended the scene with a punchline.

“She goes straight to heaven. And he goes straight to jail,” he said.

In addition to the first scene, Christian had four student couples on stage performing different types of kisses for everyone’s viewing pleasure.

“We were born with an instinct to kiss,” Christian said.

On top of tips, he was also armed with facts.

Eight percent of men enjoy kissing a girl wearing flavored lip gloss, he said, while two-thirds of women prefer kissing a clean-shaven man.

He also had knowledge of kisses of a more exotic type. He talked about a dangerous kiss done in the South Pacific. To begin, the men and women would bite and suck each others lips – hard enough to draw blood. They then proceed to tear each others hair out and nibble off one another’s eye lashes. Christian said that in the South Pacific, short eyelashes signify popularity.

Throughout the night, Christian showed students how to kiss rhythmically – even upside down.

“He really works the crowd,” said Caitlin Campana, a middler marketing major and vice president of programming for RSA. “He talks about different things that make kissing fun and more romantic.”

One scenario Christian had the couples act out involved the men and women on their first date.

While on the date, the woman was thinking: “Is he interested? Oh, he’s got a good major, maybe he’ll be successful”; while the man was thinking: “Wow, this girl is hot. How can I move in for a kiss without getting slapped?”

Their hands accidentally brushed and they leaned closer and closer until they could feel the heat from their partner’s mouth.

Then, suddenly, “Contact!” Christian yelled. “We’re kissing!”

Shy people, on the other hand, do things a bit differently, he said. They stand at attention and look left and right to make sure no one’s watching.

Then they kiss without puckering.

Christian suggested students practice how to kiss at home. No partner? No problem.

“Practice on a doorknob,” he said. “Make a mouth with your hand. It’s so realistic you could get turned on.”