The chin constitutes the last border of the face, that part of our body so exposed to the outside and that, however, our children can only touch when they are very young or someone very intimate (or who aspires to be). Let’s think for a moment who comes in a conversation, even informal and relaxed, to touch our chin or the edge of our cheek: exclusively someone who likes us and who likes us, and we give permission with a look and a smile. Otherwise, stroking someone else’s face would be an invasive and almost aggressive act (and yet, touching the hand of someone unknown at a difficult moment, or the shoulder, or the arm or the back, of another waiting for the bus and with which we joke, for example, are gestures that do not have such a personal or intimate value).
Imagine touching the face of our boss or a client in a work meeting, or the wife of the notary who invites us to take a seat in the waiting room. But, above all, the chin, which is a continuum of the neck, one of the erogenous zones par excellence, from which all our defenses are lowered, from which we relax and indulge in a loving relationship. When they kiss our necks (because we have crossed the entrance), women instinctively bring their mouths closer. And something similar happens with a sweet touch (not haughty) of the other with the edge of his fingers, on our chin, from the bottom up or following the line of the jaw, horizontally. If that finger continues up, it will reach the lips, the corners, and we will want to bite or suck it.
I had a friend who asked for kisses on the face and bites on the cheeks; he bit and kissed the chin, when we were most excited in love.
It is not surprising, then, that anthropologists tell us that, in ancient times, the chin was an area of enormous significance in erotic language. The French anthropologist Agnès Giard explains, in her section on Libération , that from Antiquity to the beginning of the Middle Ages, in the West, “it would seem that the act of touching the chin or taking the other by the chin was another sign of affection erotic than the act of kissing on the mouth. Caressing the jaw of the loved one or holding the chin of a woman manifested loving passion “.
Giard quotes historian Leo Steinberg, who named this expression of desire ‘chin-chuck’, to comment that the act would have been mentioned in the Bible as well.
But, above all, “in ancient Greece, this allegorical gesture expressed the feelings that united the god Eros with Psyche. Curiously,” adds the anthropologist, “in the oldest representations, Eros (Love) holds Psyche by the chin while she he caresses her lower abdomen, which indicates the powerful analogy that associates the chin with the penis. ”
The gestures of the beard and chin in Ancient Rome have also been the subject of other studies, for example, that of María Antonia Fornés Pallicer and Mercé Puig Rodríguez-Escalona of the Universitat de les Illes Balears and the Universitat de Barcelona (published in 2005, in the Latino Studies magazine –ReLat-), which reaffirm the symbolic importance of that area of our body, although it was not linked exclusively to the erotic sphere. For example: “Tito Livio and Valerio Máximo tell us the same anecdote that, precisely, revolves around the gesture of stroking the beard of another individual (barbam permulcere). In synthesis, the story tells how, after the capture of Rome by the Gauls, one of them dares to caress the beard of a Roman, Marcus Papirio; this, extremely irritated, hits him on the head with his stick and provokes, with it, the wrath of the Gauls and the slaughter of the Romans. In the case of two different cultures, the Gallic and the Roman, it could happen that the gesture had a different meaning in one and the other. The response of the Roman to whom the beard is touched makes it clear that the gesture is interpreted as a mockery or insult, as in fact already happened in the gestures of touching the beard of another with greater intensity (‘pulling the beard’ or ‘ seize violently by the beard ‘). As for the Gaul, on occasion it has been pointed out that he could make the gesture as a sign of approval or veneration, although he seems to respond more to curiosity “. The response of the Roman to whom the beard is touched makes it clear that the gesture is interpreted as a mockery or insult, as in fact already happened in the gestures of touching the beard of another with greater intensity (‘pulling the beard’ or ‘ seize violently by the beard ‘). As for the Gaul, on occasion it has been pointed out that he could make the gesture as a sign of approval or veneration, although he seems to respond more to curiosity “. The response of the Roman to whom the beard is touched makes it clear that the gesture is interpreted as a mockery or insult, as in fact already happened in the gestures of touching the beard of another with greater intensity (‘pulling the beard’ or ‘ seize violently by the beard ‘). As for the Gaul, on occasion it has been pointed out that he could make the gesture as a sign of approval or veneration, although he seems to respond more to curiosity “.
Returning to the caresses that girls receive on the face, the kind we like and not the ones we dislike, here a man offers some clues as to where to start and how much to stop around the face and neck, so as not to address the genitalia ahead of time (and spoiling everything).
Let’s toast together with the god Eros for the health of the good desiring chins.