French Kissing vs. The International Open-Mouthed Tongue Parade

Dear Readers,

I present you with a passage from my guidebook:

"There is no such thing in France as the French kiss. Open-mouthed tongue kissing has no national boundaries, and aside from les bises, the formal greeting that marks most encounters, is really the only kind of kissing that counts here."

I read this before I went, and after a couple weeks, I'd like to add the following:
"And how."

My sightseeing so far in Paris has consisted largely of people making out with each other. People making out with each other in the Gardens of Luxembourg, the enormous, lush monument to Marie de Medicis' dead husband. The park is complete with a fountain, a bocci court, playgrounds, tennis courts and acres upon acres of beautiful lawns and benches for people to make out on. The garden abuts the Palais du Luxembourg, an ornate and enormous structure that houses the French senate, who must be grateful to be relieved, during heated senatorial debates, to gaze out upon The People publicly displaying such unbounded affection for their fellow man/woman.

People make out on the metro, of course, due to it's cozy nature. In fact, you can often be squeezed right up next to a couple making out, and if you're lucky maybe the train will jostle and someone will lick your cheek.

People make out in restaurants, and I try my best to be blasse about it. It's a different culture, I was raised in a prude one, it's fine to make out wherever you want. But sometimes the American girl in me can't help but stare when I see strangers all but conceiving a child on a bench in the Parc de Butte-Chaumont, where the innocent among us are trying to have a run.

I can see them in their homes now:
Man: "Hoh hoh hoh. Let us make out now."
Woman: "No! There are not enough people to see us! We must go into public and make an exhibition of it!"

Needless to say, I feel more left-out than judgmental. Not that the French haven't been inviting. Why, just yesterday I was quietly having a decaf cafe while I waited to walk to the movie theater, and one of the bartenders, after a chat where I told him I was married and here visiting my husband's sister, nearly pulled me into his lap for a kiss. I had to wriggle a little to get out of his amorous clutches.

Last weekend at a nightclub, I turned from the bar to find myself approximately half an inch from one man's French kiss. Or, whatever - International Open-Mouthed Kiss. I said I was married. He didn't speak any English except for the following phrase, which he kept repeating:

"I am a man! I am a man! I am a man!"

So that's mainly what I have to report: P. D. A. I will regale you soon with adventures at the Louvre, or the Musee Rodin, or the Eiffel Tower...but I know for sure those places will all be filled with people performing their own unique versions of the International Open-Mouthed Tongue Parade. For now I am holed up safe in my apartment where, due to the T.V not working, I actually can't see anyone making out right now. I can just gaze out my window in peace and...

well, nevermind.