The kiss: let's revise the rules of engagement

The kissing game must stop. This is a peculiarly Australian masculine manoeuvre. We all know how it is played: two people in suits greet each other, man leans across to unsuspecting woman and draws her in for a puckered-up invasion of her facial space, almost always, note, in front of people. She thrusts out her hand to intercept the grab, offering a handshake instead. He is having none of it and with a light toss of his head proceeds to plant his modest dose of bacteria-ridden saliva and breath of the unflossed kind on her shrinking cheek, while playfully telling her that her efforts at rejection are crazy/unfriendly/unnecessary. In front of everyone, of course.

Mostly we just move on. Sigh.

Clearly a kiss on the lips (universal sound of women retching) was a bridge too far for Leigh Sales. I have a vision of the tall, imposing television interviewer looking down her patrician nose as she gave him the telling-off of tellings-off in front of 200 people for whom I trust it was a life-changing event.

To kiss in public someone who has not invited you is dominating behaviour. It is meant as a putdown and, yes, powerful women often provoke outbreaks of kissing in men who feel the need to make sure she knows her place. He has asserted his self over hers.

Yes, there are plenty of times when women tilt their faces willingly for the peck as a sign of favour, affection, or even as a subtle claim of relationship, but plenty more times when the kiss is imposed and not sought at all.

Like other unwelcome advances, when women object they are accused of not being able to take a joke, take a friendly gesture, of being cold. The man never meant anything by it, certainly not offence.

If this game is to stop, then men need to wait until they see the head tilt. It is that simple.

Every new year I make a vow to only allow handshakes unless I choose differently. I have learnt to offer my stiffened hand, fingers stretched to prevent fractured metatarsals (you need to be ready for that in rural Australia).

It has proved impossible. Don't get me wrong. The people I choose to kiss are in no doubt about my intentions. But when that erect little hand shoots out from my side, they should know what that means too.

Why does this matter? After all, powerful women can look after themselves, and if we don't have the courage to stop the kiss mid-flight then do we have the courage to make difficult decisions or ask difficult questions?

Leigh Sales got it. But not all girls grow up to have her confidence - and the way we raise them actively discourages their belief in their right to say no, and not just to a kiss. Being kissed is about agency. It is the first invasion of personal social space we experience. Mostly little boys avoid it from the time they can wriggle out of an adoring aunt's embrace and stomp on her foot. Girls are given less latitude.

My twin sister and I were kissed. My brother, although a year younger, was expected to shake hands from a young age. But we were petted, jiggled on laps and kissed aplenty. We had to contend with bad breath and scratchy whiskers on miscellaneous middle-aged men and women, the occasional gropes wriggled away from. Preparation for adult life really.

If little girls grow up believing they are not able to reject a personal space invasion, what chance do we have of ensuring our daughters will truly believe it is okay to say no to sexual advances?

Boys and girls as well as men and women need to be able to say no and mean no, which means we need to give them that right, from the get-go, and that deep, sure confidence to do so.

Recently Australian universities and governments have struggled with how to address and prevent sexual assault. Requiring a man to seek consent is part of the answer; giving women the confidence to say no is the other.

The Broderick review of colleges at the University of Sydney was full of examples of female students not feeling they could resist the pressure. Little wonder, when girls are squished against, smattered with kisses and generally expected to succumb to the intentions of others from babyhood.

How about we revise the rules of engagement? Little girls should not be expected to kiss, whatever their objections, but required only to say hello or goodbye. Kisses are at their behest or only given on request with full rights to squirm away or turn a head. They should expect to be asked or able to initiate intimacy. But not just cop it.

So thank you Leigh Sales, for starting the conversation. Let's not have a punishing #MeToo attack on well-meaning relatives, please, but a considered determination to change the rules of social engagement for girls and for women.

So long as men (and women) believe it is okay to kiss women in public whether they want it or not, we won't be seeing more female prime ministers, premiers and that elusive first female head of BHP.