Hey Kids, Careful with that Premarital Biting!

It’s back to school time, and soon it’ll be homecoming and there can be a lot of firsts: your first formal dance, your first slow dance with a boy/girl, your first kiss, your first bite…

Yeah, apparently inspired by the glut of vampire-themed TV shows, movies, books and whatever-else-have-you, teens are biting each other as a sign of affection. According to Pao Hernandez, a sophomore in high school, “It’s a way to belong to somebody, and mark their territory.”

Okay, whoa. Let’s back up here. I want to talk about this, but first I want to get something else out of the way.

This is your extreme bit of TMI about me for this week: I like biting and being bitten. In intimate situations. Yes, I get off on being bitten and having my neck sucked.

I have a vampire fetish.

Considering the amount of vampire-related stuff I was into as a teenager (hell, one of the most erotic moments in the entirety of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was when Buffy was bitten by Angel at the end of Season 3) this really comes as no surprise. But reading over this article on teenagers nowadays biting, I had to wonder if it was really such a huge deal.

And you know? Some light nipping at the skin isn’t a problem. I know a lot of people who are into biting and sucking as well. Not even in a vampire-related way, but just, you know, they like biting and sucking. It’s part of what gets them off. And that’s actually great. They enjoy it, so long as they have a partner who’s okay with biting/being bitten, good on them!

But biting someone to “mark” them as your property? Well, that’s mildly disturbing. In a healthy relationship, neither partner should be seen as the other’s property. I’m not even comfortable with the idea of shared ownership, IE: you and your partner own each other. No, you don’t. Especially not when you’re 15 or 16. You like each other a lot, maybe you love each other, I sure as hell hope you respect each other, but you do not and should not own each other.

Then there’s the issue of biting hard enough to break skin. Dr. Jennifer Ashton reminds you that the human mouth is “loaded with bacteria.” She advises about drawing blood with your mouth, “That can be an entry for bacteria to get into the skin. You can set up for potentially some serious skin infections.”

Basically, it breaks down to BE CAREFUL, like everything else regarding intimacy and sex. Watch how hard you bite, respect your partner’s wishes, make sure your partner respects yours and don’t do anything you’re uncomfortable with. In other words: practice safe necks.