Forbidden Kisses

One year ago today the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano died at the age of seventy-five. Aside from his political and journalistic work, which was considerable and spanned three continents, he was a storyteller who mastered the art of the political parable. He unearthed forgotten historical incidents in order to bring to light injustices of the present. To commemorate the anniversary of his death we have translated a small piece he wrote from the book Los hijos de los días (Children of the Days).

Here is a video of him reading it in the original Spanish:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhZSUn-vC-M

If you like this post, share it with your friends to honor the memory of this man.

Lucia Sciandro and Lindsay Parkhowell, April 13, 2016.

Forbidden Kisses

In 1980 in the Brazilian city of Sorocaba an unusual demonstration broke out among the people.

In the midst of the military dictatorship, a court order had prohibited kisses because they would corrupt the morals of the people.

The judge Manuel Morales proposed to punish kisses with prison, and he classified them in the following manner:

“There are kisses which are libidinous and therefore obscene, like the kiss on the neck, on the private parts, etc., and like the cinematographic kiss, in which the labial mucosa unites in an indisputable (insofismable) expansion of sensuality.”

The city responded by transforming itself into a stadium for lovers. Never before had there been so many kisses!

The prohibition had only multiplied the urge to kiss.

And there were many who, out of pure curiosity – out of nothing else but mere curiosity! – went out to experience the indisputable treat of the insofismable kiss.