Welcome to KISS KISS. We are a London-based magazine exploring romance in all its complexity, not the fairy tale, but the messy, lived experience. KISS KISS traces the many ways intimacy shapes our lives, challenging how we think about romance, identity, and connection. Stylish, intelligent, and unafraid to look at love with open eyes. KISS KISS moves through four movements: The Rush, The Routine, The Reckoning, and The Repair. From first-date nerves and situationships to secure intimacy, toxic patterns, and heartbreak, we trace the ways love shapes our lives today. Inside, you will find personal stories, cultural observations, and reflections on identity and desire. We explore the thrill of attraction in Scent or a Scam? The Truth About “Pheromone Perfume” (p.12), the comfort of routine in Garlic Bread is Better Than Sex (p.32), the challenges of obsession in Are We Dating… or Just Replaying? (p.40), and the subtle art of reinvention in How Dementia Changes Love (p.60). Fashion, culture, emotion, and love intersect here, reflecting how a generation fluent in the modern digital world experiences romance. This magazine doesn’t romanticise love. It documents it unapologetically, honestly, and with style. Because even in a world of fleeting moments, love is still urgent, still compelling, and still worth noticing. Kiss Kiss invites you on this journey. We hope you enjoy this first issue as much as we do.
Garlic Bread is better than sex?
In 2026, it's time for the world to learn more about asexuality. Let's listen to the the stories of three aces in different situations.
written by Olie Ma
“It may sound hard to believe, but the question I fear most these days is 'What is your relationship status?"" says Eve, a 21-year- old fashion student. And Eve is not alone. For people on the asexual spectrum, the problem is not simply that these questions are awkward, it is that they often arrive with an assumption already built in. People never believe her when she tells them she has never felt sexual attraction, Eve explains. "They think I'm pretending," she says. “They think I'm trying to be different. Some of them just do not believe me. Someone even asked me if I'm sexually repressed.” For Eve, the pressure is not only the question itself, it is the disbelief and the push to explain herself on terms she did not choose.
“Feminist and queer studies have often operated with a universal sexual assumption that ignores the possibility of asexuality as a viable lived experience,” says asexuality scholar KJ Cerankowski, co editor of Asexualities Feminist and Queer Perspectives. He links every day disbelief to a wider structure of "social marginalisation and pathologisation” directed at people "based on the preference to not have sex".
The assumption that sex and romance are the centre of adult life shows up in what can, on the surface, feel like normal small talk: Are you seeing anyone? Do you want to date? When will you settle down? These questions can sound neutral, but they often point in the same direction. They suggest that intimacy must revolve around sex or romance, and that a life without those needs explaining.
Eve currently defines herself as quoisexual, a term some people on the asexual spectrum use when sexual attraction feels difficult to pin down or describe, and when the “why” of attraction remains unclear.
"They think I'm trying to be different. Some of them just do not believe me. Someone even asked me if I'm sexually repressed"
She is not sure if she will ever feel sexually attracted to others and is not in a hurry to give a fixed answer. But it is this uncertainty that leads her to frequently encounter doubts in her daily life. During a casual dinner conversation with schoolmates, when Eve said she had never felt sexual attraction towards anyone of any gender and did not know how to define her sexual orientation, the responses came almost immediately. Some joked and said, "wow thats so cool, its my first time meeting an asexual in real life." Others didn't believe her, even asking if she was sexually repressed.
"I felt my boundaries were crossed instantly. They think I'm pretending. They think I'm trying to be different. Some of them just don't believe me,” says Eve. “When someone asked if I was sexually repressed, I felt really offended. It was like they needed an explanation for me, or they wanted to fix it. It felt like my asexuality was being treated as a disorder... No one really respected what I was saying."
“I keep seeing the same pattern,” says KJ Cerankowski, “People treat sex as the normal centre of adulthood. So when someone says, 'I don't want sex', it gets read as a problem that needs explaining. That is what asexual studies tries to name,” he adds. “It is not just awkwardness. It is a culture deciding whose relationship counts.”
Cerankowski points out that this way of thinking also leaves little room for uncertainty. “We act as if sexual orientation has to be clear, stable, and definable,” he says. “But real experiences do not always work like that. Grey areas are real. Fluidity is real. When someone cannot give you a neat label, that does not mean they are immature. It usually means they are being honest."
If Eve is under pressure from the constant questioning of uncertainty, Sugi's troubles come from a different direction. She is a romantic asexual who has no sexual attraction, often called "alloromatic asexual". Sugi has a close and stable same sex relationship, but it does not involve sexual activity.
"That does not mean there is no intimacy,” she says. "We share our lives. We take care of each other. We have a deep emotional connection."