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.
“On a date, I can be really happy just talking,” Sugi says. “But if the other person suddenly tries to hold my hand or kiss me, I feel nauseous. I feel really uncomfortable... I can accept physical contact," she adds. “I even like linking arms when I walk with someone. But everything depends on it not having a special meaning."
Sugi understanding asexuality does not mean denying emotions. "It means accepting that the way you express emotions can be different," she says.
What really gets to Sugi, she explains, is the world's high exposure to sex, and the way people assume you should participate by default. “I often feel like I'm being pulled into narratives about sex without my consent,” she says, explaining how, during a casual chat with a friend, the conversation suddenly veered towards the details of that friends' sexual life.
“It was so abrupt,” says Sugi. “Can't the sexual people understand that there are people in the world who can't accept sex at all? Talking about sex in front of me is like eating a tin of herring in front of a person with a sensitive nose."
Sugi is puzzled by how easily people conflate love with sex, as if the authenticity of emotions must be verified through sex. "People can just fall in love because of hormones and sexual attraction," she says. “That is really hard for me to understand." She also notices how sexual imagery fills public space. "There are huge kissing ads everywhere," she says. "Sometimes it feels like a reminder that people like me are invisible. Our feelings are not considered."
"I think this is about boundaries and consent," says KJ Cerankowski. "When talking about sex is treated as a sign of openness, people forget something basic: not everyone wants to be included." Respecting asexual people does not mean stopping the discussion of sex, he adds. “It means recognising the right to opt out."
For me, as a greysexual, the grey area within the asexual spectrum also means constant explanation. Both romantic and sexual attraction are relatively weak in my experience, and what I find most uncomfortable is the confusion of those around me after coming out. Often people tell me: “You just haven't met the right person yet. You're still young; you'll understand when you grow up." These words, though seemingly caring, implicitly deny the validity of my feelings, as if they need time to be "verified" or "corrected".
“friendship gets treated like it is second place, or like it is only there until
'real love' shows up"
KISS KISS MAGAZINE
"I think a lot of people are making a judgement without realising it," says KJ Cerankowski. “They treat sexual attraction as the measure of whether a relationship is real, and they treat romance as the main proof that you are emotionally capable.”
He adds: “When you do that, you end up equating intimacy with sex or couplehood. So friendship gets treated like it is second place, or like it is only there until ‘real love' shows up. But that is not how closeness works for many people."
In this context, friendship has become the most certain form of intimacy for me. Compared to romantic relationships, it is more stable and less questioned. For people in their early twenties, three-year-long romantic relationships are not all that common, yet I have several close friendships that have lasted for five or six years. They do not rely on sex or romance to be maintained, but they still contain companionship, responsibility, and trust. However, such relationships are rarely taken seriously in mainstream narratives and are often seen as transitional or substitutes before true love comes along.
The ace community has a joke about garlic bread. As one Reddit user explains: “Since asexual people aren't really interested in 'the nasty', they make memes about the second or arguably the first best thing, garlic bread." It refuses the idea that everyone must want the same thing. It is also a small reminder that respect should be the default, even when desire is not.