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Smooching survey: Finding out what age Japanese women had their first kiss

Preston Phro May 6, 2014
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Your fist kiss is sure to be a memorable event. It might even be the most memorable event in your life for decades if all goes well…or if it turns into a proper disaster. At least, that’s what we learned from teenage comedies–and Hollywood never lies, right? But even though it’s such a big event in any young person’s life, everyone’s first kiss seems to come at different ages.

We’ve discussed kissing in Japan before, but a new survey reveals the average first-kiss age of Japanese folks broken down by prefecture, showing which prefecture’s women were the fastest and kissiest in the country! Who do you think came in first place? And who’s bringing up the rear as the “slowest to their first kiss?” Find out below!

The survey, conducted by LC Love Cosmetic, asked 2,350 women across Japan how old they were when they had their first kisses. Of course, these are the average ages for each prefecture–we’re sure that a few odd-ball outliers are skewing some of the results. After all, some of us had our first kiss on the playground in elementary school when we “got married,” and some of us were still wondering what that first kiss would be like well after we’d started drinking…legally. But, in Japan, at least according to this survey, the average age for a woman’s first kiss was somewhere in the range of 16-19.

So which prefecture had the earliest average age for their fist kiss? Perhaps unsurprisingly, Tokyo took first place in the race to the smooch, with an average age of 16.3 years old. Second place went to Akita Prefecture, with an average age of 16.6, where we can only assume that kissing is how everyone stays warm through the chilly northern winters. Finally, Nagasaki Prefecture was in third place with an average age of 16.7.

However, LC Love Cosmetic notes that part of the reason for these three prefectures having such young ages for women’s first kisses was that many of their kissing partners weren’t lovers but rather friends or cousins. Apparently, these women were so curious about smooching that they started experimenting with whomever was available! Perhaps as a result of this, many of the women surveyed from Tokyo, Akita, and Nagasaki didn’t have particularly strong impressions of the event.

▼In case you’re wondering, no, this doesn’t count.

At the other end of the spectrum were Aichi and Nara Prefectures, whose average ages were both 19.1. LC Love Cosmetic suggested that Aichi Prefecture’s results may reflect its people’s strong conservative nature. As for Nara Prefecture, they believed the study showed how strong Nara resident’s individuality was, implying that rather than racing to their first kiss, the people of Nara tend to take things at their own pace. We think everyone was just too creeped out by Sentokun’s vacant stare to think about smooches…

▼Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

In third place was Ishikawa Prefecture where the average age for women’s first kisses was 18.7 years old. Here again, LC Love Cosmetic suggested that this may be a result of the conservative values of the prefecture’s people. Though maybe everyone is just too busy looking at the dolphins to worry about getting to first base…

For an overview of the results by prefecture, here’s a handy color-coded map produced by LC Love Cosmetic. Green is for prefectures where the women’s first kiss was while they were 16, orange for 17, pink for 18, and purple is for 19.

The national average, according to this survey at least, puts the average age for first kisses at 17.7 years old. Just in time for high school graduation! In addition to finding out about Japanese women’s early romantic adventures, LC Love Cosmetic has looked at other areas of Japan’s feminine side, including studying the country’s average bust size by prefecture! We couldn’t find any correlation between how big women’s breasts were and their ages at their first kiss, but maybe we’re not looking hard enough…

And if you’re wondering why LC Love Cosmetic is so interested in Japanese women’s kissing habits, we can only guess that it has something to do with market research for their “kiss beautifying liquid.” Because nothing would enhance a first kiss like corn soup!

Sources: LC Love Cosmetic, Excite Japan
Images: LC Love Cosmetic, Wikipedia, Twitter (1, 2)