The Love Bite.

Everyone’s seen one, most teens have had one; the notorious, risqu� hickey. As Urban Dictionary puts it, a hickey or “love bite” is when you suck on someone’s neck to the point of leaving a huge red mark, which is  fun to get until your parents find out. What causes these bruise like displays on necks after sex or a good make out, and what are some tricks to fading them?

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Although hickeys are said to be affectionate and romantic, the way they are given is actually rather strange when you think about it. To get a proper love bite, one must suck on your skin hard enough to leave a red (sometimes purple or blue depending on the severity) bruise. This bruise is the result of thousands of tiny blood vessels that have just been broken. Teeth can also be used if both partners are okay with channeling their inner ‘Twilight’.

Some teens desperate for attention even use a vacuum cleaner in order to suck their blood vessels and break them to give themselves hickeys. Weird.

So, you wake up in the morning and realize you have a terribly noticeable hickey. What to do? Well hickeys on their own can last days, even a week if they’re bad. I have found three ways to fade or remove your hickey in a pinch.

The Ice Pack–Apply ice packs or ice cubes wrapped in a towel to the hickey for up to twenty minutes. This normally works best on fresh hickeys, but can still help a little on older ones.

 The Frozen Spoon–Aaaah, the frozen spoon. Does it bring back memories for anyone else? Anyway, throw a spoon in the freezer for an hour, take it out and apply to the hickey. You’ll have to use quite a bit of pressure for this one, but you should see results within minutes.

Scraping–Use a coin or toothbrush for this painful trick. Hold your skin taut and pretend your hickey is butter on toast, scraping your skin from mid-hickey out to the sides to push excess blood away. Even though you’ll have scrapes, they’ll go away much faster than a hickey and are less conspicuous.

Overall, hickeys are fun, but not worth all the worry and pain to get them to go away once you’re…uhm….settled down. Make sure you communicate your hickey opinions and preferences with your partner BEFORE your make-out commences.

 

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hickey

http://teenadvice.about.com/od/datinglove/tp/info_about_hickeys.htm

http://www.wikihow.com/Remove-a-Hickey

3 thoughts on “The Love Bite.

  1. ALEXANDRIA MARIAH MEZYAD

    I feel that instead of talking about how to remove a hickey, maybe you could talk about the science behind why we kiss. Is it instinctual? Do we enjoy it solely for pleasure or are there other reasons? This might be able to strike a more interesting conversation or debate. I found this article here is a small part from it.
    “Supporting the idea that kissing is learned rather than instinctual is the fact that not all humans kiss. Certain tribes around the world just don’t make out, anthropologists say. While 90 percent of humans actually do kiss, 10 percent have no idea what they’re missing.
    Others believe kissing is indeed an instinctive behavior, and cite animals’ kissing-like behaviors as proof. While most animals rub noses with each other as a gesture of affection, others like to pucker up just like humans. Bonobos, for example, make up tons of excuses to swap some spit. They do it to make up after fights, to comfort each other, to develop social bonds , and sometimes for no clear reason at all — just like us.” Below is the link for more! Enjoy!

    http://www.livescience.com/32464-why-do-people-kiss.html

  2. TYLER P PENNETT

    I found this blog hilarious. I can’t believe that their are multiple ways to cure the dreaded “hickey.” I read in an article earlier that they can last up to 15 days! There have actually been studies done that came to the conclusion that older hickeys should be treated differently than more recent hickeys. Like you said before, recent hickeys should be treated by chilling the infected area with ice or a chilled wooden spoon. Apparently, older hickeys are treated differently. The article suggests that older hickeys should be treated by applying heat to the area to stimulate blood flow. It is pretty insane to think that this much science can go into treating something so minor as a hickey.

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