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Why Can't A Kiss Just Be a Kiss?

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Women actors who've kissed other women in love scenes, meanwhile, sound like an enlightened other species in interviews about kissing. For them, it's no big whoop. The men, on the other hand, talk as if they've outdone themselves and are now ready to accept their golden statue.

"These answers do often sort of seem to play to the assumed homo-discomfort of the audience," Wockner says. "I mean, a long, long time ago, I kissed girls. It wasn't gross, it just wasn't all that interesting. But kissing a guy for the first time, that felt very different. So if these actors were being fully honest, rather than going for laughs or guffaws or playing to the assumed gay-kissing phobia of the audience, [they] would instead say, 'You know, it was just sort of uninteresting, sort of not really anything. . . .' "

Kissing, after all, is kissing, and it feels great.

Unless it doesn't.

Time Out Chicago: Has every interviewer asked you about kissing Sean Penn?

James Franco: Uh, yes. [Laughs.]

Time Out Chicago: And you say it was uncomfortable because of his fake moustache?

Franco: I told that once, and yeah, I mean, I don't want to make it sound like -- I feel bad -- that kind of makes it sound like it was the worst thing in the world. It wasn't.

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