Glossary Basics · Sapphic · MM
Making out
Also called · heavy kissing · necking · hooking up
At a glance
- In one line
- Extended kissing and touching treated as its own activity, not a countdown to sex.
- Usually looks like
- Couch, car, or bed; clothed or half-clothed; anywhere from five minutes to an hour.
- Gear needed
- None. A private couch and no time pressure do more than anything you could buy.
- Talk about first
- Where hands can go, whether it leads further, and whether semi-public settings are fine.
Making out is extended kissing treated as an activity in its own right, rather than a quick greeting or a single step on the way to something else. It usually happens clothed or partly clothed and can include holding, stroking, and pressing close. A session might last two minutes or an hour, on a couch, in a parked car, or in bed before anything else begins.
People vary most on duration and expectation. Some want long, unhurried kissing with no particular destination attached; others get restless unless it moves toward sex fairly quickly. How much wandering hands are welcome, whether it happens in semi-public places, and whether talking and laughing are part of it all differ from person to person and from partner to partner.
Context changes it too. Making out with a new person carries a charge that a long-term couple has to make room for deliberately, which is why some people who once loved it report it disappearing from their sex life. Rating it is really a question of how much you want kissing to be a real part of sex rather than a formality.
What a score means here Making out
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0
Hard no: kissing at length is not wanted at all, including as a lead-in to anything else.
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1–33
1-33: fine for a minute or two, but it is not the point and the urge is to move on.
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34–66
34-66: genuinely enjoyable with the right person and mood, though not needed every time.
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67–99
67-99: actively sought out and worth real time in a session, not thirty seconds at the start.
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100
100: an evening of only this counts as a full evening; without it the encounter feels incomplete.
Rating it
A low score tends to mean kissing for its own sake is not something you seek out, or that you would rather get to other things; a high score means you want it treated as a genuine part of sex, not a preamble.
Common misconceptions
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Making out is just foreplay - the real thing comes after.
In practiceFor plenty of people it is the destination: long clothed sessions that end without sex and are not counted as unfinished. Treating it as a stage is a scheduling assumption, not a fact about the act.
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Couples stop making out because the spark died.
In practiceIt usually disappears because there is no slot for it - established couples tend to go from nothing to sex directly. Booking time with an explicit rule that it goes no further tends to bring it back.
About this item Frequently asked
Making out — questions people ask
What does making out mean - is it the same as necking or hooking up?
Making out is extended kissing and above-the-waist touching treated as an activity in itself. Necking is an older word for the same thing, weighted toward the neck and face. Hooking up is vaguer and in current use often means sex outright, so the two are not interchangeable. A session is usually clothed or partly clothed, on a couch, in a car, or in bed, and may last two minutes or an hour. Nothing in the term implies what comes next.
How long should a make out session last?
There is no standard length; sessions run from two minutes to well over an hour. The useful question is whether both people expect it to lead somewhere. Mismatch on that, not duration, is what makes it go flat - one person is settling in, the other is waiting for a cue. Saying at the start that this is all that is happening tonight removes the guessing. Long sessions also work better with something to lean on, since necks and jaws tire faster than people expect.
How do you make out with someone for the first time without it being awkward?
Go slower and shorter than feels natural. First sessions with a new person mostly go wrong on pace and pressure - too much tongue too early, or hands moving faster than the other person has signalled. Pausing to breathe and read the reaction is normal rather than a failure of nerve. Practical things matter more than technique here: fresh breath, no gum, and somewhere neither person has to keep an eye on the door. If how far it goes is unsettled, saying so beforehand beats negotiating mid-session.
What is the difference between making out and deep kissing?
Making out is the whole session; deep kissing is one technique inside it. Deep kissing, or French kissing, specifically means open-mouthed kissing with tongue contact. A make-out session can be entirely closed-lip, or built around neck kissing, holding, and stroking over clothes. People often rate the two very differently: someone can want long unhurried make-out sessions while finding sustained tongue kissing too wet or too intense. Scoring them separately gives a partner more usable information than collapsing them into one number.
What score should I give making out?
Rate what you want, not what you have tolerated. On the 0-100 scale, 0 is reserved for a hard no - kissing at length is something to exclude, not merely skip. Anything from 1 upward is a matter of degree: low numbers mean going along with it, mid numbers mean it depends on partner and mood, high numbers mean it deserves real time in a session. Because making out is common and low-risk, a lot of people land in the middle band, and that is a real answer rather than a fence-sit.
Appears on
This item appears on the Basics and Sapphic and MM tests — one vial each.