Turkey’s media watchdog goes into racy details of kiss scene

Meltem Özgenç ANKARA

RTÜK apparently hired experts on kissing techniques to decide whether a kiss is permissible or not. Of course, the ideal is an innocent kiss on the cheek or simply no kiss at all.

Turkey’s media watchdog has once again raised eyebrows by going into the salacious details of a kiss scene in a TV drama, which it described as “lip-o-suction.”

An expert official of the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) reviewed complaints about an intimate scene on a show called “Kara Para Aşk” (Love Laundering), which was recently shown on private broadcaster ATV. The expert quoted American writer William Cane’s “The Art of Kissing” to describe the scene.

“In the lip-o-suction type of kiss, one partner sucks the lower lip of the other partner, while the other sucks the upper lip of their partner. This kissing style, which is unusual for us to see on TV, was shown on the show,” the report read, adding that “the lip-o-suction kiss is now a fashion among American youths.”

The report recommended that RTÜK should fine “Kara Para Aşk” and ATV for “turning a scene of kissing into eroticism.”

It also included some fine-tuned artistic criticism of the show, saying the scene’s length and the type of kiss shown “did not contribute to the screenplay” of the drama.

“It has been evaluated that the broadcast violated the principle in which a program should not air content that could harm the physical, mental and ethical development of children and youths,” the expert concluded.

RTÜK is scheduled discuss the report in the coming weeks.