Lips

The use of the mouth as a sexual organ is regarded as a perversion if the lips (or tongue) of one person are brought into contact with the genitals of another, but not if the mucous membranes of the lips of both of them come together. This exception is the point of contact with what is normal.

Freud identifies the lip-to-lip kiss as the sole 'normal' form of oral sexuality, establishing the lips as the critical threshold separating perversion from normality in psychosexual theory.

Freud, Sigmund, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, 1905thesis

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like lips whispering very close to an ear, synaptic communication between neurons has three basic components: the presynaptic terminal of the axon, which sends signals (corresponding to the lips in our analogy); the synaptic cleft (the space between lips and ear); and the postsynaptic site on the dendrite that receives signals (the ear).

Kandel recruits the lips as an explanatory analogy for the architecture of synaptic transmission, equating the sending terminal of a neuron with the whispering mouth.

Kandel, Eric R., In search of memory the emergence of a new science of mind, 2006thesis

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'The force moved my lips. I began to speak. The words were made for me.' The motor action responsible for the speech is in fact the patient's own motor action, and the patient acknowledges that they are his lips that are moved, but he makes an error of identification concerning who produced this motion.

Gallagher uses a schizophrenic patient's testimony about lips to distinguish the sense of bodily ownership from the sense of agency, showing how pathology can sever authorship from self.

Gallagher, Shaun, How the Body Shapes the Mind, 2005thesis

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They pucker their lips and squint their eyes in response to sour flavors. They exhibit a concerned look and pull away from the taste of salt.

Panksepp documents neonatal lip-puckering as one of the earliest hard-wired affective responses, positioning lips as primary instruments of gustatory-affective evaluation from birth.

Panksepp, Jaak, Affective Neuroscience The Foundations of Human and Animal, 1998supporting

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Taliesin pouted out his lips after them, and played 'Blerwm, blerwm,' with his finger upon his lips... they proceeded forward till they came before the king... pouting out their lips, and making mouths at the king, playing 'Blerwm, blerwm,' upon their lips with their fingers.

Campbell preserves the Welsh myth of Taliesin in which a lip-gesture becomes a vector of magical contagion, spreading involuntarily from trickster to courtiers to king as a demonstration of enchanted transmission.

Campbell, Joseph, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 2015supporting

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the neural regulation of the ANS is linked to the neural regulation of the muscles of the face and head, which signal to others our emotional state. These muscles of the face and head are involved both in actively listening to... and in producing of music whether by singing.

Porges frames facial musculature, including the lips, as integral to the social engagement system, linking visceral state regulation directly to the orofacial muscles of expression and vocalization.

Porges, Stephen W., The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation, 2011supporting

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Isaiah prayed in the Temple shortly after King Uzziah's death, he was probably full of foreboding

Armstrong's account of Isaiah's Temple vision, in which the seraph touches a live coal to the prophet's lips to purify his speech, frames the lips as the locus of prophetic unworthiness and divine commissioning — though the direct quotation of the lip-cleansing moment does not appear verbatim in this excerpt.

Armstrong, Karen, A History of God, 1993aside

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the jackfruit has a very thick, gluey juice, like cement, and your lips have become glued together. But in Kerala, before we eat the jackfruit, we smear our hands and lips with coconut oil.

Easwaran deploys a vivid somatic anecdote of glued lips to illustrate the need for preparation before engaging sacred texts, treating the silencing of the lips as an experiential metaphor for unpreparedness.

Easwaran, Eknath, The Bhagavad Gita for Daily Living: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary, 1975aside

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