The only known case of braces interlocking during a kiss.

December 19, 2013 3:33 AM

"The story surfaced after the St. Louis-based American Association of Orthodontists surveyed some of its 15,500 members in early January [2008] to find any known, publicized case confirming that classic orthodontic myth: If two sweeties in braces kiss long enough, they get stuck."
posted by paleyellowwithorange (5 comments total)

Token Badly Drawn Boy video. That said, it ostensibly refers to two Mexican teenagers who got lip-locked in 1994. Probably a fiction, I guess.
posted by Going To Maine at 5:46 AM on December 19, 2013

Pier Ave. Junior High School. 1962. Two of my school mates had to be separated from by the fire department after their braces locked whilst (I presume) kissing in the bleachers, at a dance in the gym.

I was there.

(Of course I had never kissed anyone up to that point, and it would still be years before I did, so the main feeling I had was jealousy.)
posted by Danf at 7:39 AM on December 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

This has "Ig Nobel winner" written all over it.
posted by OHSnap at 7:41 AM on December 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

Braces back in the day (early 1980s for me) were a big deal because in my lower middle-class neighborhood they were a material sign of both class aspiration and achievement.

Cosmetic orthodontia was still fairly unusual and public figures with braces like Anthony Michael Hall served as a kind of screen on which Americans projected middle-class values, and not just for the white suburban Midwest but even for Central Coast California whose racial composition was the ethnic inverse of what John Hughes showed us in Sixteen Candles.

And we all secretly believed those stories that if the nerdy kids with braces (they were always nerdy and booksmart, weren't they?) kissed they'd be locked for good!

I'm thrilled to my formerly braces-bearing core it turned out to be true and I will forever lament not having the courage to kiss my soulmate braceface, TK.
posted by mistersquid at 7:50 AM on December 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised that this isn't a TV Trope; it seems like I've seen it in several sitcoms over the years.

Now the prosthodontists need to look into fillings acting as radio receivers.
posted by TedW at 7:53 AM on December 19, 2013