In the program "Without appointment" Friday on Europe 1, the psychoanalyst and sexologist Catherine Blanc answers a listener, Mike, who wonders what the hickeys are for.

The specialist explains to him that it is the translation of a desire to mark his territory on his partner.

A well-rolled scarf or collar can often hide hickeys.

These small temporary bruises, which occur by sucking, are most often produced by erotic play.

Most often it is adolescents who practice them but adults can also indulge them.

On Europe 1, Monday, Mike questions Catherine Blanc on the interest that this very visible practice can have which can cause the embarrassment of its wearer.

The sexologist and psychoanalyst explains in "Sans Rendez-vous" that it is a materialization of belonging that is at stake. 

Mike's question 

"A coworker came to work with three huge hickeys. He was very embarrassed and upset about the situation. What's the point in giving someone a hickey?" 

Catherine Blanc's response

It's pretty cute.

It is a way of marking one's territory, of leaving one's mark on the other.

We show he's with someone.

What has happened is translated by a visible mark.

No one can ignore it since the mark is in a somewhat intimate area like the neck.

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There is also the idea and the desire to eat the other.

It's a way of putting him under his control, a bit like Dracula.

The hickey is wanting this appropriation, transforming the other and making it one's own.

And obviously that leaves the mark visible to everyone, with the embarrassment that this causes since it testifies to this shared intimacy.

There is an idea of ​​belonging, and a desire to tell a story or an experience that we have or not.

So we can take pleasure when we make a hickey?

What's the difference with a bite?

There is also the dimension of the suckling of the skin of the other.

It refers to very primitive things in our relationship to others.

We're not necessarily going to have fun, but we can, it depends on where the hickey is made.

It can also cause chills. 

After a certain age, doesn't the hickey become a little too annoying? 

The feeling of wanting the other to belong to us is indeed very immature.

We see it quite classically in teenagers and almost exclusively in them.

But there are resurgences in adults of this lack of maturity, of this need for appropriation.

For some, it is with the scent.

But that's part of something very erotic.

I remember a famous person who said of his equally famous partner: "I like his way of pointing out myself and telling others that I belong to him".

It's part of the fantasy of some. 

If you see your teenager with a hickey, should you point it out?

Is this something serious?

No, that's okay as long as it's consented and it's a game. Either way, the hickey will go away. I think there are two possibilities. Either we feel that our teenager does not want to expose it and we can then act as if we had not seen him. You don't have to share your privacy.

We can also say to ourselves that since he exposes it this can be the occasion of an exchange, Welcoming the fact that he shares an intimacy with someone and asking him if these visible marks are part of what he had desire. It comes down to asking him the question: "do you enjoy exposing that or do you want to hide it?" Besides, hiding it doesn't mean it's a shame. This can therefore be an opportunity to talk about the intimate relationship, which does not necessarily mean mixing or losing one's personal identity.