Bite of Affection

Two Pokémon showing their own forms of affection to their trainers...

"Biting's excellent! It's like kissing, only there's a winner!"

— The TARDIS (in a human body), Doctor Who, "The Doctor's Wife"

In all honesty, you likely wouldn't consider biting somebody to be very polite. There are much better ways in showing somebody how much you like them. Yet there are some characters that consider biting somebody as a way of showing their love.

They don't mean any harm. They just really like the person they are biting. This love isn't because they think they taste good either. They just really like the person they are biting and are looking at the bite as being friendly.

Very much Truth in Television with the existence of hickies, and there are plenty of animals who will bite to show that they love you. Fair warning though: Some animals don't know how to bite softly. It's also known as the condition Odaxelagnia in Real Life.

Compare Kiss of the Vampire. Contrast Man Bites Man.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Black Butler: In the Circus Arc, the cat-loving Sebastian receives a bite from a circus tiger after petting it. Being a demon, he was perfectly fine and he likens the bite to an "Affectionate Nip", to the confusion of everyone around him.
• Justified in Horimiya. Hori bites Miyamura on the back of the neck during Their First Time, partially out of affection and partially to encourage him to grow his hair back out (since it'd be the only way for him to cover the mark).
• The bunny-girl Carrot from One Piece is an energetic Genki Girl who greets people with abandon, and almost always with a bite. Though mildly painful, the bites are never deep or injurous, and never draw blood or leave a scar. Unless someone takes her carrots; then she'll bite that fool's head clean off.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • James' Carnivine, following the trend set by his previous Grass-type Pokémon, would hurt him to show its affection. In this case, it would always bite down... on his head.
  • Ash's Turtwig also showed affection through biting. The same with Ash's Gible and Dracovish.
• In Zombie Land Saga, Tae is the only zombie who hasn't regained her human consciousness and will often bite things or people (harmlessly) just because. One of the last scenes in the first season has her happily chewing on Sakura's head while the latter is talking after having spent the last few episodes with amnesia of her experiences as a zombie and unfamiliar with the others.

Fan Works

• By the Sea: In merfolk culture, it is customary during sex for both partners to bite their lover's shoulder, hard, leaving bloody teeth marks as a sexual claim and also as proof of consummation of marriage. After Cody and Obi-Wan have sex, Obi-Wan picks at the healing bite marks so they scar.

Films — Live-Action

• Thunderball. Fiona Volpe bites James Bond several times as rough foreplay, as she's actually The Baroness and so her relationship with Bond is more belligerent than most Bond Girls.
  Volpe: Do you like wild things, Mr. "Bond, James Bond"? (bites his shoulder, making Bond wince)
  Bond: Wild? You should be locked up in a cage.
• Up Pompeii:
  • One of the items left behind at Ludicrus Sextus' orgy is a chastity belt with teeth marks in it.
  • When Ammonia sees Captain Bilius after Ludicrus Sextus' orgy:
    Ammonia: Oh, that's very sweet of you. Do come in for a little bite.
    Captain Bilius: Thank you, milady, I'm not hungry.
    Ammonia: Oh, who said anything about food?

Literature

• Books of the Raksura: The titular species of slightly draconic Humanshifters give each other gentle bites as their version of kissing.
• Harry Potter: Harry's faithful pet owl Hedwig shows affection for her master by gently nipping his hand or ear. When Harry is rude to her, the nips are a lot less gentle.
• In E. T. A. Hoffmann's Master Flea, the titular character offers to bite Peregrinus in the finger as a sign of friendship, since obviously they cannot shake hands.
• The Parasol Protectorate: One of the early hints Alexia Tarabotti gets as to Lord Maccon's feelings for her is when he ends up giving her some love bites in an empty street in the middle of the night. She decides to pay him back later.
• A Series of Unfortunate Events: Sunny Baudelaire is notable for biting anything she gets her hands on, and people are no different. How she bites them is how she shows her feelings. If she bites hard, she hates them. If she bites soft, she likes them.
• Xandri Corelel's parrot Cake occasionally nips her. She has to blow on him whenever he does it so he doesn't develop a habit.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: In "The Doctor's Wife", the TARDIS's soul is forcibly ripped out and placed in a human body. When the TARDIS next bumps into the Doctor, she kisses him and then gets the idea to bite him, gleefully declaring "It's like kissing, only there's a winner!"
• Fellow Travelers: Timothy Laughlin does this to Hawkins Fuller's shoulder as they have sex (with Tim penetrating Hawk) in 1957. Shortly after, Hawk's wife Lucy notices the massive love bite under the neckline of Hawk's undershirt.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): In "In Throes of Increasing Wonder...", at the end of Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt's Official Kiss in the church, Lestat's lower lip is being tugged slightly as he's about to pull away, so Louis had bit him gently there.
• Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2024): While under the effects of truth serum, in a bit of cuteness aggression, John confesses to loving Jane's cheeks and wanting to eat them because they're like pancakes. In response, Jane says she loves his nose and wants to eat it before biting the ridge playfully.
• The Punisher (2017): In "One Bad Day", during Billy Russo and Krista Dumont's intimate scene, she bites his shoulder and encourages Billy to squeeze her scars to inflict pain on her in return.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation establishes that this is a common element of Klingon foreplay. In general, Klingon romances are somewhat violent compared to those of humans.
• Star Trek: Voyager. As per the above, this is shown in several episodes involving Klingons.
  • In "Blood Fever", Klingon-Human hybrid B'Elanna Torres is affected by a telepathically-transferred pon farr and suddenly bites the face of Tom Paris during an argument. In the Klingon culture, biting someone on the face is a courting signal, marking the chosen partner as your own.
    Paris: If I remember my Klingon customs, biting someone on the face means—
    Torres: (Talk to the Hand) I...know...what it means!
  • B'Elanna is on the receiving end in "Infinite Regress" when a Not Herself Seven of Nine starts to channel the personality of a male Klingon warrior and chomps on her cheek.
  • In "Prophecy", a Klingon woman takes a shine to Harry Kim, and when he walks into sickbay with a bite mark on his cheek the Doctor says his options boil down to Mate or Die.

Theatre

• Invoked in Mary Mary. After Bob's "reasonable" attempt to persuade Mary to return to him is angrily rejected, Oscar advises him that a less sensible approach might be more effective: "Tell her you want her back so you can bite her shoulders."

Web Original

• Sibylline Sounds: Calister gives the listener a venomous bite in one audio, which he treats as a romantic gesture. It doesn't hurt the listener because his venom isn't toxic and acts as a mind control drug instead. He does ask permission first, although under the circumstances the listener's consent is a bit questionable.

Webcomics

• Cursed Princess Club: Princess Gwendolyn has a pet possum that frequently latches its jaws around the top of her head when she sleeps. Her dad usually helps pull the critter off whenever he's home.

Western Animation

• The Wild Thornberrys has an episode in which the titular character becomes part of the efforts made to get two tortoises to mate because they're the last living tortoises of their kind. Eliza, who can talk to animals, introduces the two of them and gives them time alone. When she returns, she finds the male of the two biting the neck of the female. Mortified, she pushes him away from her and chides him for his actions. Not long after, she learns that biting is part of their mating rituals and essentially means they've accepted one another. She spends the rest of the episode trying to rectify her mistake.

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