The earliest written occurrence of “lick my ass” in German is from Goethe, 1773. And there it says “But he, tell him that, he can lick me in the arse!”
In Norwegian, which is linguistically and culturally close to English, the saying is "kyss meg i ræva" - kiss me in the ass. It's not "kyss meg på ræva", which would be kiss me on the ass.
So if we assume common roots/interpretation, I think it's safe to assume it's not referring to a smack on the cheek.
On the other hand we have German where the common saying is “Leck mich am Arsch”, meaning “lick me on the arse”.
But “Leck mich im Arsch” - “lick me in the arse” - still exists. It is just not as commonly used. The most popular usage is probably Mozart’s song with the same title.
In actual English, its more like “kiss my ass”, doesn’t really go too far into detail. We reserve the alternate implication for kiss-asses, which are also caller brown-nose[er]s (sycophants and tattle-tales/teachers pets)
The fact that English leaves it a bit more vague than Norwegian is a feature of the language, but I'm pretty sure the original meaning in English is the same - in the ass, not on it. "Kyss meg i ræva" is used in exactly the same way as "kiss my ass".
Sexual profanities are generally not intended to be taken literally.
While kissing someone’s ass is almost never appropriate on a first date, it might relate to the “kiss of shame”, one of the weird things allegedly performed by witches. See Osculum Infame
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