Why Humans Kiss

Let's face it, kissing is pretty weird. You both close your eyes, press your lips together and sometimes even put your tongue in the other person's mouth. When your partner is a good kisser, or even if you just really love them, this can be pretty magical. At other times, it really isn't.

So the obvious question is, why?

I did a bit of light research and found out some interesting facts. First and foremost, no-one has ever satisfactorily explained the origin of the kiss. Humans and bonobos are virtually the only species to indulge in such behaviour, although many others rub noses or lick faces. Secondly...

Link.​

Weird.

Of course kissing isn't always so romantic. Kisses between friends or relatives have been recorded by early Eygptian and Roman sources. But is this instinctive? Or learned? Can anyone here remember learning to kiss? I can vaguely recall asking my mother why boys and girls 'kissed all wet and sloppy'. Then again, I wasn't born with a knowledge of sex, either.

Thoughts?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I always thought kissing started with Mom's chewing food and passing it on to their baby with a kiss.
And kissing does not come naturally. Some people are really really bad at it.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

If so, how did the passionate kiss develop from that?

Whether or not people are naturally good at kissing is irrelevant to the point in hand. Many people are rubbish at sex or looking after babies but it doesn't mean that instinct isn't playing a part.
The strangest thing about kissing is that is mostly doesn't lead to intercourse. Kissing in itself isn't even a turn-on for most people.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

Different types of kisses as well. There's the French kiss in which you try to pit your tongue down the girls throat to see what she had for lunch. Butterfly kisses, which are betwen mothe/father and baby. Kiss off, which is the kiss of a different meaning as well as the kiss of death.

I never understood why we would want to put the most bacterial filled parts of our bodies together for any reasons but we do, so who knows.

 

In my own research in to this behavior I have found that a kiss is used between those that are on intimate terms as a away of confirming their position in the relationship. A kiss is rarely able to be contrived and in most cases honesty can only be shown or transmitted to the other person.

If a person can not kiss or does not enjoy kissing it is because they are fearful there their truth will be revealed in the kiss.
Kissing between couples is loaded with expectations and conditions and thus often people stop kissing once the heat of the romance dies off, as they now usually have other secrets under their belt which they do not want to reveal to their partner.

So you can ask yourself the question :

"Why do we no longer kiss?"
and find the answer is simple enough...

 

Just plain chemistry...when someone salivates [ drools ] it indicates their hunger and craving, thus desire. When you kiss you get to taste the other persons desire and this is why we do it as a way of knowing what the other persons craves or hungers for [ wants].
The chemical reaction of saliva and saliva salts creates the effect with in our minds and hearts. By mixing saliva we can both share the same desire...by the sharing the same taste of desire.

 

Kissing is not a universal human trait. It is common (increasingly so in the post television age), but there have been accounts of several of societies that were introduced to it by western explorers (and many of those found the idea disgusting because you'd get another person's saliva in your mouth).

That said, there is evidence of other social species engaging in similar behaviors. Social species likely have an impulse towards not kissing per se, but rather towards intimate physicality and scent gathering that lends itself to finding kissing pleasurable.

Edit: I was looking for a comprehensive link to the "kissing is not universal" claim, but in order to start my weekend, I'll just go with this one: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/14/opinion/14foer.html

 

I'm assuming it's an animal instinct derived from more rudimentary bonding behaviours like rubbing ears and noses.

 

Really+ I'd say a passionate kiss is definitely a turn on. Kissing grandma on the cheek, no. But kissing someone you're sexually interested in is definitely a turn on.

 

It seems that animals that rely a whole lot on each others' company engage in strange behaviors like kissing, or rubbing noses or faces. Wolves and dogs lick each others faces and dolphins rub noses. So maybe it's a social animal behavior... :shrug: I always thought kissing was a strange habit we humans have.

 

Wolves and dogs sniff butts, and noses, and coats, and genitals, and every other body part on another wolf or dog. Wolves and dogs live in a world of scent. We live in a world of sight and ...

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

... touch. Look at the size of those lips on the homunculus map.

 

Wait, is that based on anything? Are you saying we can somehow "taste" antibodies and prefer mates with a better immune system based upon that taste? Do you have any studies to back that up?

 

What I find curious is why they cite "more than 90%" of cultures that kiss. What about the "less than 10%?" If it's an evolutionary adaptation, then why could any cultures eschew the practice? Individuals might not kiss, bucking the evolutionary trend, but entire societies? That the practice is societal at all suggests it's more meme than gene to me.

That oxytocin is released is interesting, but oxytocin is released in a variety of copntents we think of as "intimate", not just kissing. So I am not sure that shows that kissing per se has a role in human life so much as physical intimacy does, of which kissing is a common form. The speculation that men are trying to force testosterone onto their partner's mouths strikes me as a striking leap.

 

I'd think Eskimos and other peoples living in frozen conditions wouldn't want to kiss for fear of sticking together!

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Dubious of that as I am (do not kiss the dead or frostbitten, and you'll be fine!), it's not just the eskimos. A number of Pacific islanders also did not kiss (at least until the Europeans showed them the practice).

 

I don't even want to know how oral sex started then. But I bet it was a man's idea.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Could have been the woman though, wanting to please her man when she was having her period.:shrug:

 

no, that's where gay kissing comes from. I know that's true because I read it on the internet.