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Why We Kiss: The Science of SexBy: Brie Cadman (View Profile )

Pecking, smooching, Frenching, and playing tonsil-hockeythere are as many names forkissing as there are ways to do it !hether we "se it as an informal greeting or anintensely romantic gest"re, kissing is one of those ingrained h"man #eha$iors that seemsto defy e%planation &ts many p"rposesa #low and peck for good l"ck on dice, lips togro"nd after a rocky #oat ride, kisses in the air to an ac'"aintance, and the long slowsmooches of ollywoodha$e different meanings yet are similar in nat"re o why is itthat we lo$e to p"cker "p*

A Kiss Isnt Just a KissPhilematologists, the scientists who st"dy kissing, aren+t e%actly s"re why h"mans startedlocking lips in the first place he most likely theory is that it stems from primate mothers

passing along chewed food to their toothless #a#ies he lip-to-lip contact may ha$e #een passed on thro"gh e$ol"tion, not only as a necessary means of s"r$i$al, #"t also as ageneral way to promote social #onding and as an e%pression of lo$e

B"t something+s o#$io"sly happened to kissing since the time of the chewed-food pass ow, it+s #elie$ed that kissing helps transfer critical information, rather than ."st meat #its he kissing we associate with romantic co"rtship may help "s to choose a goodmate, send chemical signals, and foster long-term relationships /ll of this is important ine$ol"tion+s "ltimate goals"ccessf"l procreation

0issing allows "s to get close eno"gh to a mate to assess essential characteristics a#o"t

them, none of which we+re conscio"sly processing Part of this information e%change ismost likely facilitated #y pheromones , chemical signals that are passed #etween animalsto help send messages !e know that animals "se pheromones to alert their peers ofthings like mating, food so"rces, and danger, and researchers hypothesi1e that

pheromones can play a role in h"man #eha$ior as well /ltho"gh the $omeronasalorgans, which are responsi#le for pheromone detection and #rain f"nction in animals, aretho"ght to #e $estigial and inacti$e in h"mans, research indicates we do comm"nicatewith chemicals

he first st"dy to indicate that chemical signals play a role in attraction was cond"cted #yCla"d !edekind o$er a decade ago !omen sniffed the worn t-shirts of men and

indicated which shirts smelled #est to them By comparing the 2 / of the women andthe men, researchers fo"nd that women didn+t ."st chose their fa$orite scent randomlyhey preferred the scent of man whose ma.or histocompati#ility comple% (3 C)a

series of genes in$ol$ed in o"r imm"ne systemwas different from their own a$ing adifferent 3 C means less imm"ne o$erlap and a #etter chance of healthy, ro#"stoffspring 0issing may #e a s"#tle way for women to assess the imm"ne compati#ility ofa mate, #efore she in$ests too m"ch time and energy in him Perhaps a #ad first kissmeans more than first date .ittersit co"ld also mean a real lack of chemistry

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Men Sloppy, Women ChoosyBeha$ioral research s"pports this #iological reasoning &n 4556, researchers at 7ni$ersityof /l#any st"died 8,598 college st"dent and fo"nd significant differences in how malesand females percei$ed kissing /ltho"gh common in co"rtship, females p"t moreimportance on kissing, and most wo"ld ne$er ha$e se% witho"t kissing first 3en, on the

other hand, wo"ld ha$e se% witho"t kissing #eforehand they wo"ld also ha$e se% withsomeone who wasn+t a good kisser ince females across species are often the choosierones when it comes to mate selection, these differences in kissing #eha$ior make sense

3en are also more likely to initiate French kissing and researchers hypothesi1e that this is #eca"se sali$a contains testosterone, which can increase li#ido ;esearchers also thinkthat men might #e a#le to pick "p on a woman+s le$el of estrogen, which is a predictor offertility

Crazy for Canoo lin!B"t kissing isn+t all mating practicality it also feels good hat+s #eca"se kissing

"nleashes a host of feel-good chemicals, helping to red"ce stress and increase social #onding ;esearcher !endy ill and colleag"es at

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promisc"o"s #ono#os are apparently the only primates that tr"ly kiss /nd while it+stho"ght that >5 percent of the h"man pop"lation kisses, there+s still the 85 percent thatdoesn+t o it seems that as m"ch as we "se kissing to gather genetic and compati#ilityinformation, o"r penchant for kissing also has to do with o"r c"lt"ral #eliefs s"rro"ndingit

!hether we li$e in a place where kissing is reser$ed for close ac'"aintances, orsomewhere where a cas"al greeting means a one, two, or three cheeker, one thing doesremain highly consistent: the side to which people t"rn while kissing &t+s almost alwaysto the right / 455? st"dy p"#lished in Nature fo"nd that twice as many ad"lts t"rn theirheads to the right rather than the left when kissing his #eha$ioral asymmetry is tho"ghtto stem from the same preference for head t"rning d"ring the final weeks of gestation andd"ring infancy

@ne of the #est things a#o"t kissing, howe$er, is that we don+t ha$e to think a#o"t any ofthis A"st close eyes, p"cker "p, and let nat"re takes its co"rse