Why We Kiss: The Science of Sex

By: Brie Cadman (View Profile)

Pecking, smooching, Frenching, and playing tonsil-hockeythere are as many names for
kissing as there are ways to do it !hether we "se it as an informal greeting or an
intensely romantic gest"re, kissing is one of those ingrained h"man #eha$iors that seems
to defy e%planation &ts many p"rposesa #low and peck for good l"ck on dice, lips to
gro"nd after a rocky #oat ride, kisses in the air to an ac'"aintance, and the long slow
smooches of (ollywoodha$e different meanings yet are similar in nat"re )o why is it
that we lo$e to p"cker "p*
A Kiss Isnt Just a Kiss
Philematologists, the scientists who st"dy kissing, aren+t e%actly s"re why h"mans started
locking lips in the first place ,he most likely theory is that it stems from primate mothers
passing along chewed food to their toothless #a#ies ,he lip-to-lip contact may ha$e #een
passed on thro"gh e$ol"tion, not only as a necessary means of s"r$i$al, #"t also as a
general way to promote social #onding and as an e%pression of lo$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 good
mate, send chemical signals, and foster long-term relationships /ll of this is important in
e$ol"tion+s "ltimate goals"ccessf"l procreation
0issing allows "s to get close eno"gh to a mate to assess essential characteristics a#o"t
them, none of which we+re conscio"sly processing Part of this information e%change is
most likely facilitated #y pheromones, chemical signals that are passed #etween animals
to help send messages !e know that animals "se pheromones to alert their peers of
things like mating, food so"rces, and danger, and researchers hypothesi1e that
pheromones can play a role in h"man #eha$ior as well /ltho"gh the $omeronasal
organs, which are responsi#le for pheromone detection and #rain f"nction in animals, are
tho"ght to #e $estigial and inacti$e in h"mans, research indicates we do comm"nicate
with chemicals
,he first st"dy to indicate that chemical signals play a role in attraction was cond"cted #y
Cla"d !edekind o$er a decade ago !omen sniffed the worn t-shirts of men and
indicated which shirts smelled #est to them By comparing the 2-/ of the women and
the men, researchers fo"nd that women didn+t ."st chose their fa$orite scent randomly
,hey 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$ing a
different 3(C means less imm"ne o$erlap and a #etter chance of healthy, ro#"st
offspring 0issing may #e a s"#tle way for women to assess the imm"ne compati#ility of
a mate, #efore she in$ests too m"ch time and energy in him Perhaps a #ad first kiss
means more than first date .ittersit co"ld also mean a real lack of chemistry
Men Sloppy, Women Choosy
Beha$ioral research s"pports this #iological reasoning &n 4556, researchers at 7ni$ersity
of /l#any st"died 8,598 college st"dent and fo"nd significant differences in how males
and females percei$ed kissing /ltho"gh common in co"rtship, females p"t more
importance 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% with
someone who wasn+t a good kisser )ince females across species are often the choosier
ones 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 think
that men might #e a#le to pick "p on a woman+s le$el of estrogen, which is a predictor of
fertility
Crazy for Canoolin!
B"t kissing isn+t all mating practicality: it also feels good ,hat+s #eca"se kissing
"nleashes a host of feel-good chemicals, helping to red"ce stress and increase social
#onding ;esearcher !endy (ill and colleag"es at <afayette College looked at how
o%ytocin, which is in$ol$ed in pair #onding and attachment, and cortisol, a stress
hormone, changed after people kissed 7sing a small sample of college co"ples that were
in long-term relationships, they fo"nd cortisol le$els decreased after kissing ,he longer
the co"ples had #een in a relationship, the farther their le$els dropped Cortisol le$els
also decreased for the control gro"pco"ples that ."st held handsindicating that social
attachment in general can decrease stress le$els, not ."st kissing
<ooking at o%ytocin le$els, the researchers fo"nd that they increased only in the males,
whereas the researchers tho"ght it wo"ld increase in #oth se%es ,hey hypothesi1ed that it
co"ld #e that women need more than a kiss to stim"late attachment and #onding, or that
the sterile en$ironment of the research la# wasn+t cond"ci$e to creating a feeling of
attachment
0issing, therefore, plays a role not only in mate selection, #"t also in #onding /t an
/ssociation for the /d$ancement of )cience meeting on the science of kissing, (elen
Fischer, an e$ol"tionary #iologist, posits m"ltiple reasons for lip locking )he #elie$es
that kissing is in$ol$ed in the three main types of attraction h"mans ha$e: se% dri$e,
which is r"led #y testosterone: romantic lo$e, which is r"led #y dopamine and other feel-
good hormones: and attachment, which in$ol$es #onding chemicals like o%ytocin
0issing, she post"lates, e$ol$ed to help on all three fronts )ali$a, swapped d"ring
romantic kisses, has testosterone in it: feel-good chemicals are distri#"ted when we kiss
that help f"el romance: and kissing also helps "nleash chemicals that promote #onding,
which pro$ides for long term attachment, necessary for raising offspring
Sniff, Snu!!le, an Turn "i!ht
=et, not all c"lt"res or mammals kiss )ome mammals ha$e close contact with each
others+ faces $ia licking, grooming, and sniffing, which may transmit the necessary
information /nd altho"gh chimps may pass food from mother to child, the notorio"sly
promisc"o"s #ono#os are apparently the only primates that tr"ly kiss /nd while it+s
tho"ght that >5 percent of the h"man pop"lation kisses, there+s still the 85 percent that
doesn+t )o it seems that as m"ch as we "se kissing to gather genetic and compati#ility
information, o"r penchant for kissing also has to do with o"r c"lt"ral #eliefs s"rro"nding
it
!hether we li$e in a place where kissing is reser$ed for close ac'"aintances, or
somewhere where a cas"al greeting means a one, two, or three cheeker, one thing does
remain highly consistent: the side to which people t"rn while kissing &t+s almost always
to the right / 455? st"dy p"#lished in Nature fo"nd that twice as many ad"lts t"rn their
heads to the right rather than the left when kissing ,his #eha$ioral asymmetry is tho"ght
to stem from the same preference for head t"rning d"ring the final weeks of gestation and
d"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 of
this A"st close eyes, p"cker "p, and let nat"re takes its co"rse