Why Do We Kiss? The Science Of The Smooch
Kissing: we love to do it, but why? An investigation into the science of the smooch.
Pecking, smooching, Frenching, and playing tonsil-hockey—there are as many names for kissing as there are ways to do it. Whether we use it as an informal greeting or an intensely romantic gesture, kissing is one of those ingrained human behaviors that seems to defy explanation. Its many purposes—a blow and peck for good luck on dice, lips to ground after a rocky boat ride, kisses in the air to an acquaintance, and the long slow smooches of Hollywood—have different meanings yet are similar in nature. So why is it that we love to pucker up?
A Kiss Isn’t Just a Kiss
Philematologists, the scientists who study kissing, aren't exactly sure why humans started locking lips in the first place. The most likely theory is that it stems from primate mothers passing along chewed food to their toothless babies. The lip-to-lip contact may have been passed on through evolution, not only as a necessary means of survival, but also as a general way to promote social bonding and as an expression of love. Single In Brazil: Kiss Everyone!
But something’s obviously happened to kissing since the time of the chewed-food pass. Now, it’s believed that kissing helps transfer critical information, rather than just meat bits. The kissing we associate with romantic courtship may help us to choose a good mate, send chemical signals, and foster long-term relationships. All of this is important in evolution’s ultimate goal—successful procreation. How To Kiss Well
Kissing allows us to get close enough to a mate to assess essential characteristics about them, none of which we’re consciously processing. Part of this information exchange is most likely facilitated by pheromones, chemical signals that are passed between animals to help send messages. We know that animals use pheromones to alert their peers of things like mating, food sources, and danger, and researchers hypothesize that pheromones can play a role in human behavior as well. Although the vomeronasal organs, which are responsible for pheromone detection and brain function in animals, are thought to be vestigial and inactive in humans, research indicates we do communicate with chemicals.
The first study to indicate that chemical signals play a role in attraction was conducted by Claud Wedekind over a decade ago. Women sniffed the worn t-shirts of men and indicated which shirts smelled best to them. By comparing the DNA of the women and the men, researchers found that women didn’t just chose their favorite scent randomly. They preferred the scent of man whose major histocompatibility complex (MHC)—a series of genes involved in our immune system—was different from their own. Having a different MHC means less immune overlap and a better chance of healthy, robust offspring. Kissing may be a subtle way for women to assess the immune compatibility of a mate, before she invests too much time and energy in him. Perhaps a bad first kiss means more than first date jitters—it could also mean a real lack of chemistry.
Discussion
"Relate" is an alien term with which I am unfamiliar. Scientists avoid words with nebulous definitions wherever possible. We're empirical. We like to test hypotheses.
Since this discussion brings up key concepts from my peer-reviewed medical journal article published years ago, I thought I might interject a few smidgeons and tidbits which might allow a fairer assessment.
1. The vomeronasal or Jacobsen's organ is not the only pheromone sensing organ in mammals. Humans have the largest pheromone detection system of any species. Indeed, the microvillar cells of the human cover most of the entire upper respiratory system.
2. Human beings have the largest set of scent glands of any animal with the most complex set (more than 725 varying chemical components) of scent gland emissions ever found. It exceeds other species by an order of magnitude. It has generally been observed that the more social is a species, the more pheromones it generates. Despite E.O. Wilson's ignorant claims to the contrary, human beings have far more scent gland emissions than ants.
3. Human kissing pheromone emissions onto kissable skin surfaces of the human body represent a profound source of pharmacological potential. We are now curing crime, drug addiction, and even sexual perversion with healthy adult male facial skin surface lipids in one, single dose of just 150 mg, p.o.
B. Nicholson, Senior Scientist in Charge
Nicholson Science
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BBC-TV interview Discov-ery Channel: “The Kiss.” 1989
CBC-TV National Film Board of Canada interview; “Slippery Blisses.” 1998
Peer-reviewed medical journal articles:
Nicholson B., Pheromones cause disease: phero-mone/odourant transduc-tion. Med Hypotheses. 2001 Sep;57(3):361-77.
Nicholson B., Pheromones cause disease: the exocri-nology of anorexia nervosa. Med Hypotheses. 2000 Mar;54(3):438-43.
Nicholson B., Does kissing aid human bonding by semiochemical addiction? Br J Dermatol. 1984 Nov;111(5):623-7.
Not sure why the term "relate" bothers you. But here's an argument without it: This is an article called "Why we kiss" and the intro paragraph ends with the question why do we love to pucker up? So it's trying to suggest a causal relationship between what follows and human kissing.
In the second paragraph the author suggests that mouth-to-mouth contact may have been passed on by evolution. The next paragraph suggests that kissing may help transfer information and that romantic kissing may help to choose a mate, send signals, and maintain the relationship. This is then explicitly linked to "evolution's ultimate goal." Here it is being more clearly suggested that evolution makes us kiss as part of romantic courtship.
The hypothesis in this article -
Humans have evolved to kiss as part of romantic courtship because that helps us find and keep good mates.
So what's the evidence?
A really importance piece of evidence for this hypothesis is the question are humans biologically driven to kiss? The answer is pretty clearly no - romantic kissing is not universal in human societies. Is it something that is common in hunter-gatherer societies? Is it something other animals do?
Before trying to make a connection between evolutionary forces and romantic kissing, we need to know if romantic kissing is "natural" or a cultural phenomenon. Things that seem natural to us because they are universal in modern Western countries, aren't necessarily natural. That's where science, empiricism, etc. are supposed to come in.
What is the actual evidence that the article uses to support the idea that we've evolved to kiss as part of mate selection?
1) women prefer the smell of a man's sweat when the man would be a good mate for them in terms of his immune system. (Kissing is only one method to sniff the guy's sweat, and maybe not the best one)
2) Female American college students say they wouldn't have sex without kissing first, the males would. (There are probably a lot of things females would want to do before having sex that men would be willing to skip.)
3) men are more likely to initiate French kissing. (This one is a good example of theorizing too much - apparently researchers think this could be exchanging saliva allows the male to turn the female one with his testosterone and find out information about her estrogen. We live in a society in which men are "supposed" to initiate sex and take things further. Women still feel they can't ask a man to marry her. That could be the answer - ockham's razor anyone?)
4) stress hormones go down in American college couples when they kiss - and the males get an increase in bonding hormones - But what if the stress hormones are going down because of the cultural meaning we attach to kissing? Perhaps a man holding hands with a male friend makes stress hormones go down in cultures where that's the norm.
Sorry, but I'm not normal. I'm not a big fan of kissing. The human mouth is one of the most filthy spots on the human body! Then just to think about the number of people that have bad oral care, so many don't floss.
I think it looks great, but it's just not for me.
I can't get past the fact that huge numbers of people in the world absolutely, positively don't use kissing in mate selection. Kissing is just not a big part of many east Asian cultures, or if it is, it's a modern import.
I'd like to see something that indicates that early humans or pre-human apes kissed lovers. Otherwise, what's the point of speculating on how kissing is related to evolution?
This seems like typical theorizing based on what seems "natural" to us because it is our own culture. You can't figure out what is natural that way.
I have to agree that kissing is a romantic, sometimes a sensual and pleasant action. Weather it be a kiss to a friend or a lip lock with your sweetie. I for one LOVE kissing. Though I only reserve it for people who I am very close with, and romantic kissing, of course, is saved for that special someone. I have been thinking about what I love about kissing, and I have concluded that there are many factors for me that I find pleasurable. For one, it's the closeness... to have someone so close to you, in your face that creates a special bond.
Especially when I am hurting or upset. I suppose that can be attributed to when you are a child and you fall off of your bike. Skinned knees and all, a kiss on the srapes always seemed to make it hurt less. Kisses on the forhead make me feel like I am being protected. It's a warm feeling and always brings a certain "butterfly-ish" sensation, and at that moment in time, I feel safe. A kiss to say 'hello' or 'goodbye' always leaves me with the consciouness and receptivity of the tangibility of the person I am kissing. Let's me appreciate who that person is and reminds me of how special they are. A deep kiss on the lips, weather it be "tonsil hockey" or a kiss that is somewhat equivilent to Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader's lightsabers clashing all about in a battle to save Endor makes me feel tingly, needed, responsive, alert and special. That at THAT precise moment, no one else in the world is experiencing what I am experiencing with that particulair person. It's also a feeling of "oneness".
So yes, I have to agree that the "feel good" feelings are all about the lips. I do have to wonder though, how abundant are those feel good feelings exposed when you tell someone to kiss your ass?
