Sealed with a kiss
A brief investigation into kissing and why we do it
By Gina Souders
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
Lauren Krause was on her way to the Marine Corps Ball with Anthony Green, a Marine her friend had set her up with while they visited California. She was immediately attracted to him. Before going to the ball, Green stopped at a nearby beach. There was an immediate connection, Krause, Goddard junior, remembers. As they played around on shore he asked her for a quick kiss on the cheek. She agreed and moved closer but was thrown off guard when he caught her lips with his. At first she was shocked but soon gave she in to the kiss. “It was just right. Soft, warm and salty,” she says. The two have now been dating for a year.
Kissing. It’s a behavior that occurs in more than 90 percent of human cultures, says Susan Hughes, associate professor of psychology at Albright College in Reading, Pa. Whether it’s playful, romantic or somewhat naughty, kissing seems to be something everyone is doing. But why do we do it? Why has swapping spit stood the test of time?
The history of kissing
A brief history lesson
We will spend an average of two weeks kissing in our lifetime, says Andrea Demirjian, kissing expert and author of Kissing: Everything you ever wanted to know about one of life’s sweetest pleasures. There are two schools of thought as to why we kiss. One believes kissing is an instinctual behavior; the other believes it is a cultural behavior. Although the first kiss was never recorded, we do know that people were kissing around 1500 BC. Ancient Sanskrit writings were found in India that describe the act of kissing, usually as a sensual act, Demirjian says.
Another ancient text that recorded kissing was the Kama Sutra, which was written somewhere between the third and sixth century. Often misidentified as an ancient sex position manual, Demirjian says the Kama Sutra was really a dating manual for bachelors in India. It not only instructed bachelors on grooming, art, music, conversation and yes, sex positions, but it also identified 17 kisses.
The here and now
Today kissing has evolved into a romantic and sexual behavior. Research at the University of Albany in New York has tested evolutionary hypotheses as to why we kiss. They administered a series of three questionnaires to more than 1,000 undergraduate students, which verified three hypotheses—kissing is a tool for mate assessment, kissing induces bonding and kissing increases sexual arousal and receptivity. The study also found sex differences among the results. Men were more likely to have sex with a bad kisser then women. Men were also more likely to have sex without kissing than women would.
“It’s great to find such striking sex differences in a common behavior,” Hughes, the associate professor, says. Although most of this may sound like common sense Hughes notes little research has been devoted to studying kissing, one of the most common human behaviors.
A memorable experience
All kisses have to start somewhere. “My first kiss was at my daycare when I was four or five,” says Krause.
Although she doesn’t count this as the first kiss that matters, she can still remember standing in a circle during playtime and innocently kissing her four-year-old boyfriend. Krause says kissing is an essential component to any relationship.
The physical contact and intimacy is what Ryan Tally, 2005 graduate, enjoys about kissing the most. “That moment when you pull away after the kiss and your faces are inches apart,” Talley says. “That feeling of being close and intimate is my favorite part of kissing.”
At midnight on New Years Eve, Tally had his first important kiss. It was with a friend he had feelings for. The situation forced a kiss as everyone around them announced that the ball was going to drop soon. When the clock struck midnight, Tally gave his friend a quick peck. But what started as a quick peck evolved into a deep kiss that validated their feelings for one another.
Kissing can be intimate and it can also break tension. Cassie Gerken, Goddard junior, remembers what started out as an awkward kiss with Ernie Mendez, a Marine she dated for almost a year. Mendez had been in Iraq for seven months. As Gerken waited on base to welcome him home, her expectations for the inevitable kiss got higher. “When he came back we didn’t have much to say to each other. I had been participating in American society while he was knee deep in sand,” she says. Although their greeting wasn’t the fairy tale she had envisioned, they soon kissed, and that seemed to ease the situation. “Our kiss brought us back to each other,” she says.
Some students are not seduced by the charm of the kiss. Avednego Chavez, Denver, Colo., junior, says kissing is both intimate and emotional, and he doesn’t care for it. “For me, sex is more casual than kissing,” Chavez says. “Sex is less intimate.” Chavez says he used to be the guy who felt kissing was a means to an end. Since then, he has developed a new philosophy that kissing should be saved for a girl he truly has feelings for. He has not yet met that girl, and until he does, he plans to hold off on kissing anyone. Kissing is too emotional but sex releases anxiety, he says.
Not every kiss is perfect.. Chavez remembers his worst kiss was with a girl who gave him what he calls a “helicopter kiss.” “She shoved her tongue in my mouth, and I couldn’t retract from it because she grabbed my face,” he says. “I couldn’t breathe.”
Gerken, junior, says her first kiss was her worst kiss. “He must have thought his tongue was a windmill,” she says. “Everything that could be awkward was.”
Although we may never know exactly why we kiss, it seems to be a behavior that has stood the test of time. So whether it’s your first kiss, your best kiss or your worst kiss, kissing seems to be a memorable experience that has KU students talking.
“Kissing never goes out of style,” Demirjian, the author, says. “There’s something titillating and sexy about it. It’s a prelude to sex.”
Like Mistinguett, the risqué French dancer, singer and actress, once said: “A kiss can be a comma, a question mark or an exclamation point.”
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