Kissing on the lips can be a physical expression of affection or love between two people in which the sensations of touch, taste, and smell are involved. But how many of us knows that kissing is not as simple a thing as it seems? "[30] Despite kissing being widespread, in some parts of the world it still is taboo to kiss publicly and is often banned in films or in other media. Here is just a peek at ten of the more intriguing aspects of what makes the body tick. [34] Also, in the 1900s, Manchu tribes along the Amur River regarded public kissing with revulsion. [4] The insulting slang “kiss my ass” dates back at least to 1705. "The History of Kissing", Eric Anderson, Adi Adams, Ian Rivers, Archives of Sexual Behavior. When people talk about sensation, most of the time they’re referring to the five primary senses — vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell. 2. 8. newspaper archive. [27]:9, Romantic kissing in Western cultures is a fairly recent development and is rarely mentioned even in ancient Greek literature. When the Apostle Paul took leave of the elders of the congregation at Ephesus, "they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him" (Acts 20:37). Her lips are softer than the rose's leaf, her mouth is sweet as honey, and her kiss inflicts on me more pain than a bee's sting. "[17]:101, The kiss of peace was also used in secular festivities. Back then, it was described as rubbing and pressing noses against each other, so it wasn't quite in the same format that it's in now, but Bryant and other anthropologists believe that's how it first became a thing. This is sometimes interpreted by observers as a type of kissing. . See today's front and back pages, download the newspaper, "[39] According to Citron, Mae West and Anna May Wong were the only Hollywood actresses never to have been kissed on screen. In written correspondence a kiss has been represented by the letter "X" since at least 1763. The practice of kissing with an open mouth, to allow the other to suck their lips or move their tongue into their mouth, is called French kissing. If that’s hard to believe, consider this: Every square inch of skin contains 20 feet of blood vessels. 5. In approximately 10% of the world population, kissing does not take place, for a variety of reasons, including that they find it dirty or because of superstitious reasons. a mouth-to-mouth method of restoring breathing. Non-human primates also exhibit kissing behavior. Kissing the hand is not biblical, according to Tabor. Again, the theory here is that people who have more options have the luxury of being more selective in choosing someone to sleep with, and therefore more likely to rely on the DNA test of the romantic-sexual kiss. Beards are the fastest-growing hairs on the human body; if an average man never shaved or trimmed the growth, he would die with nearly 30 feet of beard hanging off his chin. The term flying kiss is used in India to describe a blown kiss. In Islamic republic of Iran, a man who kisses or touches a woman who is not his wife or relative can be punished such as getting whipped up to 100 times or even go to jail. [55], Within the natural world of animals there are numerous analogies to kissing, notes Crawley, such as "the billing of birds, the cataglottism of pigeons and the antennal play of some insects." Because you make your own natural supply of antacid. [21] In Ancient Greece, the kiss on the mouth was used to express a concept of equality between people of the same rank. The wisdom of the earth in a kiss and everything else in your eyes. The Journal of Sports Sciences in 2008 reported that football teams do best if they wear red shirts. People may kiss children on the forehead to comfort them or the cheek or lips to show affection. The University of Albany study also found that while only 15 percent of women said they would have sex with someone without kissing them, a whopping 53 percent of men said they'd be happy to skip it and go right to the main event. DEFINING THE PERSIANS – Encyclopaedia Iranica", "Chemical attraction: The science of kissing", “I Kiss Them Because I Love Them”: The Emergence of Heterosexual Men Kissing in British Institutes of Education. [33], Donald Richie comments that in Japan, as in China, although kissing took place in erotic situations, in public "the kiss was invisible", and the "touching of the lips never became the culturally encoded action it has for so long been in Europe and America." A kiss can be "blown" to another by kissing the fingertips and then blowing the fingertips, pointing them in the direction of the recipient. The psychologist William Cane notes that kissing in Western society is often a romantic act and describes a few of its attributes: It's not hard to tell when two people are in love. The first romantic kiss on screen was in American silent films in 1896, beginning with the film The Kiss. He notes, however, that the categories are somewhat contrived and overlapping, and some cultures have more kinds, including the French with twenty and the Germans with thirty. In some tribal cultures the "equivalent for our 'kiss me' is 'smell me. Cambridge scientists in 2001 showed that a sheep can recall the faces of 50 other sheep for more than two years. 26 March 2011 . Throughout history, a kiss has been a ritual, formal, symbolic or social gesture indicating devotion, respect or greeting. Nyrop gives a vivid example in the classic love story of Daphnis and Chloe. Some anthropologists believe that kissing is instinctual and intuitive, having evolved from activities like suckling or premastication, others suggest it evolved from checking the health of a potential mate via inspecting their saliva, and yet others believe that it is a learned behavior. "[41], In early Japanese films, kissing and sexual expression were controversial. Kissing is described in the surviving ancient Egyptian love poetry from the New Kingdom, found on papyri excavated at Deir el-Medina: Finally I will drink life from your lips and wake up from this ever lasting sleep. A symbolic kiss is frequent in Western cultures. News; Health ; Smarter Living; Culture ; Relationships ; Travel ; Style ; Coronavirus; Get the newsletter Relationships. In many countries it is required, on taking an oath, as the highest assertion that the witness would be speaking the truth. Anthropologist Vaughn Bryant argues kissing spread from India to Europe after Alexander the Great conquered parts of Punjab in northern India in 326 BCE. During that day’s pumping, the body’s red blood cells travel about 12,000 miles, or roughly half the distance around the Earth at the equator. Men, for example, apparently prefer kisses that are 33 percent wetter and include 11 percent more tongue than women, which the researchers believe might be due to the fact they want to drown the woman in the arousal-enhancing hormone testosterone. Those who follow the former school of thought that says it is instinctual like to bring up the bonobo ape, who engages in the same kind of lip-locking we do, and who we share 98.7 per cent of our DNA with. Besides devotion, a kiss has also indicated subordination or, nowadays, respect. The Age When Women Are Most Likely to Cheat. Should the roles ever be reversed, women were regarded as vamps . If you think that’s gritty, consider this: The ashes of a cremated body weigh around 9 pounds. You certainly have plenty of blood to fill all that space; you have 2.5 trillion red blood cells, more or less, in your body at any given moment, and your bone marrow creates 100 billion new ones every single day. [55]:585 The kiss is used in numerous other contexts in the Bible: the kiss of homage, in Esther 5:2; of subjection, in 1 Samuel 10:1; of reconciliation, in 2 Samuel 14:33; of valediction, in Ruth 1:14; of approbation, in Psalms 2:12; of humble gratitude, in Luke 7:38; of welcome, in Exodus 18:7; of love and joy, in Genesis 20:11. In the early Church the baptized were kissed by the celebrant after the ceremony, and its use was even extended as a salute to saints and religious heroes, with Crawley adding, "Thus Joseph kissed Jacob, and his disciples kissed Paul. As the body’s internal defense network, the immune system sets blood and lymph against biological invaders seeking to colonize you. In addition to the last three points, kissing has also been proven to lower cholesterol, as well as making us feel less stressed by lowering our cortisol levels. [8][9], In Cyropaedia (370 BC), Xenophon wrote about the Persian custom of kissing in the lips upon departure while narrating the departure of Cyrus the Great (c. 600 BC) as a boy from his Median kinsmen. Fingernails grow nearly four times faster than toenails do. And they definitely pieced together the fun of making out by the time the Kama Sutra was written by an ancient Indian philosopher sometime between 400 BCE and 200 CE. Catholics traditionally kiss the ring of a cardinal or bishop. And sexual forms of kissing between lovers encompass the whole range of global practices. Ancient people built some of the most sophisticated structures of all time including the pyramids. If your skin — and some of the “friendly” bacteria living there — didn’t secrete natural antibacterial compounds, you could wake up in the morning coated in microbial slime. In fact, your senses are more subjective than you may like to admit. How come women often seem to be more interested in making out than men? The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.