What’s In A Kiss?

I was having a conversation with some friends about the topic of kissing.

I still remember that magical kiss when I was 16 and he was 21 and I wondered if delicious kissing was becoming a lost art. I was feeling a bit skeptical about it from what I was experiencing on the dating scene.

Maybe I was going out with the ‘wrong’ men, but It seemed to me that either there was a rush to skip the kissing and go as quickly as possible for the “home run” (to use a baseball metaphor).

Or there was the other extreme of my dates forcing their tongue as deeply down my throat as they could possibly go –even on a first date – leaving me wondering what on earth they were digging for?

Anthropologists report that 90 percent of the people in the world kiss and the other 10% probably do but consider it so private they don’t openly talk about it.

And while researchers aren’t exactly sure how or why people started kissing, they do know that romantic kissing affects most people profoundly. The Kinsey Institute (for research in gender, sex and reproduction) describe a person’s response to kissing as a combination of three factors:

• Your psychological response depends on your mental and emotional state as well as how you feel about the person who is kissing you. Psychologically, kissing someone you want to kiss will generally encourage feelings of attachment and affection. If you’re kissing someone you don’t like, or you’re kissed against your will, your psychological response will be completely different.

• Your body physically reacts to being kissed. Most people like to be touched, and that’s part of your body’s response to kissing. But kissing also affects everything from your blood to your brain. Your facial nerve carries impulses between your brain and the muscles and skin in your face and tongue. While you kiss, it carries messages from your lips, tongue and face to your brain to tell it what’s going on. Your brain responds by ordering your body to produce:
  • Oxytocin, which helps people develop feelings of attachment, devotion and affection for one another
  • Dopamine, which plays a role in the brain’s processing of emotions, pleasure and pain
  • Serotonin, which affects a person’s mood and feelings
  • Adrenaline, which increases heart rate and plays a role in your body’s fight-or-flight response

When you kiss, these hormones and neurotransmitters rush through your body. Along with natural endorphins, they produce the euphoria most people feel during a good kiss. In addition, your heart rate increases and your blood vessels dilate, so your whole body receives more oxygen than it does when you’re just standing around.

• The culture in which you grew up plays a big part in how you feel about kissing. In most Western societies, people are conditioned to, look forward to and enjoy kissing. The behavior of the people around you, depictions in the media and other social factors can dramatically affect how you respond to being kissed.

While there is an on-off history of kissing in literature and art, there aren’t many records of kissing in the Western world until the days of the Roman Empire. Romans used kisses to greet friends and family members. Citizens kissed their rulers’ hands. And, naturally, people kissed their romantic partners. The Romans even came up with three different categories for kissing:

• Osculum was a kiss on the cheek
• Basium was a kiss on the lips
• Savolium was a deep kiss

Here’s a thought:  maybe these three categories of kissing can be seen to correspond to deepening levels of intimacy, hence the ‘Savolium’ kiss shouldn’t be happening on the first date and not until at least date number three?  What do you think?

So with all that goes on with a kiss – it certainly doesn’t seem probably that it will ever become extinct.  And I was pleased about the responses I received to my question about whether kissing was becoming a lost art.  I was re-assured by men and women that it certainly wasn’t a lost art and that it was a high and highly desirable priority for others.

So now I’m curious – what makes a great kiss, great, in your view?

To learn more read this article (from which much of this blog was based on – let’s give credit where it’s due!)  http://people.howstuffworks.com/kissing.htm

Until next time – Happy Kissing!