Kissing is an integral part of our courting rituals, holidaycelebrations, and romantic comedies. Most of us can probably still remembercheering on the characters of our favorite TV shows when their lips touched forthe first time. We know that locking lips makes us happy and excited, but thereare several aspects of smooching that we don't normally consider.
Try not tothink about these 10 facts the next time you're making mouth babies with yoursignificant other. It might kill the mood.
The sensitivity of the skin on the lips varies from personto person, but for most people, the lips are the most sensitive part of yourbody. Some areas of your body have more touch receptors sending signals to yourbrain than other parts, making them more sensitive, and the hands and lips areat the top of the list. Lips are often 100 or 200 times more sensitive thanfingertips. They can even be more sensitive than a person's genitals, which ishard to believe if you've ever been hit in your jiggly bits.
Almost 280 colonies of bacteria can be swapped during akiss, which means more than 5 million bacteria could be entering your bodyduring a particularly steamy lip-locking session. Obviously quick pecks aren'tas germy as full-on tongue kisses, but you might still want to avoid kissing asick loved one. Most of the bacteria are harmless (about 80% already reside inyour body), but be careful about diseases like mononucleosis and herpes thatcan be spread through smooches.
Those same bacteria that sound so gross can actually benefityou. The foreign bacteria you're introduced to from making out could boost yourimmune system. And the extra saliva that you produce when you're enjoying akiss acts a bit like a teeth cleaning, washing away bacteria and breaking upsome plaque on your pearly whites. So when your dentist asks if you've beenflossing regularly, just tell him you've been kissing a lot instead.
On average, humans spend about two weeks, or 15 days,playing tonsil hockey in their lifetimes. That's not a bad way to pass thetime. If you want to compare it to other activities, we spend about six monthsof our lives in traffic, five years eating, 24 years and four months sleeping,and have 16 hours of orgasm.
The spit you swap could be doing more for you than youthink. Scientists say that subconsciously, humans use a first kiss to assesspotential mates. Men test the estrogen levels of a female partner by detectingit in her saliva, which is why men tend to give wetter smooches. Women look fora strong immune system in the guys they kiss.
Kissing isn't reserved for humans alone. Many members of theanimal kingdom show affection through some form of kissing. Elephants sticktheir trunks in each other's mouths. Lots of birds tap their beaks together;puffins for example rub bills at the beginning of their courtship. Primates,like chimps and bonobo monkeys, kiss in a way that looks a lot like how humansdo it. Other kinds of animals nuzzle and lick, which might be compared tokissing.
Ever notice how married couples sleep in separate beds inold TV shows? That's because the Motion Picture Production Code, or Hays Code,wouldn't allow them to sleep together from 1930 to 1968. This moral code alsoput limitations on the length and lustfulness of screen kisses. Because of theclause in the code that reads "Excessive and lustful kissing, lustfulembraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown," manyfilmmakers had to work around it. In Notorious, for example, AlfredHitchcock directed the actors to have several shorter kisses rather than onelong one to avoid problems with the code while keeping the scene sexy.
When you go in for a smooch, do you instinctively turn yourhead to the right? If you do, you're in the majority. Two-thirds of people tiltto the right when they kiss, meaning you should probably try this direction ifyou're kissing someone for the first time for better odds of not bumping noses.Some scientists believe this preference is determined while still in the womband cemented during the first six months of life.
While snogging seems to be built into our genetics, itactually isn't a universal human habit. Ninety percent of humans do take partin kissing, but there are a few cultures where it wasn't customary until theylearned about it from Western cultures. Somalians in Africa, a group of peoplein the Indian state of Sikkim, and some in Bolivia didn't know about kissinguntil they had contact with Westerners. Some native cultures, such as theInuits and Maori, traditionally kiss with their noses, an "Eskimo Kiss,"rather than with their lips.
Even in the good old U.S. of A., there are still old laws onthe books regarding kissing. In Iowa and Indiana, men with mustaches can't kisswomen in public. In Colorado, men can't kiss a woman who is sleeping or kisstheir wives on Sundays. In Florida, you can't kiss your wife's breast. What'sthe ruling on someone who isn't your wife? These laws are apparently still ineffect, but it's doubtful that anyone cares to enforce them or even reallyknows about them.
Contacts and sources:
Katina Solomon
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