Are you kissing your beloved the right way?  Are you aware there is science in lips and research in the tongue?  A soft, magical, kiss has hard science behind every salty pucker.

This Valentine’s Day, a kiss is still a kiss. But for the ancient Greeks and Romans the juicy gesture meant much more than physical attraction. In fact, most kissing in that period was to express deference and not romance, Donald Lateiner, a humanities-classics professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, told National Geographic News.

Men kissed men on the cheek as a social greeting, while subjects of a king “abased” themselves by kissing the ground in front of him. And people who wanted to curry favor with someone of higher status would “kiss up” the person’s hands, shoulders, and head–in that order….

Today more than 90 percent of human societies and several animals, including chimpanzees, use kisses to express themselves, said anthropologist Helen Fisher of Rutgers University. The ubiquity of the smooch supports Charles Darwin’s belief that kissing is an instinct that evolved to jump-start reproduction, she said.

Is kissing a natural expression of love and respect?

Or must we be taught how to kiss and pucker in order to be successful in society?

4 Comments

  1. ANNE – I live and teach on the upper West Coast of the United States. My interests are Philosophy, English, and Social Communication.
    ANNE says:

    this i like more my speed than the scarification article. Kissing stones. Kissing for power. I like all of it always passionate always affection.

  2. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    The science of kissing is quite fantastic, Anne, and it is research I am happy to test, participate in and endlessly query and quantify! SMILE!

  3. Interestingly enough I read this before the scarification article. Oh, I should have switched it. 🙂
    I think kisses are taught because who knows how to kiss automatically? Facial expressions on the other hand are within us. They tested that by going to remote countries which never had seen a television and inducing emotions through external factors and the facial expressions were consistent.

  4. David Boles – New York City – David Boles was born in Nebraska and holds an MFA from the Oscar Hammerstein II Center for Theatre Studies at Columbia University in the City of New York. He is an author, dramatist, editor, publisher, and teacher who writes across the live stage, print, radio, television, film, and the web. With more than 50 books in print, David continues to write 2MM words a year and has authored over 25K articles. He is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Authors Guild, and PEN America, and founded The United Stage advocacy platform on the principle that playwrights have a duty to direct their own work. Read the Prairie Voice Archive at Boles.com | Buy his books at David Boles Books Writing & Publishing at BolesBooks.com | Study with Script Professor at ScriptProfessor.com | Touch American Sign Language mastery at Hardcore ASL at HardcoreASL.com | Explore the Human Meme podcast at HumanMeme.com | Train with Boles Bells at BolesBells.com.
    David W. Boles says:

    Love it, Gordon! I agree kissing is a learned science and the art is added by the individual to express repressed longing and hopeful yearnings. That experiment about facial expressions is great. Have you watched the Tim Roth series on Fox called “Lie to Me” yet? It’s pretty fantastic.
    http://www.fox.com/lietome/

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