The thought must have crossed your mind as you find yourself subjected to yet another Noo-Noo like clinch in some dingy club corner. Why did we choose such a bizarre and potentially messy gesture to express desire?
General opinion remains hopelessly divided over whether the act of kissing is an instinctual impulse, or a social habit picked up during childhood.
Scientists have suggested a range of theories to prove that kissing is hopelessly, unavoidably instinctual. Freud would have us believe that our preoccupation with kissing indicates a desire to return to the safety of the maternal breast. Hardly a comforting thought, that subliminal childhood memories of your mother are the driving force behind your most intimate sexual encounters.
Slightly less disturbing are theories that put kissing down to caveman practices, crucial for survival, whereby mothers would chew food to an edible pulp and transfer it to their unsuspecting offspring with a ‘kiss’.
To explain the kiss as an erotic act, scientists have claimed that placing mouths together allows couples to detect how suitable their chosen partner would be as a mate. By smelling each other’s pheromones, you can supposedly determine how biologically compatible you are, although a brief survey of kissing couples would be unlikely to produce ‘necessary pheremone exchange’ as a primary motive for making out.
Perhaps, then, there is room to argue that kissing is a learned practice. The fact that 10% of humans don’t indulge in kissing of any form certainly undermines the idea that it is a basic subconscious human impulse.
Different nations have turned to kissing as a form of self-expression for a variety of reasons. As early as 2000BC, there is evidence of communities who viewed kisses as a religious act. Bringing lips together signified a highly spiritual union, and by breathing out the couple exchange a part of their souls.
Sadly, there is no obvious soulful explanation to justify our modern obsession with the erotic kiss. Maybe, after all, it’s something we do merely because it feels good. The lips are an incredibly sensitive area, and a skilful kisser can provoke highly intense sensations in their partner, perhaps rendering any further explanation unnecessary.And that elusive non-kissing 10%? Well maybe they just haven’t caught onto the joys of the kiss quite yet. Give them time and I’m sure they’ll get there.
