When the mood strikes, a kiss can catch us in a mix of tastes, textures, mysteries\u2014and scents.\u00a0 We kiss nervously, flirtingly, angrily, or excitedly.\u00a0 And a kiss is not just all about sex: Hollywood celebs throw us air kisses, mobsters impart the kiss of death, and an astronaut kisses the soil after a safe return home.\u00a0 So why, then, are we so taken with the kiss?<\/p>\n
Scientists agree our lips evolved first for eating\u2014and then later for speech.\u00a0 Yet, with a kiss, a different kind of \u2018hunger\u2019 applies.\u00a0 Kisses set off a whirlwind of neuro-chemical messages yielding anything from sensations of touch to sexual arousal; feelings of closeness to even a wave of euphoria.<\/p>\n
However, kissing is not a solo affair, and kissing transmits external messages as well.\u00a0 The bringing together of two bodies sets off messages just as powerful with your partner (whether they are precisely the same feelings is another matter altogether).\u00a0 Kisses pack quite a punch: even one can transmit much information about the potential of a relationship.\u00a0 Research proves that kisses are so powerful that a \u2018first kiss\u2019 gone badly can derail even the most promising of relationships.<\/p>\n
Scientists believe that lip-locking evolved as a means to promote mate-selection.\u00a0 Kisses transmit olfactory, tactile and postural types of information tapping into both the conscious and unconscious mind that drives decisions, including a genetically-compatible mate!\u00a0 Some researchers believe that a kiss can even disclose the extent to which a partner might commit to raising children\u2014central to our specie\u2019s survival.<\/p>\n
Nearly 50 years ago, British zoologist and author Desmond Morris posited that kissing probably evolved from primates: mothers chew food for their young, and then feed them mouth-to-mouth.\u00a0 And since chimps still feed this way, early man probably did so, as well.<\/p>\n
This press of out turned lips against lips may have later progressed as a way to comfort children in times of hunger\u2014and eventually becoming a general expression of affection.\u00a0 (Leave it to us humans to take these first parental kisses down the myriad of paths we have today!)<\/p>\n
It is believed that unseen chemical messengers named pheromones helped along the evolution of the intimate kiss.\u00a0 Both animals and plants use pheromones to communicate: insects, for example, emit pheromones to signal alarms, point out a food trail or announce sexual attraction.<\/p>\n
In 1995, a Swiss researcher showed why pheromones are so important in humans, too.\u00a0 He had women sniff t-shirts worn by men, and asked which smelled best.\u00a0 The results were startling: the women did not choose randomly, which was discovered by comparing the DNA of the women and men.\u00a0 Instead, women overwhelmingly picked the scent of man whose histocompatibility complex (MHC)\u2014the genes that forge our immune systems\u2014differed from their own.\u00a0 (Different MHC\u2019s mean less immune overlap, and the increased likelihood of healthy, disease-resistant kids.)\u00a0 Thus, kissing may be a woman\u2019s way of assessing a potential mate\u2019s immune compatibility\u2014without investing an excessive amount of time, energy in (and not to mention sexual activity with) a man.<\/p>\n
However, these scientists aren\u2019t telling the average person anything new: when it comes time to close your eyes and lean in, we all know that a kiss is never just a kiss.<\/p>\n
\u00a0culled from smarterlifestyles<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the mood strikes, a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32070,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/32070"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.elcrema.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}