The Science of Kiss

Copy/Pasted from CNN/Health (except for the photo)

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN) -- When your lips gently brush against the mouth of your beloved this Valentine's Day, it may feel magically romantic, or sloppily slobbery, or blissfully gentle, or perhaps too rough and toothy.

The science of kissing even has a name: philematology. Researchers are investigating the mechanisms involved.

Regardless, the practice of kissing is nearly universal. It is practiced in at least 90 percent of cultures among sexual or romantic partners, experts say. Now, scientists are investigating the biological factors underlying that ubiquitous expression of love.

The science of kissing even has a name: philematology. Research on the subject was presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science in Chicago on Friday.

"Kissing is not just kissing. It is a major escalation or de-escalation point in a powerful process of mate choice," said Helen Fisher, professor at Rutgers University and author of the book "Why Him, Why Her: Finding Real Love by Understanding Your Personality Type." Visit CNNhealth, your connection for better living

Research led by Wendy Hill, professor of neuroscience at Lafayette College, looked at how kissing affects the hormones oxytocin, related to social bonding, and cortisol, a measure of stress levels.

The first experiment, which took place in a student health center, looked at college students age 18 to 22, and examined hormone levels in 15 heterosexual couples. In the control group, participants held hands and talked with their partner while music played. In the experimental group, participants were told to open-mouth kiss their partner for the length of the music -- 16 minutes.

The results showed that oxytocin levels in the women decreased after the session, but increased in the men. Levels of cortisol decreased for everyone.

A second experiment in a more romantic setting -- a secluded room with jazz music, flowers and electric candles -- looked at nine heterosexual couples and three lesbian couples.

Researchers found that the longer the relationship of a couple, the more the cortisol levels declined in those people. The heterosexual women, moreover, said they felt greater intimacy with their partners than the heterosexual men or the homosexual women did, while all groups expressed equal satisfaction in kissing their partners.

A person receives information about the person he or she is smooching by locking lips, Fisher said. A kiss transmits smells, tastes, sound and tactile signals that all affect how the individuals perceive each other and, ultimately, whether they will want to kiss again.

Kissing "can really either escalate a relationship or really kill it," Fisher said.

Women tend to be attracted to male partners with a different immune system makeup from their own, Fisher said. They subconsciously detect information about a partner's immune system through smell, a sense involved in kissing, she said.

One study showed that more than 50 percent of men and women reported that after feeling attracted to another person initially, the attraction ended after the first kiss, Fisher said.

We feel such sensitivity to kissing partially because of the way our brain is structured, Fisher said. The somatosensory cortex, which extends from one side of the brain to the other, has a large portion devoted to picking up signals from the lips, tongue, nose and cheek areas around the mouth.

"You can really get poked in the back and not feel it very much, but just a feather around your lips and you really do feel it," she said.

As for the origins of kissing, one theory is that kissing evolved as an extension of the way mothers used to feed their children. Early humans, who lacked jars of manufactured baby food, probably chewed up food and directly transferred it from their mouths to the babies', said Gordon Gallup Jr., professor of psychology at the University of Albany, who did not present at this panel.

Looking at a sample of more than 1,000 college students, Gallup and colleagues found that women also tend to emphasize kissing more than men, and are much more likely to insist on kissing before a sexual encounter.

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A Little Bit on Process

Yesterday was another dark, snowy day, but it felt less playful than our first winter snow this year. It fell heavy and hard, suffocating the streets with the fullness of its body. When I am teetering on the edge between stress and a meltdown at work, I find myself far less capable of perceiving the world for what it really is. The world gets cloudy and claustrophobic and I find myself far less able to approach strangers for a kiss. 

I have to be in a certain place mentally and emotionally for the job, and I can almost always tell ahead of time whether or not my approach will be successful because it more often than not has to do with me than others. To get strangers to kiss, you really have to be a salesman, selling something to strangers that they think they neither want nor need, yet you have to show them that in fact it is something they want and need. They want to connect and they need the world to come together, lest we destroy each other in senseless warfare or factioning. 

If any small part of me doubts my own admittedly far-reaching arguments or questions my own faith in the project, the stranger I’ve approached will see straight through me and walk away, understandably convinced that they have better things to do with their time. If I approach with conviction and joy, on the other hand, I’ve found very few people are willing or able to say no. Call it politeness or a fear of disturbing the peace but whatever it is, joy and conviction can dissolve the walls and gets the job done.

When I’m on a roll though, getting two strangers to kiss is still often an awkward process. I usually wander heavily traversed streets looking for faces, well aware of the fact that in reality, I'll take whatever I can get. A person that looks lost or someone who is waiting for something (a bus or cab) is usually the first one I try and talk to. I introduce myself, give them a one-sentence explanation of the project and ask if they would mind taking part in it. I skip over the hesitation of their obliging answer, thank them and immediately search for a counterpart. With one subject found, the second becomes much easier. There really is power in numbers.

I’ll approach absolutely anyone who crosses the path of my first subject to see if they’ll join in as the second at this point, and most times the passerby will happily, or at least willingly oblige. Then it’s just a matter of taking the picture. I usually shoot three pictures without insisting on a kiss so people can get a bit more comfortable with each other. Almost no one will kiss in frame one. By the fourth frame, though, I reiterate what the project is all about and won’t fire until I see some kissing action. Once the capture is made, I thank them, ask them to sign releases, and learn a bit about their background before they go on their way.

I would love to start taking more time with people to interview properly but this 10-15 minute dance usually takes place on my way to work in the morning and sadly, I am often as rushed as my subjects are to get where I'm going. I’d like this to change for the weekend. This weekend, I would like to slow this whole process down and get more information about each individual because the true pleasure of this project is living its mission statement day in and day out. The pleasure comes from getting to know a little bit about each person, getting to know all the things you share and ways you differ, folding their story into someone elses and folding that story into my own. That is what it’s all about. That is what keeps me going when I’m teetering between stress and a meltdown on a snowy day in New York City- the fact that I can walk away from a stranger and sincerely say, “It was a pleasure meeting you.”

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kissingstrange.blogspot.com
Because we're all family