Why do people enjoy kissing

One of the benefits of kissing is that it allows for loads of data to be exchanged, which then makes it possible for people to unconsciously assess their potential and permanent partners. The lips are one of the thinnest layers of skin on the human body and densely populated with nerve endings, explains Fisher. This allows people to pick up on the temperature, taste, and smell of someone. Through smell, people are able to assess all kinds of information about others, such as the health of their immune system or their fertility.

When people are wearing less clothing or bathing less, they are able to tell that information without needing to get too close. She also notes that "exposure to showing people kissing in a romantic way may have an impact on people thinking it's more desirable," along with exposure to people of higher statuses practicing kissing because people are more likely to emulate them. When looking to humans' closest relatives, primates, kissing actually is a common practice, says Fisher. And while there isn't enough data collected on all animal habits, there is enough evidence to show that face touching, face rubbing, or face licking is involved across many species.

Those actions put "participants into such close contact that there is still exchange of intimate, potentially relevant genetic and reproductive information. So it does appear to be a hardwired courtship strategy," confirms Gallup. A kiss is so powerful that it can determine whether a relationship begins, ends, or continues.

A University of Alabama study conducted by Gordon and his colleagues showed that there is such a thing as a deal-breaking kiss—or, as Fisher likes to call it, "a kiss of death. However, just because there are deal-breaking kisses does not mean the people in question are bad kissers.

Gordon asserts that someone who "may be a good kisser for one person may be a bad kisser for another. This again demonstrates that kissing is used as a mate assessment tool. That said, men and women tend to report kissing for very different reasons. Men tend to kiss as a means of gaining sexual favors or as a way to achieve reconciliation, says Gordon. Women on the other hand tend to kiss as a means of establishing a romantic relationship and monitoring the status of a relationship.

Fisher adds that women use kissing as a way to look further down the road, meanwhile asking themselves important questions such as: Do they like this person well enough? Would they make a good partner? Are they patient? When the millions of nerve endings on your lips are activated with a kiss, it makes you feel good because of the signals it transfers to your brain.

Gordon says there is evidence that some people remember the details of their first kiss far better than they remember the details of their first sexual encounter. So it's very possible that a novel kiss drives up the dopamine system in the brain, affirms Fisher, and then pushes people over the threshold of falling in love because dopamine is associated with feelings of intense romantic love.

According to Fisher, humans have evolved three distinctively different brain systems for mating and reproduction: sex drive, feelings of intense romantic love, and feelings of deep attachment. Saliva contains a lot of testosterone, which helps to trigger the sex drive. And since the internal cheek cells are well built to absorb testosterone, wet kisses cause arousal. It all comes down to our lingering evolutionary urge to sniff out a genetically compatible mate, although nowadays a person's genetics isn't the only thing that draws us to them otherwise Tinder and hook-ups wouldn't exist.

Still, people love a good snog in almost every culture in the world, and those which don't get up close by sniffing or smelling instead, explains Dr Sarah Johns, an expert in human reproduction and evolutionary psychology at the University of Kent.

That makes a couple more likely to produce a child better equipped to fight infectious disease, which was pretty important before modern medicine and the advent of vaccines and antibiotics. One such study involved showing people pornography and asking them to do unsavoury tasks like moving tissues into the bin or drinking from a glass of water with a fly floating in it.

Some studies suggest that kissing allows a couple to get close enough to assess the scent of their kissing partner. Human scent is an indicator of our immune system involving genes known as the major histocompatibility complex MHC genes.

The theory goes that people are attracted to a mate who has different MHC genes, who, if mated with, would potentially produce a baby with a more diverse immune system that is better able to fight disease. This, in essence, is the biological explanation for why opposites attract. Anthropologist, Helen Fisher says that when we partake in mouth-to-mouth kissing, we share saliva which has testosterone in it which enhances our sex-drive.

Kissing also stimulates the brain hormones, dopamine and oxytocin— both of which promote bonding and attachment in human beings. Women also tend to view kissing as an important way to show affection in long-term relationships.

Well, I guess that depends on your definition of a good kisser and a good lover. A study by Wlodaski found that being a good kisser can make some people more attractive for short-term relationships. A silly question maybe when you consider how many people kiss each other on the cheek in greetings. But, when is a kiss not just a kiss, depends on the honesty and sincerity of the kissers. We suggest you just watch a few romantic comedies to solve this one.

Yes, because kissing stimulates the production of the so-called happy hormones or neurotransmitters serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin while reducing the production of the stress hormone, cortisol. And no, because there are about 80 million bacteria, some harmful, some harmless - in the bodily fluids kissers exchange.

Well, it depends on what other forms of intimacy they partake in. Manwatching author Morris suggests that couples who have been bonded for a long time are less likely to indulge in prolonged intense mouth kissing.