The Science of Kissing: What Our Lips Are Telling Us

by Sheril Kirshenbaum

  CHAPTER 4

  Cultural Exchange

  In his 1864 book Savage Africa, the British explorer William Winwood Reade described falling in love with the beautiful daughter of an African king. Reade courted her for months before finally, one evening, daring to give her a kiss. But having never encountered such behavior before, the frightened girl screamed and ran crying from his house. As Reade soon realized, she was terrified of being kissed, thinking it meant he was preparing to eat her.

  I’ve argued up to this point that kissing-like behaviors are part of our evolutionary heritage. But as with all aspects of human and animal behavior, their precise form in a particular place and time is heavily influenced by culture as well. A European-style kiss is certainly not a required intimate activity from a reproductive standpoint, although the behavior is increasingly popular and appears to be spreading. So after surveying the ancient history of the kiss, it is now time to move into our modern world and look at kissing-related behaviors among different peoples, considering how they may relate to our own.

  Globalization began with European explorers like Reade, who provided many reports of places where mouth-to-mouth kissing was apparently unknown. Perhaps the most memorable comes from anthropologist Donald Marshall, who studied people living on the Pacific island of Mangaia in what is now known as the Cook Islands. Before Europeans arrived, this culture had not encountered European kissing, but reportedly the men spent their late teens and twenties having an average of twenty-one orgasms a week—making them the most sexually active culture we know. That’s over one thousand orgasms a year, apparently without one passionate kiss as we would recognize it.

  And it’s just one of many similar examples. In another book, 1872’s The Martyrdom of Man, Reade described a reunion scene he had observed in Africa in which community members greeted hunters who had returned home. Immense affection was displayed, but kissing was absent. Instead, Reade writes, the villagers welcomed the hunters by “murmuring to them in a kind of baby language, calling them by their names of love, shaking their right hands, caressing their faces, patting them upon their breasts, embracing them in all ways except with the lips—for the kiss is unknown among the Africans.” Around the same time, travel author and poet Bayard Taylor related similar encounters in a very different part of the world. In Northern Travel, he noted that some Finnish tribes were not very interested in kissing, and observed that while the sexes would bathe together completely nude, a kiss on the lips was considered indecent. Taylor even met a married Finnish woman and inquired about kissing, to which she replied, “If my husband attempted anything of that kind, I would warm his ears so that he would feel the heat a whole week.”

  As Europeans continued to document the strange practices of distant peoples, discussions of kissing—or the lack thereof—became a regular feature of texts in the new field of anthropology. Unfortunately, many of these works contain assumptions that would shock us today: European kissing was deemed “civilized” because it was on the lips, whereas one mark of “savages” was their kissing in a more “primitive” or “barbaric” manner—for instance, the sniff kiss. The anthropologist Edward Tylor referred to “the lowest class of salutations” in 1878, observing that they “merge into the civilities which we see exchanged among lower animals.” Writing in 1898, the Danish scholar Christopher Nyrop similarly described the European mouth kiss as “a way of salutation vastly superior to the one in vogue among those savage tribes who salute with the nose.”

  But if we can get past the racism of these texts, they contain fascinating evidence about cultures that seem to have lacked mouth-to-mouth kissing. Nyrop asserted that the practice was unknown in Polynesia, Madagascar, and among some tribes in Africa. Likewise, the anthropologist Alfred E. Crawley wrote in 1929 that kissing on the lips was not to be found in much of the world, outside of the “higher civilizations” like Europe and Greece. More recently, Helen Fisher noted that before contact with Western societies, kissing was “unknown among the Somali, the Lepcha of Sikkim, and the Siriono of South America, whereas the Thonga of South Africa and a few other people traditionally found kissing disgusting.” The appearance of Western culture is what brought the behavior to their attention, and since then some attitudes have changed. Considering that we also introduced cigarettes and fast-food chains, kissing is probably one of the healthiest customs we’ve exported around the world.

  Mouth-to-mouth kissing may have been present and later disappeared among some cultures for social reasons, such as the discouragement of women’s sexuality. But still, Fisher notes that even in societies in which kissing wasn’t done, people “patted, licked, rubbed, sucked, nipped, or blew on each other’s faces prior to copulation.” Indeed, perhaps the most unusual such custom I’ve come across appears in anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski’s account of lovers in the Trobriand Islands near New Guinea. In 1929, he noted the way inhabitants, among many other strange and sometimes violent sexual behaviors, would bite off one another’s eyelashes during intimacy and at orgasm. “I was never quite able to grasp either the mechanism or the sensuous value of this caress,” Malinowski wrote.

  But from the perspective of non-European peoples, the idea of mouth-to-mouth kissing must also have seemed very odd—or worse. Among other concerns, the taste and smell of a European kiss was probably pretty unpleasant for those living in cultures that lacked toothbrushes and mouthwash.

  Yet kissing as we know it was about to spread. Over time, travel became quicker, easier, and less expensive, while communications technologies created a smaller world than ever before—a process spurred by innovations ranging from the telegraph to the Internet. The result is that today it’s estimated that over six billion of us from east to west kiss regularly, lip to lip, as a social and romantic custom.

  HOW DID THE MOUTH-TO-MOUTH KISS SPREAD? Many factors were involved beyond the repeated arrival of European ships on new shores. Indeed, perhaps equally powerful were the products of European culture. In the plays of Shakespeare and the novels of Dickens, kissing is a social expectation, and it seems as if everybody does it. We have inherited a legacy of kissing that has been celebrated through art and literature and amplified over time.

  In Western culture, many of our most memorable literary heroes and heroines pass their time waiting for a special kiss to take place. Anticipation moves the story line forward, and the kiss often takes the starring role. It’s the happy ending children have come to expect in stories, from Snow White to The Frog Prince. After all, what would our most celebrated fairy tales be without kissing?

  With the advent of the ability to tell narratives visually through film, kissing took on a life of its own. The first onscreen lip-lock was captured in 1896 by the Edison Company, entitled “The May Irwin–John C. Rice Kiss.” The entire film lasted less than thirty seconds, and simply consisted of a man and a woman half-kissing, half-talking, followed by a full kiss. They are dressed in formal attire, and Rice sports a rather large mustache. Furthermore, their exchange seems rather perfunctory when compared to today’s passionate Hollywood kisses. At the time, however, people were shocked. One review by publisher Herbert S. Stone began, “The spectacle of their prolonged pasturing on each other’s lips was hard to bear…. Such things call for police interference.” But again, there was no keeping the kiss down—especially not in Hollywood.

  Soon silver-screen kisses were everywhere, and not just between men and women. In 1926, Don Juan featured the most kisses thus far, a total of 191, provided by John Barrymore to costars Mary Astor and Estelle Taylor, among others. The following year, Wings featured the first onscreen male-male kiss on the lips, when a soldier kisses his dying friend. In 1941 came what was reportedly the longest movie kiss at the time, at three minutes and five seconds, between Jane Wyman and Regis Toomey in You’re in the Army Now. 1961’s Splendor in the Grass, meanwhile, is credited with featuring Hollywood’s first tongue kiss, between Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty. Then in 1963, Andy Warhol released Kiss, a fi
fty-four-minute 16 mm film that consisted solely of kisses between different couples. They lasted about three and a half minutes each (longer than Wyman and Toomey) and the gender of some of the kissers remained ambiguous. Warhol’s record was finally broken in 2010 when Tina Fey and Steve Carell kissed for five minutes during the closing credits of the film Date Night.

  Perhaps what’s most extraordinary about this is that much of it took place during the years of the moralistic Motion Picture Production Code, popularly known as the Hays Code, which was in effect from 1930 to 1968. The Code stated that “excessive and lustful kissing, lustful embraces, suggestive postures and gestures, are not to be shown”—the fear being that scenes of passion would “stimulate the lower and baser element.” Unless they were essential to the plot, they were not allowed. As a result, a couple’s kiss would often culminate in a show of suggestive imagery to hint at what was to come next—burning flames, for instance, or the ringing of wedding bells.

  Yet onscreen kissing survived the Hays Code easily enough, and is now a fixture of Hollywood entertainment. Granted, it has not always been without resistance. In 1985, an era characterized by rising concerns about AIDS, the Screen Actors Guild sent out seven thousand letters to agents and producers stipulating that performers should be notified in writing if a film project required them to participate in openmouthed kissing. Such scenes were described as “a possible hazard to the health of actors in light of the lack of clear and consistent medical opinion as to how or in what manner this disease is communicated.”

  Still, there can be no doubt that due to our cultural products, which carpet the globe, we have done much to teach the rest of the world about our particular form of lip-lock.

  HOLLYWOOD CAN’T CONQUER ALL, though. Across latitudes and longitudes today, there’s a wide spectrum of what’s acceptable and appropriate when it comes to kissing. Each region has distinct tastes and cultural norms, and although it’s not possible to trace each one, I’ll end this chapter with an admittedly incomplete survey of some common practices from around our increasingly globalized world.

  Let’s begin in France, home to the “French kiss”—which entered into the English vocabulary in 1923. The precise reason we use this term is unknown, but it’s possible that “French kiss” was adopted because American travelers were impressed by the affectionate nature of French women, who were more comfortable with openmouthed kissing than their counterparts. According to anthropologist Vaughn Bryant, this led to a popular saying: “While in France get the girls to kiss you,” which later turned into “get a French kiss.” In France, it is called a “tongue kiss” or “soul kiss,” because if it’s done right it’s supposed to feel as if two souls are merging.

  Cheek kisses in greeting are customary between genders in France and many other parts of the world to express warmth and respect. These kisses are common from Spain to the Netherlands, Portugal to Argentina, in Haiti and Mexico, Switzerland and Belgium, Egypt, Lebanon, and beyond. The salutation usually involves air-kissing one to three times and is typically more the touching of cheeks than lip contact. The appropriate number and direction varies not only by country, but also by community, or even by individual. In many of these regions, men only kiss each other when they are related or close friends, but of course there are exceptions. Elsewhere, cheek kissing among one gender is acceptable, but inappropriate between men and women unless the people are relatives. Such is the case in Turkey and parts of the Middle East.

  Elsewhere, public displays of affection are not nearly as popular. Attitudes in Finland haven’t completely reversed since the days of Bayard Taylor’s visit, where kissing is usually considered a private exchange. Citizens of the United Kingdom are also more likely to nod or shake hands than kiss each other’s faces. Likewise, Italians and Germans often save kisses for those with whom they are closest. Yet the German language has thirty words for kissing, including nachküssen, meaning a kiss to make up for those that have not occurred. Australians are also more likely to greet friends with a firm handshake than a social kiss. And although friends may sometimes exchange a peck, heterosexual men in that country do not typically kiss each other.

  Even though the Kama Sutra was composed in India, kissing there has traditionally been considered a private matter. Most people do not talk about kissing specifically, or their love lives in general, very much. In fact, when Richard Gere spontaneously kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty in 2007, religious groups held demonstrations in protest and a judge issued an arrest warrant to both of them for violating obscenity laws. In Bahrain and Bangladesh, kisses between parents and children are acceptable, while romantic displays of passion are generally not okay. Likewise, in Thailand, people rarely show affection in public.

  In South Africa, a 2008 law forbade people under sixteen from mouth-to-mouth contact in an effort to deal with the high HIV transmission rates in the country. Outraged teens staged kissing protests, and continue to ignore the rule. As noted in the previous chapter, kissing bans never seem to succeed.

  In Japan, kissing was traditionally associated with sex. Therefore, public kissing was considered extremely inappropriate and vulgar for a long time and this kind of behavior was restricted to the privacy of one’s home. Indeed, when Rodin’s sculpture The Kiss was exhibited in the 1920s in Tokyo, it remained shielded behind a bamboo curtain to avoid offending the public. Later, kissing scenes were cut from Hollywood films before they premiered in Japan. But things have loosened up a bit, and today kissing is more acceptable onscreen and—among younger couples—in public.

  China has also had a curious relationship with kissing. Twenty years ago, an article in the Beijing Workers’ Daily advised that the practice was unhealthy and should be discouraged. Generally speaking, compared to Europeans, the Chinese remain much more conservative about kissing. Yet they are growing more open, especially in coastal cities such as Shanghai and Guangzhou. As in Japan, kissing has become increasingly common among young people in China.

  Here in the United States, social kissing is not nearly as popular as it is in many parts of Europe. In addition, Americans didn’t begin eagerly tongue-kissing until after the First World War—or at least, social factors seemed to influence whether they did it. In Alfred Kinsey’s 1948 report Sexuality in the Human Male, for instance, kissing style was found to correlate with a person’s level of education. Seventy percent of well-educated men admitted to French kissing, while only 40 percent of those who dropped out of high school did. When Kinsey surveyed women five years later he found that those who had experienced premarital sex had a greater incidence of tongue-kissing than those who did not. The findings in his 1953 report also revealed that women placed greater emphasis on kissing than men (a trait we’ll return to in chapter 6).

  This quick journey barely scratches the surface of global kissing customs and practices, but it’s clear social norms vary greatly. Furthermore, bear in mind that we are dealing here in generalizations. Around the globe, we see large individual differences in everything from the way people style their hair to how they prepare dinner. Kissing is no exception, and one person’s preference might make another shudder and run, even within the same culture.

  Nevertheless, in the modern world kissing is extremely popular—perhaps more than at any other time in human history. We celebrate iconic kissing photographs, like the one between a sailor and a nurse captured by Alfred Eisenstaedt on V-J Day in Times Square that appeared in Life magazine. We admire artistic kisses, such as in Gustav Klimt’s painting of the same name. We can’t forget unexpected kisses, like that shared by Al and Tipper Gore during the 2000 Democratic National Convention. But that’s just the beginning. The MTV Video Music Awards memorably featured Michael Jackson kissing Lisa Marie Presley, and later Madonna kissing Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Later Sacha Baron Cohen brought us Borat, a character who manages to kiss nearly everyone he encounters—leaving quite an impression on both recipient and audiences.

  These moments made headli
nes around the world with images that will be discussed for decades—perhaps because they are reminders that celebrities, icons, and leaders are not all that different from us. We may vary in skin tone, language, and customs, but in regions around the world kissing has become perhaps the single most universal and humanizing practice that we share.

  WITH ALL OF THIS HISTORY, biology, and culture in place, we can now return to the nature-versus-nurture question and ask: What is kissing—genetic or cultural? Clearly, it’s more of a compromise than a conflict. Both sides win.

  We can always debate just how much a particular behavior with deep biological roots, like kissing, is influenced by our environment or our culture, and which holds greater sway. But in the end, the two must interact—with the result being what gets expressed and acted out. Genes alone are never adequate to account for human or animal behaviors; there are just so many other factors involved.

  When it comes to kissing in particular, it’s obvious that a slew of social variables shape our attitudes and preferences about what’s acceptable and what we like best. Concurrently, kissing or kissing-like behaviors are far too widespread for us to ignore their biological basis. A kiss is certainly much less instinctual than, say, blinking or swallowing, yet the behavior remains etched in our evolutionary history. The experiences we have as we grow affect its human expression and lend kissing a considerable range of variability and diversity—just as they do for so many other species on planet earth.

  Kissing Records

  The longest kiss on record took place in 2005 between James Belshaw and Sophia Severin at the Plaza Shopping Centre in London. It lasted for 31 hours, 30 minutes, and 30 seconds. The couple didn’t sit or sleep, and could only eat and drink through a straw. And as if sipping liquid meals isn’t dedication enough, the kiss had to continue through bathroom breaks for it to count.