PHOTOGRAPH BY KEITH BEATY, PHOTO
MANIPULATION BY JO-ANN DODDS
No, there is no way to measure the passion
of your kiss with a volt meter. We just thought it
would look cool in a
photograph.
Science of a kiss Is tongue twirling learned or genetic
behaviour? Assessing what actually happens when lips meet
lips
RAJ
KAUSHIK SPECIAL TO THE STAR
A
kiss has a mystical ring of passion, power and sensationalism
around it.
No wonder a few months ago, a kiss jammed Internet
search engines with variations of, "Madonna, Britney,
Aguilera, threesome."
Science has a name for its study — philematology.
We have engaged in this mysterious act from the
earliest days of evolution. But we still don't know much about
kissing. Scientific research on kissing is so scant, it's as
if we just discovered it recently.
Why do we kiss?
Some anthropologists believe kissing evolved from
sniffing.
"Kissing evolved from the act of smelling someone's
face, inhaling them out of friendship or love in order to
gauge their mood or well being," Diane Ackerman analyzes in
her book The Natural History Of The Senses.
Some indigenous cultures do rub noses rather than
kissing. Vedas, from around 1500 B.C., describes the custom of
rubbing noses together — possibly the precursor for lip
kissing.
There are more than 250 references in the Kama Sutra
to different types of kisses, when to kiss, how to kiss.
Europeans have been kissing since at least Greek and Roman
times. So, most of us have had a lot of practice.
By now, kissing is a natural and universal act. Yet,
according to New Scientist, people on the island of
Mangia in the South Pacific knew nothing about kissing until
Europeans arrived in the 1700s and showed them how.
How it works
According to research published in Nature,
German psychologist Onur Güntürkün says kissing may be genetic
behaviour, because his team observed it right-biased. Just as
more people are right-handed, two out of three people turn
their head right while kissing.
Kissing may have genetic imprinting, but as some
communities were unaware of it till recently it is reasonable
to argue that kissing to a large part is a learned behaviour.
Now the interesting question arises: why we have learned this
behaviour.
The French kiss, involving the whole mouth and tongue,
is said to have its origins in the way mothers used to feed
their babies in prehistoric cultures. The mother chewed the
food for her baby before transferring it directly from mouth
to mouth.
The second reason for learning this behaviour is
ascribed to its feel-good factor. Kissing has all sorts of
physiological effects. It bumps our heart rate up to 100 beats
per minute, makes blood pressure rise, expands the size of our
pupils, and lights up the pleasure centres of our brain.
Kissing makes our lips swell and triggers pleasant
tingling sensations in our private parts. The blood rushing to
our skin's surface makes the face blushed.
The lips and tongue are packed with nerve endings,
which are incredibly sensitive to stimulation. The sensory
receptors dedicated to the lips occupy a large part of our
brain. A soft touch on lip nerves causes a surge of chemicals
in the brain similar to those triggered by adventures such as
parachuting. These chemicals, called neurotransmitters, attach
to pleasure receptors in the brain, resulting in euphoria,
giddiness and elation.
Tricks of the
trade
History will record that Monica Lewinsky rated Bill
Clinton as a good kisser.
Not everybody is good at kissing, particularly because
it is both an art as well as science.
According to a Harlequin's 2003 Romance Survey, 41 cent
of Canadians say tongue tangling is the worst part about a bad
kiss.
Other things that turn Canadians off are bad odour,
too-wet lips and biting. The survey also reveals 72 per cent
of Canadian men rank their partners as consummate kissers (8
or higher on a scale of 1-10), while only 62 per cent of
Canadian women feel that way about their partners.
A kiss can be healing. According to Helen Friedman, a
clinical psychologist in St. Louis, frequent kissing can lead
to holistic healing. And possibly weight loss: While engaged
in passionate kissing, we burn about 6.4 calories in one
minute.
Foul Kisses
A kiss can also begin an unimaginable nightmare.
"Herpes: It Starts With a Kiss," claims a brochure published
by the Do It Now Foundation. Two thousand years ago, Roman
emperor Tiberius banned kissing to stop the spread of a
disease that caused blistering lip sores. Researchers now
think the disease was a form of herpes.
On average, a kiss on the mouth can exchange 278
species of bacteria. A millilitre of saliva can contain as
many as 40 million bacterial cells belonging to various
species.
In a study of 379 people with allergies to peanuts and
other foods, Dr. Rosemary Hallett, a researcher at the
University of California, was surprised at how often allergens
are passed on in a kiss. Allergens trigger sneezing, wheezing,
swelling, itching and other allergy symptoms.
Scientists previously thought the transmission of
allergens during kissing was a one-in-a-million risk. Hallett,
however, found that transmission occurred in at least 5 per
cent of her patients.
Intimacy
Kissing symbolizes intimacy. Avoiding being kissed on
the lips, on the other hand, is the first clear sign of rough
waters in a relationship.
In 1992, after a polo game, Prince Charles tried to
kiss Princess Diana and she turned her head away. From this
incident, the media inferred — rightly, as it turns out — that
all was not well in that relationship.
According to Relate (the British Marriage Guidance
Bureau), couples whose marriages are in trouble are more
likely to have intercourse than to kiss.
Psychologist and relationship expert Donna Dawson says:
"There's a thrilling feeling created by a good kiss and the
kissing drought is very worrying."
Lovers can sometimes lose their heads and then cool
down after exchanging make-up kisses. But these kisses do not
always yield the desired result.
Last December, in Wichita, Kan., a young couple had an
argument. Afterward, the boyfriend tried to give his
girlfriend a make-up kiss. Instead of literally just turning
the other cheek, however, she bit off a large part of her
boyfriend's tongue.
In that case, as in all others, a kiss is not just a
kiss — it's a unique form of encrypted communication. To be a
good lover, one must learn to decode the language of lips in a
masterly fashion.
And the best way to accomplish this? Lots of practice.
Raj Kaushik is a former curator with the
National Council of Science Museums in India. ID@the star.ca.
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