Kissing is ultimately a really strange motion for something that is, at its core, a sign of affection. If you think about the fact that most other animal species don’t engage in this practice, you have to wonder how kissing ever became a thing. The impulse for mouth-to-mouth contact is one that comes naturally (contrary to what decades of magazine features full of makeout tips may have convinced you).
Although anthropologists disagree on the precise origins of kissing, there are two accepted ideas. One holds that the practice originated when early humans fed their young mouth-to-mouth. When you consider the notion of evolution, the transition from monkey to human can appear reasonable because, as the BBC notes, only chimpanzees and bonobos have been observed to kiss.
The alternative theory, according to Texas A&M anthropology professor Vaughn Bryant, is a little more complicated: mouth-to-mouth contact, which is first mentioned in the Vedas and then the Kama Sutra, is thought to have originated in ancient India as a way for humans to recognize one another. This practice may have accidentally evolved into kissing. When the Greeks invaded India, they adopted this custom, and it later spread.
A kiss on the hand
A kiss isn’t always a romantic act, of course; in some cultures, it can also be a symbol of deference. In the Middle Ages, equals would kiss on the lips while lower classes would kiss the upper classes’ hands or even the hem of their clothing. In an effort to stop the spread of the disease, King Henry VI of England outlawed kissing in 1439. In the years that followed, bowing, curtsying, and finally shaking hands were the customary greetings in Western civilization. The kiss-on-the-cheek greeting, which is particularly common in France, is thought to have originated with the Romans during the Gallic Wars and been transported to western Europe (in the first century AD).
The not-so-universality of kissing
As much as Drew Barrymore’s 1999 film and other examples of western popular culture may lead us to believe otherwise, romantic kissing isn’t actually a universal sensation throughout the world. Romantic kissing is only practiced by 46% of the world’s population, according to a 2015 survey by the American Anthropological Association. It is most prevalent in the Middle East and Asia and least prevalent in Central America and sub-Saharan Africa. However, this does not imply that people in these cultures do not express their love. For instance, the indigenous Nahua people of Mexico and Central America embrace one another yet view kissing as a kind of religion.
The French kiss
Although it seems unlikely that the French developed the practice of tongue kissing, the nation is nevertheless responsible for the term’s widespread use. According to Sheril Kirshenbaum, author of The Science of Kissing, the expression came into use in the 1920s when American visitors had their first full-on makeout sessions courtesy of French women. The real approach didn’t become widely used in the United States until after World War II. The phrase “kissing for who knows how long” was coined by the French even later: the word for open-mouth kissing, galocher, was added to French dictionaries in 2014. Where kissing culture goes from here will only become clear with time.
