![]() The historical and cultural pervasiveness of kissing in sexual relationships suggests that it might serve a useful function in the context of human mating. In fact, the first written and pictorial accounts of sexual-partner kissing have been found to date back to humanity’s earliest surviving records, in ancient Hindu Veda Sanskrit texts, and in the murals of ancient Egypt, where kissing was often represented by romantic partners pressing faces to lick or inhale the scent of the other ( Parkinson, 1999). In the few societies where mouth-to-mouth partner contact is unknown or frowned upon, sexual partners have often still been found to practice analogous “kissing” traditions of close face-to-face contact involving sniffing, licking or rubbing ( Fisher, 1992 Ford & Beach, 1951). Mouth-to-mouth romantic kissing is one such behavior, common in over 90 % of known cultures ( Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1972 Kirshenbaum, 2011). ![]() The prevalence of various human courtship and mating behaviors around the world is thought to signify their usefulness in the process of assessing potential mating partners, in mediating pair-bond attachments or in initiating sexual relations ( Eibl-Eibesfeldt, 1972 Fisher, 1982 Miller, 2001). The findings of this research showed very little evidence to support the hypothesis that the primary function of kissing is to elevate levels of arousal. Kissing also seemed to be utilized in the mediation of pair-bond attachments: kissing was seen to be more important at established stages of relationships by low sociosexual participants, kissing was generally seen as more important in long-term relationship contexts (but particularly so by women), and kissing frequency was found to be related to relationship satisfaction. Support was found for the hypothesis that kissing serves a useful mate-assessment function: women, high mate-value participants, and participants high in sociosexual orientation placed greater importance on kissing in romantic relationships and stated that an initial kiss was more likely to affect their attraction to a potential mate than did men, low-mate value participants or low sociosexual orientation participants. The study involved an international online questionnaire, which was completed by 308 male and 594 female participants aged 18–63 years. ![]() ![]() This study explored these potential functions of romantic kissing by examining attitudes towards the importance of kissing in the context of various human mating situations. Recent research suggests that romantic kissing may be utilized in human sexual relationships to evaluate aspects of a potential mate’s suitability, to mediate feelings of attachment between pair-bonded individuals, or to facilitate arousal and initiate sexual relations. ![]()
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January 2023
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