"A lot of the findings might seem self-evident but what's self-evident to
females is not always to males," Gordon Gallup, an evolutionary psychologist
who led the study at the State University of New York (SUNY), told AFP.
Lesser-known phenomena that the researchers hit on in the study, in which 1,041
US university students took part, included the fact that men like their kisses
wetter and with more tongue contact than women, and that women place more
importance than men on the state of their kissing partner's teeth.
Just over half the men said they would have sex with someone without kissing,
compared with 15 percent of the women who took part in the study, which was
carried out using "self-reports, not direct observation or experimental
manipulation."
The authors of the study explain the findings, and even the act of kissing, in
scientific terms that might put off die-hard romantics.
"We see kissing as an evolved courtship ritual. At the moment of a kiss there's
a complicated exchange of information -- everything from postural to tactile to
chemical cues," Gallup said.
"That information may tap into hard-wired subconscious evolved mechanisms that
allow people to unwittingly make reproductive choices that are in their
long-term interest."
The researchers found that a bad first kiss can kill a relationship, Gallup
said.
"A clear majority of male and female college students said they have been
attracted to someone only to find they were no longer interested after the
first kiss," Gallup said.
"What that tells us is that a kiss won't necessarily make a relationship, but
it can clearly kill a relationship," he said.
The study puts it this way: "Perhaps kissing in these instances may activate
evolved mechanisms that function to discourage reproduction among individuals
who could be genetically incompatible."
The fact that men show a greater preference for tongue contact when kissing
could have its basis not in eroticism -- although the study showed that men
found kissing more erotic than women -- but science.
"It is possible that kissing styles that maximize salivary exchange provide
subtle information about a females reproductive status since saliva and breath
odor change across the menstrual cycle," it said.
"In addition, male preference for salivary exchange could function to introduce
substances such as hormones or proteins into womens mouths that may influence
their mating psychology, and even make them more sexually receptive."
In other words, men's pronounced taste for French kissing comes down to them
wanting to bed their partner.
Unfortunately for them, the study also found that women are less likely to kiss
someone they think is only after sex, and that they "place a greater emphasis
on kissing to induce bonding."
Women were also "more likely to initiate kissing after sexual intercourse."
"This supports other findings in showing that males tend to engage in a hasty
post-copulatory departure and demonstrate an emotional shift after sexual
intercourse to reduce the likelihood of bonding and investment in short-term
mating partners," the authors of the study wrote.
Kissing between sexual or romantic partners occurs in over 90 percent of human
cultures, according to the study, which was published in the scientific journal
"Evolutionary Psychology."
