Just be glad we didn’t evolve the same sensibilities as dogs. I’d find it inconvenient to bend down all the time and sniff people’s butts.

A long time ago, IAMS pet food had some commercials that had humans behaving as animals, including two businessmen (suits, briefcases, etc.) ‘sniffing’ each other, though they tended more toward ‘sniffing each other’s backs’.. and the woman stretched out on the back of the couch (yes, on TOP of the back of the couch) was also hilarious.

I also wonder about kissing as possibly deriving from breastfeeding as an infant….

J/P=?

Why would mashing your lips against someone else’s be of any use? Or brushing their cheek with your lips? And licking? Really?

Well you know, Phil, sex wouldn’t be what it is without the wetness. Without the fluids, and I mean ALL the fluids, it would be like sandpapers grating against each other.

My philosophy.

P.S., those two lads in the picture look like twins.

as a human, of course, I am an Olympic medalist

You’re an Olympic medalist? Er, which decade was that?

———

Now on to business. To tell the truth, when I saw the picture that came along with your article, I suspected that the subject may have something to do with Franklin Kameny. I read about Mr. Kameny the other day (here) and couldn’t help but wonder if you timed your article with the DC Pride Festival that honored him.

I was going to write the same thing. The context is: due to the fact that humans are born
as essentially embryos and spend a long time with their parents, the social bond between
parents and children is important. This bond later gets transferred to other adults during
love starting around puberty. Many aspects of the former are appropriated for the latter.
Kissing might arise from mouth-to-mouth feeding. What were the cavemothers to do with
no baby food, no spoons etc?

“the result was that instead of social delousing humans had to start to fondle each other in more ritualistic manner.”

This is actually the reason acne evolved, and why it occurs in puberty, just when one is
searching for a partner for the first time. Watch two apes de-lousing each other, then
watch two humans squeezing out each other’s pimples and blackheads. It is exactly the
same behaviour. If you think your best friend will be jealous when you have sex with his
wife, just wait for his reaction when he learns she has been squeezing out your blackheads!

So yes. By my hypothesis, the first people to kiss were bi cavemen.

PS: I’m tired. I ramble stupid things when I’m tired.

All in all, an interesting experiment.

You are a bad,BAAAADD man,,,but I love your sense of humor,,,

Gary 7
PS. I spent all of 90 seconds on this “test”. First impressions count with me,,,

That said, kisses are interesting habits. (Well, duh!)

Selection, especially strong in humans, have been centered on immune system and sexual characteristics according to genome studies. I suspect that both can have driven the general loss of body hair while keeping secondary sexual characteristics hair patches. In any case, the result was that instead of social delousing humans had to start to fondle each other in more ritualistic manner.

Especially as regards to continue to use the mouth – it can be diverting an older habit. Also, seeing that we seem to pair off according to complementary immune systems, and the suspected mechanism is by smelling, it’s a good habit to continue to put the nose close, as it were.

Damn, i lent this book to someone i kissed sometime and it never came back …

Actually, I took that into account when judging what type of kiss they were. The instructions do say “…you’ll see a 15 photos (labeled A-O) of couples kissing. We need you to help us categorize them into three groups”. That to me suggests what what you are rating is the photos as a whole, not just the kisses.

Besides, I don’t think it is humanly possible to simply rate the kisses, at least not unless everything BUT the kiss is blacked out. What’s more, what exactly would that involve? I think kissing involves a lot more than just the lips/mouth, correct interpretation of the meaning of a kiss depends even on more things that can be shown in a photo (as another commenter pointed out).

Thanks to all who have participated so far!

Heh.

Social creatures are successful because they work together, so there must be a biological reward system for this interaction with one another. How intriguing that our brains releases all sorts of pleasurable drugs when we interact with each other through touch!