Kissing Facts

• The science of kissing is called philematology.

• Lips are 100 times more sensitive than the tips of the fingers. Not even genitals have as much sensitivity as lips.

• Approximately two-thirds of people tip their head to the right when they kiss.

• The term “French kiss” came into the English language around 1923 as a slur on the French culture which was thought to be overly concerned with sex. French kissing involves all 34 muscles in the face.

• Mechanically speaking, kissing is almost identical to suckling. Some scholars speculate that the way a person kisses may reflect whether he or she was breastfed or bottle fed.

• Kissing may have originated when mothers orally passed chewed solid food to their infants. Another theory suggests kissing evolved from prospective mates sniffing each other’s pheromones for biological compatibility.

• The first on-screen kiss was shot in 1896 by the Edison Company.

• Kissing played an important role in ancient Greco-Roman culture and was seen as a sign of respect, thanks, reunion, and agreement, as well as a rite of inclusion.

• The mouth is full of bacteria. When two people kiss, they exchange between 10 million and 1 billion bacteria.

• “X”s at the end of a correspondence letter represent the contact of the lips during a kiss.