I ran across this article just now: I've capitalized the lines that I wanted to highlight for possible discussion in this tribe.

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Pucker up: What's in a kiss?
Researchers say it's the drive to keep the species alive
Cathleen F. Crowley, Albany Times Union, N.Y.

Oct. 1--Divas like Aretha Franklin and Cher advise "It's in his kiss."

Now, thanks to research from the University at Albany, there's scientific evidence to support their claim.

A kiss transmits a sumptuous supply of data ranging from health, fertility and commitment level to sexual receptivity, according to UAlbany researchers.

Evolutionary psychologist George Gallup and two former graduate students surveyed more than 1,000 UAlbany undergraduates about their kissing motives and practices in heterosexual relationships. The results of their study were recently published in Evolutionary Psychology, an online, peer-reviewed journal.

The kiss, they found, profoundly influences a relationship, particularly for women. For both sexes, a bad "first kiss" can end the romance in an instant.

Men kiss as a means to an end, to gain sexual favors and to make up after a fight, the study showed. Women kiss to assess a potential partner, establish and monitor the status of their relationship and evaluate the level of commitment of the man.

"In a sense, kissing is a microcosm of a larger instance of competing reproductive strategies among males and females," Gallup said. "It fits a lot of evidence about the differences in male and female strategies."

As an evolutionary psychologist, Gallup believes the drive to reproduce and pass one's genes to subsequent generations dominates human behavior. Aiding in this effort to reproduce are "adaptive" traits, both learned and innate, that evolved to increase the chances of success.

"Kissing appears to be part of an evolved courtship strategy among humans," he said.

Breeding process

While almost all of the surveyed students said that kissing is important for emotional bonding, MORE THAN HALF THE MEN SAID THEY WOULD HAVE SEX WITH A WOMAN WITHOUT EVER KISSING HER. ABOUT 14 PERCENT OF THE WOMEN SAID THEY'D ENGAGE IN SEX WITHOUT A KISS. [caps added for emphasis]

Gallup traces this heightened selectivity among women to their disproportionate investment in the breeding process.

"Males and females have an equal stake in the production of offspring, but females bear the lion's share of the costs," he said.

Women endure pregnancy, childbirth and breast-feeding, and often act as the primary caregiver, Gallup said.

"Reproduction for females involves the investment of an inordinate amount of time, resources and psychological commitment that extends a period of, in some instances, decades," he said. "The male's role in reproduction is simply to serve as a complementary source of gametes."

A well-chosen male partner, however, is so much more: a source of support, protection and stability.

"You would expect females to have become careful comparison shoppers when it comes to the question of mate selection," Gallup said.

When deciding whether to kiss someone, the female students rated breath, taste and the appearance of healthy teeth as important while the men placed more significance on facial attractiveness, body appearance and weight of a potential partner, features that signal fertility, Gallup said.

Taste and breath carry signs of underlying health problems, possibly warning women of a problem in a potential mate. Women's already-superior sense of smell and taste become even more acute during ovulation, the study noted.

Unconscious mechanisms

More than half of both men and women surveyed said they have been attracted to someone only to discover that, after kissing for the first time, they were no longer interested.

"It suggests that there may be unconscious mechanisms that have evolved to identify instances of genetic incompatibility," Gallup said.

Women were less likely to agree to sex with a bad kisser than men, who were more willing to have sex not only with bad kissers, but also with women they weren't attracted to, the study found. The results support the theory that men are opportunistic breeders, striving to spread their DNA and increase the likelihood of passing their genes to the next generation.

So where's the romance?

"Students that take my undergraduate course in evolutionary psychology frequently complain that it leaves out any discussion of romance," Gallup laughed. "My response is that romance is simply the evolutionary glue that serves to promote and maintain the relationship for the best interest of the participants."

And love?

"An example of an evolved mechanism that serves to solidify a pair bond," he said.

Interpersonal learning

Call him a romantic, but James Pfaus, behavioral neurobiologist at Canada's Concordia University, can't divorce social and interpersonal learning from the equation.

"If we created a world that was doing what evolutionary psychologists say we should be doing, then we should have created harems," Pfaus said.

Pfaus, a trained psychologist and researcher at the university's Center for Studies in Behavioral Neurobiology, studies human sexuality and is developing a female version of Viagra.

"It's hard to know if the gender differences (in the UAlbany study) are innate to the gender, or whether it is something that has been completely socially learned by boys and girls," he said.

For instance, the difference between men's and women's willingness to have sex with a bad kisser has a socially learned explanation.

"Why would a women not sleep with a good kisser? Well, because she's not a slut," he said. "Whereas a guy who sleeps with someone who is a good kisser or not, there's another word that starts with an 's' that defines him: stud."

Pfaus doesn't completely dismiss physiology.

He has studied the sexual behavior of rats and found that female rats prefer copulating with male rats that turn them on.

Human females need significantly more stimulation to become sexually aroused than males, and kissing is one of those turn-ons. If a woman deems a man to be a good kisser, that suggests he is attuned to her sexual needs, making her more likely to agree to sex with him, Pfaus said.

The results of the UAlbany study raised some interesting issues, but Pfaus said he feels sorry for his fellow males.

"It's sad because it means men are missing out on getting into kissing," he said. "And kissing is delicious."

Cathleen F. Crowley can be reached at 454-5348, or by e-mail at ccrowley@timesunion.com.

[the following is presumably a sidebar]

Kiss and tell

Results from the University at Albany study on kissing:

52.8 percent of men and 14.6 percent of women said they would have sex without kissing someone first.

70.1 percent of men and 58 percent of women thought kissing could end a fight.

69 percent of men and 67 percent of women felt that just because someone was a good kisser would not be a reason to start a relationship.

55.6 percent of men and 26.8 percent of women preferred open mouth kissing during courtship.

65 percent of men and women preferred open mouth kissing in a long-term relationship.

59 percent of men and 66 percent of women said they have been attracted to someone only to find that after the first kiss, they weren't interested any more.

60 percent of the surveyed students said they were in a committed relationship.

Only five students out of the 1,041 surveyed had never been kissed, while 70 percent had kissed between six and 20 people.

Kissing facts

The science of kissing is called philematology.

A one-minute kiss burns 26 calories.

16 muscles converge at the lip area, but a passionate kiss activates all 34 facial muscles.

Researcher theorize that human kissing started as a way for mothers to feed their infants, by chewing food and transferring it to their babies' mouths.

Freud believed kissing was the subconscious return to infancy and suckling a mother's breast.

90 percent of the world practices kissing, but some cultures do not, including the Papuans of New Guinea and the San of southwest Africa.

The Kama Sutra describes 20 different types of kissing, including the Throbbing Kiss, in which the lower lip trembles.

Bonobo apes engage in deep tongue kissing, and chimpanzees frequently kiss to make up after a fight. Snails rub their antennae together and great blue herons clap their bills.

A 2006 British study found that people who lean left while kissing tend to be emotionally less available than those who lean to the right.

A 2007 British study that compared brain scans of men and women while eating chocolate and kissing, found that chocolate was twice as stimulating as kissing for women.

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